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 twice 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 yearbook ad 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 as well. 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.
Student portraits play a huge role in your yearbook. In most circumstances, portraits make up 25%to 30% of the yearbook. Planning for the school photo day is critical because you will want to be sure to include every student and have each portrait be the best possible.
Here are a few suggestions for planning a photo day that will include every student, teacher, and adult on campus:
Meet with your school administrator to discuss your portrait photography needs. Many times the administration is involved in school photographer selection process. Make sure the administration knows about your need for a properly formatted student portrait CD. Ask the administration how they would like to be kept informed of all portrait shoot dates and services provided by the photographer.
Receive confirmation of your responsibilities – are you the person who schedules the date or is the administration in charge of the calendar? Are you responsible for administration of the portrait program?
Issues you will want to discuss include:
Portrait shoot and retake dates Services provided/Portrait CD
Photo packages and prices Selection of a photographer
Scheduling procedures
Meet with the photographer as soon as possible to review their offerings and packages to the student body and faculty. Discuss the same issues you discussed with your administration. If the photographer is selected by a bid process, secure all documentation from your purchasing office pertaining to bid specifications, pricing, and services.
Once you have agreed to the logistics of the portrait services and photo shoot date and secured approvals of dates with administration, you need to develop a plan for heavily promoting the portrait shoot date to everyone on campus. The best timeline for promotion of portrait day is:
One month before Shoot: Get placed on the school calendar so EVERYONE knows the portrait day is coming. Get the school website to post a notice on the school web page. If report cards or progress reports are going home, send a message home with them. Get the message out to everyone.
Two Weeks before Shoot: Put up posters to promote the shoot date. Your photographer may have posters available for you to use. Post them all over the campus and be sure to put a message on your school marquee.
One Week before Shoot: Send a message or flyer home to parents notifying them that school portrait/yearbook photo day is arriving next week. Let them preview package listing and prices as well. Let them know what their child will need in the sense of money. Start announcements on the school intercom system. If the school has a website, put an announcement on the website.
Day Before Shoot: Get messages out on colored flyers in teacher boxes, lockers, car windshields and more. Make more school intercom announcements. Have staff talk to people in the lunchroom. The key is promotion for a good turnout.
Day of Shoot: Try to have your yearbook staff assist in the shoot process by assisting the photographer, as well as, trying to sell yearbooks during the day of the photo shoot. Start selling yearbooks as soon as you start photos, so students can reserve a copy early.
Creating the student portrait section of your yearbook can be very easy IF you request a properly formatted CD using the PSPA (Professional School Photographer’s Association) guidelines. (The guidelines are available over the internet at http://www.pmai.org/pspa.) The portrait CD will save you time because it will eliminate your labeling hundreds of photos and typing hundreds of names. (If you are using the EZBook program you must have this CD.)
Communication is the key to receiving the correct portraits.To assure best results do the following:
Schedule your school’s photo and retake days as early as possible.
Work with your photographer to determine how you will provide the student data file. The student data file is usually available through the registrar’s computer at the school office.
The data you will need is: First Name, Last Name, Grade, and Homeroom. This data is usually exported by the registrar as an ASCII file or CSV file (comma-delimited or tab-delimited file). If no such format is available, you can export the data to Microsoft Excel and then prepare the four columns as listed above. Save them as SAVE AS, a comma delimited file. Your photographer can help you with this.
For clarification, be sure to ask if there is a fee for the photo CD. Tell the photographer what kind of image will be needed for your yearbook (color or black and white) which is determined by whether your yearbook will be printed in full color or in black and white. It is RECOMMENDED that your portrait CD be furnished AFTER retake day. You want all portraits on one CD.
If your yearbook representative is from the same studio that is doing the photography work for your school, the studio will arrange for the portrait CD to be processed and sent to you. If your photographer is not the same as your yearbook provider, request that you receive the portrait CD as quickly as possible.
What is a copyright?
Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States and other countries to authors of “original works of authorship,” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other creative works.This protection allows the creator exclusive rights to these works, and to determine who has the “right to copy” these works.
How can I find out who owns a copyright?
Some investigative work will be required. If the copyright owner is not listed outright on the work you wish to copy, you may need to directly contact the publisher of the work where you viewed the image to see if they know who the copyright owner would be. For web pages, you may need to contact the webmaster of the site or the company that produced it. For books it is recommended to contact the publisher.YearbookLife cannot provide copyright advice for you. It is your responsibility to do the necessary due diligence and provide us with this information.
In most cases it is easy to obtain permission from companies for logos and images by simply contacting them. Most professional clip art packages allow reproduction rights for the files you purchase. Other sources such as Getty Images (www.gettyimages.com), Landov (www.landov.com) or other image providers have special rates for schools purchasing photos for reproduction in yearbooks. You may also search for “Public Domain” images, which have limited or no rights restrictions.
