Stamp Rallies- How much return on investment?

At this past Anthrocon, me and a few other artists hosted a stamp rally! I wanted to write down my experience, and what you might want to think about when hosting your own, and what you could expect!

Quick rundown for anyone not entirely sure what a stamp rally is in the context of a convention, it's a little marketing gimmick with a collaboration of artists selling at the convention. Artists participating can range from 3 to idk, a million. Though you'll find the more artists that you add to your stamp rally, the more difficult it is to manage. 😳 (I wouldn't suggest having more than 6 honestly)

Participating artists contribute or collaborate on merch items as prizes, that may or may not be exclusive to that stamp rally. You get some stamp cards made where each artist can stamp their little stamp to mark that they've fulfilled the rally requirements, which usually are by spending a minimum amount of money at the table, or following the artist on social media, something like that. Once the customer has collected all their lil stamps, you give em their prize! 

 

My lovely friend KayCat put together this stamp rally, with buddies Alekivz, GracerBasilisk, and PeriPendrake (and also lil ole me). Each of us contributed a merch item as a prize, and the requirements for the prize pack were to spend a minimum of $5 at each table. 

Okay, down to the nitty-gritty! 

 

How many prize packs? How many stamp cards?

For this stamp rally at Anthrocon, we got 25 of each piece of merch made, for 25 prize packs! Nearly every single one got picked up by a customer who completed the stamp rally, 21 out of 25. IMO, better to have a few extra than anyone who tried to finish the stamp rally but didn't get a prize 😭 There were over 20,000 attendees at Anthrocon this year!

I got 100 stamp cards made, 20 for each artist to hand out. I didn't count how many I gave out- I didn't even outright tell people about the stamp rally, I just put up our little flyer about it and an example prize pack packaging we had, and people would either ask about it and I'd give em a card, or they wouldn't! I had a fair number of cards left over in the end.

For a past stamp rally, I made way too many prize packs (50), and too few stamp cards (100). I shilled those stamp cards like crazy and I ran out so fast. Like, if you're telling everyone about the stamp rally, they'll grab a card but odds are WAY less that they'll actually follow through with it. When you have to pay money for your stamp cards and you don't have an infinite amount, its okay to not give one to EVERYONE. 

 

How much did we invest in the stamp rally?

All participants of our stamp rally decided to split our costs evenly, by getting our own merch made and then at the end, divvying it up to see how much each person owed everyone else to make sure everyone paid an even amount. We got 25 of each item for a total of 25 prize packs.

Iron-on patches: $35
Keychain (+ epoxy & glitter): $122.75 (these were a bit more expensive than they'd be usually, we ordered only the keychains for these and we needed them kinda quick lol)
Mini pins: $43.50
Stickers: $41.59
Riso prints: ? unknown amount, Grace said it was a pretty minimal cost since it was like a studio fee that they got other stuff made during, idk
Stamp cards: $55.44 (used a local place to print these- you can potentially get them cheaper online)

Total for all those, $298.28. Divided equally for our 5 artists, $59.66 a person.

Few extra costs, costs of the stamps. I didn't count those, because we made them pretty generic with the potential to be re-used for other purposes. Stamps were about $20 apiece for each 1inch square/circle self-inking stamp at rubberstamps dot com. A cheaper option could be a non-inking stamp and ink pad, however, if you've got a busy table, you are totally gonna get ink in places it shouldn't be, lol.
Another additional cost, the cost of the little prize boxes that KayCat made, these were made out of some supplies Kay already had, so didn't have a cost for. 

 

Anyway. With 21 prize packs collected, we can assume that each artist received the minimum amount of $105 in relation to the stamp rally. Very often people did spend more than that, but I didn't keep track, and I don't know how the others fared. Only taking into account the cost of the merch and stamp cards, this means each artist made a minimum profit of $45.34, but likely more! And of course, with any leftover merch, it can simply be sold at your table regular-style.

With this result, I'd say the stamp rally is definitely worth doing. There's the additional non-monetary profits, such as ✨FRIENDSHIP✨ and the general fun of having a little gimmick situation. Of course, you also get to collaborate with your friends, kind of make sure everyone gets a cut of some money. Favorable customer experience, resulting in them potentially remembering you + buying from you in the future as well! It is a good and fun marketing thing to do as long as you plan ahead!

Other advice??

Miscellaneous stuff, and other things to keep in mind.

• Get your stamp cards printed on uncoated paper if using ink/stamps. Matte may work (not matte laminated) but uncoated paper will dry the fastest when you put ink on it. The matte paper I got took just a little bit for the ink to dry, but if you get some other glossy coating I don't think it'll turn out very well haha.
• Theme your stamp rally. A theme provides a good guide for what prizes to create, which customers are more likely to want to go for if they're interested in it, over a collection of random unthemed items.
• Alternate stamp "games." You aren't limited to the simple everyone-stamps-one-spot for your stamp rally card, people have made all sorts of additional gimmicks, such as "bingo" stamp cards, where it's not necessary to get EVERY stamp, in the case of a ton of participants. More favorable for the customer, less favorable for the artists, since it's always possible someone participating might not get as much traffic/sales as other artists participating. Feel free to think of other new fun ways to engage the customer, but also remember that the more complicated it is the less likely a customer is going to want to do it, or they may get confused, haha. I like to keep it simple. 
• Minimum spend amount? Something to consider when making merch for a prize- how much are you going to require the customer to spend at each table, and will the merch be "worth it"? For example, if you're only making a prize pack of stickers, if a customer has to spend $10 at each table, they're probably unlikely to think that it's worth it to participate. Similarly, if you're putting in merch that has cost a good amount to make, like a bunch of pins, asking more than just a few bucks per table is totally fine!
• Prize types. It's typically a good idea to mix up the types of merch item in your prize pack, like for our rally we had a riso print, big sticker, acrylic keychain, mini enamel pin and iron-on patch. Of course you can always do only stickers, or only keychains, or whatever you want, but be sure to make the minimum spend price reflect the prizes fairly.

 

Okay thats all I can think of for now. 🫡 Go forth and rally, friends!