If you wish to raise additional revenue for your yearbook, you may wish to consider offering advertisement space to businesses and recognition space to clubs and families. It is amazing the amount of revenue you can raise from one page in your yearbook. Many schools offer space to families, club sponsors, businesses, homeroom teachers, students, etc.
Developing an advertising program for your yearbook can be easy if you have a plan. The one key to remember about developing an advertisement program is that you must sell your yearbook page for at least two or three times your cost for the page. I know this may sound basic, but many staffs fail to follow this advice.
The first step in developing an advertising program is to identify your audience. You have seven distinct buyers: Local businesses, school vendors, families, students, club sponsors, teachers, and coaches. How you pursue each audience may be different. Here are some ideas to consider:
Local Businesses: These businesses are local businesses near the school or in the district. These businesses usually include insurance companies, banks or financial institutions, restaurants, real estate agents, mechanic shops, car dealers, and fast food establishments.
School Vendors: These businesses are on the school vendor list and do some sort of business with the school/district. Your purchasing office should have a list of contacts and their addresses.
Families: These buyers want to recognize their children for their accomplishments throughout their school years. Many photos will probably accompany their ad, as well as words of praise.
Students: These buyers want to recognize their friendships on campus. Many photos will probably accompany their ad, as well as words of celebration.
Club Sponsors: These buyers want to recognize their club officers or overall organization. Some photos will probably accompany the ad, as well as words of appreciation.
Teachers: These buyers want to recognize a fellow colleague’s retirement or accomplishments. Some photos will probably accompany the, ad as well as words of congratulations.
Coaches: These buyers want to recognize their teams or team captains for their accomplishments. Some photos will probably accompany the ad, as well as words of encouragement.
As you can see, you have quite a few audiences of buyers. As you develop a plan of communication, make sure to clearly state your offer to each buyer, and include a rate card for the cost of an advertisement and a yearbook. Consider developing a rate card/brochure for all prices, as well as three to five basic layout designs for all ads. This will help your buyers make a better decision. Also consider offering discount coupons with expiration dates to all buyers during your sales campaign. This may be the driving force to help some people purchase ad space. Remember, everyone loves a sale.
Survival Tip:
When you develop an ad program, you need to create a sales kit for all your staffers. This sales kit should include the following:
• Cover Letter
• Rate Card
• Deadline Chart
• Business Cards
• Yearbook Specs
• Last Year’s Book
• Sample Ads of All Types
• Sketch Pad
• Ad Guidelines
• Digital Guidelines
• Sales Brochure
• Agreement Form
Keep all these materials in a folder or soft-sided briefcase for use by staffers and have it refilled daily after use.
YearbookLife offers some yearbook marketing tools that can help you with your yearbook sales. Contact us for more information.
When developing a sales campaign, we recommend a goal of launching up to 3 sales campaigns for the year. Each campaign should have a pre planning stage, a sales time frame, and a closing stage. Please plan out your sales accordingly and have all the material needed. Here is a game plan most schools use.
3 WEEKS BEFORE yearbook sale date(s) — create and organize the announcements, posters and other materials needed to promote yearbook sales. Make sure you take advantage of any promotional materials provided by your yearbook publisher.
2 WEEKS BEFORE yearbook sale date(s) — hang up posters and begin “Creating
Excitement and Awareness” about the yearbook.
1 WEEK BEFORE yearbook sale date(s) — continue promoting yearbook sales
happening the next week. Send letters home and post info on school marquee. Have
announcements begin!
SALES WEEK — Have fun executing the sales activities you had planned and
taking orders!
1 WEEK AFTER SALES— all funds have been collected
and accounted for. Enter buyers’ names and payment amounts into
a tracking system or spreadsheet software so you know who
has purchased the book, and can use that list later on when
distributing books when they a bookkeeper or bank if you
have not done so already, to ensure that the yearbook funds
are secured.
CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING TIPS:
• Gradually increase the cost of the yearbook for each sale campaign.
• Create special packages for buyers that can include options such as name stamping or an ad space along with the price of a yearbook.
