Middle School Yearbook Marketing: Strategies that Work

Our school is located in an isolated, rural, coastal community with a huge summer population of visitors and beautiful natural resources. In the two years I have been in charge of the yearbook, we have experienced sales growth that can be attributed to our commercial advertising on our weekly student news productions.

Each Friday, our student-produced weekly video announcements air in every classroom and are also shared with parents in an email blast by our principal. The student-produced announcements are a perfect conduit to promote the yearbook, encourage participation in yearbook-related competitions and sell our ad space.

THE ORIGIN STORY

The process of creating student video announcements began with some grant applications for computer editor stations and camera equipment. Paint for our green screen space was donated by our local Sherwin-Williams, and the school district pays for our WeVideo subscriptions. WeVideo is a browser-based video editing software that allows me to import all the footage into the specific collaborative projects where both the student editor and I can work together on the promo simultaneously. I provide students with step-by-step instructions, including screenshots of how to layer together the footage in the software and utilize the color-keying feature.

FOLLOW THE SCRIPT

I provide students with a rough draft script of the essential information needed in the promo. We convert scripts into large paper cue cards for students to read. We film most of our promos in the green screen space with a recorded screencast of flipping through the Yearbook 360 – Online Design Live Yearbook playing in the layer behind the students. Sometimes we brainstorm out more robust commercial spots integrating humorous seasonal parodies or long forgotten, archived pictures of the current eighth graders when they were in sixth grade.

We also frequently use repetition and extreme close-ups for comedic effect to make sure everyone can quickly and easily recall the website where they order. In one particularly effective commercial, the student did a funny, overly enthusiastic, used-car salesman type voice each time they stated “yearbookforever.com.” Students repeated it back and forth to each other in the hallway mimicking that funny voice for weeks and weeks afterward.

THE RESULTS

Last year we added 25 books to our order and still managed to easily sell out of even our overflow books. This year we ordered 50 books over our normal number and are on track to sell out again. Another valuable effect of the commercials students created was a full four spreads of extra parent recognition ad space we managed to sell this year over last year.

THINK OUTSIDE THE STAFF

The commercial for parent recognition ads this year was created by a group of chorus friends. They shared all the important price points of ad sizes along with the picture limits, but they also emphasized the idea of teaming up with a best friend to split the cost and celebrate their friendship and the accomplishment of making it through middle school. This made the somewhat cost-prohibitive ad space prices much more feasible for our economically diverse population. The production group for the commercial edited in their own personal pictures of their friend group in a variety of contexts to provide an example of the kinds of charming, intimate moments that could be celebrated in a parent recognition ad featuring a friend group of all eighth grade students instead of just one student by themselves.

Equipping students with the knowledge and tools to plan, film and edit their own commercials allows them ownership and authorship of the content created. It simultaneously empowers student voice while cultivating a higher degree of investment from an additional group of volunteers. From the video editors, to the kids behind the camera, to the talent reading the lines, everyone involved is more likely to purchase a yearbook or ad space when they have played a role, even indirectly, in the success of our yearbook program.