Extrinsic motivation refers to behaviour that is driven by external rewards. These rewards can be tangible, such as stickers or intangible, such as praise. There’s also an ability to self motivate which is called intrinsic motivation, but most children prefer tangible extrinsic motivation such as stickers.
Idea
We ❤️ Stickers…
It’s true that most children love stickers. They can become obsessed with everything that involves earning stickers. The idea was to elevate the simple reward sticker by customising it with the school’s name.
We ❤️ Postcards
Imagine getting a call from a teacher asking “Do you do postcards?” within 18 months we were printing 7m a year.
Marketing
Before the internet was direct mail
The ingenious marketing idea was to mail Heads of Departments in schools. These campaigns gave such a high ROI that the business literally grew 10 fold in a year.
Offline to Online
Collect Awards to Win Prizes
Like any reward system, stickers are a currency that is limited: they lose their value and ability to motivate children over time. If they are used in exchange for bigger a reward, it keeps the motivation going for longer.
Impact
2 billion products printed and sold
With no printing experience, graphic design experience, business experience Dan setup a school sticker printing business. 5 years later and the business is turning over £1.9m with net profits of £500k and an enticing offer from Venture Capitalists to buy the business. Fast forward 20 years and School Stickers is still going strong today and using a lot of Dan’s original designs which have now been printed and sold over 2 billion times.
