Not quite… but yearbook ads are the best way to make a profit!
Let’s face it, the goal of selling yearbooks isn’t to price gouge your students and parent. You want to be able to sell your yearbooks at the lowest cost possible to make it accessible to as many students as possible.
But, realistically, you know it’s an opportunity to bolster up your budget. So how can you make the yearbook make money for your school? The answer is simple – AD SALES!
Sell personal ads to the students, families, teachers, and coaches in your school and sell business ads to businesses in your community and school vendors (those after care providers want to keep advertising in your school to get more students!) For many businesses, the cost of the ad may also be a tax deduction.
But how much should you sell those ads for?
The answer depends on two factors: How much have you sold them for in the past and the cost of the paper the ads are printed on.
If your school has sold yearbook ads in the past, then you have a pretty good idea as to what the economic environment is like in your school, what your community can support, and what it’s used to. Don’t dramatically increase the cost of your ad sales from last year; you don’t want to price people out.
But you also want to make sure that your ad sales will pay for the cost of the paper they’re printed on. The best way to determine ad prices is to divide the total contracted amount of your yearbooks by the number of pages in your book. That will give you your cost per page.
For example, if your contracted amount is $1,700.00 for a 58 page book, then your price per page is $29.31. Of course, that does not represent the full cost of your book (it may not account for personalization, for example), but it does represent a starting point upon which you can base your sales.
Now, take that number and multiply it by two or three to get an idea of what a full page ad might sell for in your book. So, that $29.31 price per page becomes a $90 full page ad. Now think about your school’s community. Can you sell a full page ad for $100? How about $200? Can you sell ads to the businesses in your community for more than you sell them to the parents?
If you are selling a full page ad for $100, breakdown the costs of the other ads: ½ page for $50, ¼ page for $25. How about $15 for business card? Think about what you reasonably think your school community would be willing to pay for an ad. And remember, if you’re adding additional pages to the book to make room for all these ads, the final page count must be divisible by 4 for production purposes.
Use these ad sales as the profit-maker aspect for your book. This will help you keep the yearbook price down so more of your students can enjoy the effort you put into creating this keepsake.