You should begin the search immediately if you know you have possible copyrighted images. Any delay after submission of your yearbook to obtain permission will delay the delivery of your books!
What do I need to provide to be able to use a copyrighted work?
YearbookLife may require a satisfactory letter of verification from the copyright owner which grants you permission to use their work in your yearbook. In the case of purchased clip art or images, simply include a copy of your License Agreement, which should specify your rights to reproduce the images in your yearbook.Your yearbook may be placed “on hold” until all copyright issues have been cleared.
Can I quote poems or music lyrics?
Poems and lyrics may also be protected by copyright.It is advisable to get the rights from the author or publisher before using them.
Wide selections of professionally designed yearbook covers (called stock covers) are available to any school who wishes to use them and personalize the front with their school’s name. With a stock cover, all you need to do is indicate your choice of design and the school name to be printed on it. YearbookLife will take it from there.
With a custom yearbook cover, you have the full creative license to design it using any backgrounds, art or photos you wish to use—you’re only limited by your imagination!
To switch between a stock and a custom yearbook cover or vice versa, you must first be logged in as the Admin since only the book’s Admin can make this change. If you do not see Admin in the top-level toolbar, shown in the screenshot below, then you are not logged in as the Admin.
Once you are logged in as the Admin, click on Admin in the top-level toolbar, shown in the above screenshot. Once there, click on the Book Settings tab in the second-level toolbar.
This will open the Book Settings tab. To change the cover options, click on the Cover Settings button.
Then, click on the dropdown under Cover Options and choose either Stock or Custom.
Once you have made that change, press the Save Settings button.
PSPA YEARBOOK CD
By now you should have received your PSPA yearbook CD from your school photographer. If you have not received it please contact the photographer as soon as possible to obtain your CD. We will gladly assist you installing your portraits.
ARE YOU RECEIVING OUR EMAILS?
Throughout the year we send numerous emails updating you on all aspects of the yearbook process. These emails are important and the information in them will help you create your yearbook with ease. Please be sure you have added us to your email address book.
CUSTOM COVER DEADLINE AND BOOK DEADLINE
The deadline to submit your custom cover is February 1, 2012. Please be sure to read the submission requirements found in your yearbook kit. Please contact us at 888-680-0143 with any question regarding your custom cover.
The yearbook deadline for most schools is March 15, 2012. Keep in mind, this is our Early Bird Deadline and any school ordering 100 books or more who submits their book by March 15 will receive a FREE autograph supplement and a 4% discount on the price of the book. Otherwise, yearbooks are due in 6-8 weeks before you would like them delivered to your school.
For help creating your yearbook in EZBook or Pictavo please visit the Help Menu in your software and take a look at all of the videos at our website:
https://www.yearbooklife.com/yearbook-video-gallery/
YEARBOOK CONTEST
We will be holding our Best Yearbook Contest to select the yearbooks that meet all of the requirements shown on the following link. All schools will be entered for a chance to win great prizes.
GET PAID FOR YOUR REFERRALS
We will pay you cash when you send a new school our way. Click the link below for more information:
Referrals
Online Yearbook Sales and Ad Sales (My Yearbook Sales)
Have you signed up to sell your yearbooks and/or parent dedications online? Click on the link below for more information.
http://partners.myyearbooksales.com/pf1
FACEBOOK
Be sure to follow us on Facebook to enter our contests, receive reminders and to get tips and tricks for creating your yearbook.
https://www.facebook.com/YearbookLife?ref=tn_tnmn
Make your high school yearbook the best yearbook your school has ever seen! This is possible with the help of YearbookLife, a family owned school yearbook publishing business with over 13 years of experience! We promise that your experience with us will be the most enjoyable yearbook publishing experience you have ever had, all while making the school yearbooks affordable as well.
When you create you high school yearbook through YearbookLife, you are treated like a professional! You are also given the freedom to make choices, which can be rare when working with other publishing companies. YearbookLife allows you to choose how you will make your high school yearbook by allowing you to pick which software is right for you, though we often recommend Pictavo. When you being to create your high school yearbook with us we include a free design kit, to help you get started. Your design kit includes CD’s which include artwork and templates to give you ideas and starting points for your yearbook. We also make sure to make ourselves available to you for any questions or concerns you may have along the way of your creation process.
Get the most out of your yearbook publisher with YearbookLife! Let us help you create your high school yearbook. For more information on what is included in your high school yearbook package through YearbookLife, contact us today! We look forward to working with you and your yearbook staff on your next yearbook project.