• Consider adding options to all your offering—this can increase sales!
• Develop a system to track and report sales, as well as balances due by buyers.
• Consider offering a payment plan for students who cannot afford to pay for a yearbook at
one time. Make sure you stress a nonrefundable deposit.
• Consider offering families with multiple children at your school a discount for a second or third yearbook.
• Tie in gift certificates/gift cards during the holidays.
• Consider using sales letters in both English and Spanish.
• Make sure to offer Parent or Senior Ads during some of the sale campaigns.
• Use your school website as a sales tool by posting prices and deadlines for sales.
Survival Tip:
Consider developing a sales brochure and order form you can leave in the front office for campus visitors to review. Many times parents come on campus to visit the nurse’s office, the attendance office, or the front office. These three places are great locations for brochures so parents can learn about your yearbook sales campaign.
You may want to contact the feeder middle schools and elementary schools
to see if you can leave brochures on their campuses as well. Many times
classmates may have a younger sibling attending one of these schools. The
more exposure to parents, the better.
The marketing and selling of yearbooks is overlooked by many staffs, yet it is as important as the creation of the book itself, if not more important. If you hit your sales goal, you can pay for your yearbook. If you miss your sales goal, you will owe money or have to cut part of your program.
If you surpass your sales goal, you can use the additional revenue to add more pages to your yearbook or offer a summer supplement. Whatever the case, marketing and selling the yearbook is critical. Here are a few tips to consider as you begin to market the sale of your yearbook.
• Review last year’s sales processes and determine what worked and what did not work. If you are new to your school, ask the school secretary and the teachers how well the marketing and sales process worked. Great questions to ask could be: What did you like the most about the process? What one thing would you improve about the process?
• Review all materials available from your publisher pertaining to marketing and selling your yearbook. Do you have everything you need? Receipt books, posters, flyers, sales letters, sales coupons, etc? What do you need in order to be prepared for your campaign?
• If your school has a tradition of keeping the yearbook a secret, consider changing that tradition. Sales of yearbooks across the country are dropping while enrollments are increasing. Your biggest competitor is the snack bar, cell phone, gas station, clothing store, and any other place that students spend disposable income. The yearbook is one of the only items where you ask someone to pay in advance and you promise to deliver a product later. You are dealing with a society that expects immediate gratification—taking peeks into the yearbook and sharing cover ideas may be the one thing that can drive your student body to buy a book.
• Enlist the aid of key influential people on campus to help promote the yearbook. Have teachers bring their yearbook the week of sales so they can share their stories. Have coaches and sponsors promote the yearbook to their teams as ultimate sign of school spirit. Have local businesses display yearbooks to promote community awareness.
• Have yearbook photos from previous years scanned and posted on flyers asking the student body to “guess” whose elementary or faculty image is pictured. All correct answers will earn a $5.00 coupon toward the yearbook.
• At freshman orientation, have student body leaders discuss the yearbook and describe its
importance to incoming students.
• Post announcements and images on the school website announcing yearbook sales to the
general public.
• If your school subscribes to a calling service for announcements to parents or a web page
service for student grades, consider using it to announce yearbook sales.
The goal is to get everyone excited about the yearbook to a point that they are willing to purchase immediately. Brainstorm with your staff to see what other ideas you can generate.
Survival Tip:
Your yearbook has already developed a reputation before your arrival on the scene. What that reputation is may be hard to discover unless you survey your audience.
Consider developing polls and buyer surveys through English classes at all grade levels. Have these surveys ask questions pertaining to value vs. cost. Also consider asking for ways the yearbook can be improved. You will be surprised how many people may
appreciate your effort.
More marketing ideas to come next week.
Developing and managing a budget will help you stay on the right track. The key to managing any budget is to always track and measure your progress compared to your goals. If you are on track, then stay the course. If you are off track, then make any course corrections to save money to get back on track. We recommend you develop three yearbook budget plans: Most Likely Case Scenario, Best Case Scenario, and Worst Case Scenario. Each scenario is designed to help you address a “what if…” situation. Here is a breakdown of each scenario:
MOST LIKELY CASE SCENARIO: As discussed earlier, you probably have a set of specifications that provided you a firm quote based upon your requests as well as 100% on-time performance by your staff. Keep this as your “most likely case” scenario since you may have budgeted for this program already. Expectations are in place for a set number of copies as well as set number of pages and a specific cover design. If all works well on book sales, ad sales, and staff performance, you should be fine with this scenario.
BEST CASE SCENARIO: Some people might call this the “dream” book. Take a look at your current program and ask yourself, ”If I had an extra 10% in my budget or if money was not an issue—what would I do to the yearbook program in the sense of pages, cover, endsheets, options, workshops, etc?” This type of thinking can lead you to develop alternative goals that rely on improved performance on yearbook sales, finances, ad sales, and more. Expectations rely on exceeding your budget expectations. The key to having this scenario in place is to have milestones or deadlines in place that can track to implementing such a program.
WORST CASE SCENARIO: Some people might call this the “dread” book. Take a look at your current program and ask yourself, ”If I had to cut 10% from your yearbook program in the sense of pages, cover, endsheets, options, workshops, etc., where would I cut it?” This type of thinking can lead you to develop backup plans that rely on poor or low performance on yearbook sales, finances, ad sales, and more. Expectations rely on not meeting your budget expectations. The key to having this scenario in place is to have milestones or deadlines in place that can track to implementing such a program.
We hope you can plan for the best case scenario, but should course corrections have to occur, consider the following actions to positively impact your yearbook budget and develop a positive cash flow process.
• Consider developing a barter system with local companies you spend money at in exchange for advertisement space.
• Consider combining some pages to reduce the size of your yearbook—this will lower the cost of your book. If you have originally planned for a foiled, embossed cover (if you haven’t already submitted the cover), consider a full-color cover to further reduce book cost.
• Have a special combo sale of an ad space and a yearbook to both parents and businesses for a set fee that shows some sort of savings.
We never plan to fail, but many of us fail to plan. You need to make sure to tackle each internal milestone head-on. Address page submission, school portraits, and school holidays. Here are a few questions to consider as you plan for your deadlines.
OVERALL QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER (MONTHLY • QUARTERLY)
• How many pages can you complete by the end of the month? (Look at the ladder.)
• Will school testing and holidays impact your schedule?
• Have you provided yourself time to edit and review your yearbook pages before submission to the plant?
• Have you provided time for your staff to revise any changes you are requesting on their yearbook pages?
• Have you and your staff reviewed the submission process?
• Have you allowed yourself computer time to prepare your pages for submission to the publisher?
• Do you have all necessary supplies/materials for submission?
• Have you communicated any special questions ahead of time to the publishing company, and are you awaiting an answer?
• Are you receiving proofs on your pages? If so, how long do you have to review them before your scheduled shipping date is affected?
• Have you completed your cover design? If you use foil and/or embossing you will need extra time for dies to be made, etc. Coordinate your yearbook cover submission schedule with your yearbook representative.
• Have you processed the film/photos needed for the deadlines?
• Have you completed your school picture day and retakes? If so, when are you going to receive your photo CD from your photographer?
• Do you have your club and team photo shoot scheduled? If so, will the photographer provide you images for the yearbook? When?
We know these questions can be overwhelming and stressful, but just a little planning can help you successfully address each internal milestone you have. Here are a few tips to consider:
• Review your ladder and secure/lock down your coverage for the school year.
• List a month next to every page of the ladder to indicate what month the event listed will be covered and completed.
• Set up mini-deadlines to allow you time to review pages and rough drafts.
• Develop a checklist for each month that shows what pages are due, and track the overall
progress of the pages.
• Enlist the aid of parents to assist you on a work schedule where they can bring snacks/pizza/ refreshments every day after school the week of a deadline.
• Have a celebration every month you make your milestones. Let the staff see the importance of submitting pages ontime.
