Now that you’ve spent time putting together the most awesome yearbook ever, it’s time to actually sell it!

Perhaps you’d normally gather your yearbook team in your office and enthusiastically throw around some marketing strategies as your team slowly back out of your office with a little whistle or a sudden much longed for class to attend?

Or you’d simply pop up a poster announcing the yearbooks are ready, cross your fingers and wait for sales with a slight feeling of desperation?

But not this time!

Lockdown yearbook marketing will be digital, clever and water tight, not letting any sales slip away. 

Telling students to buy a yearbook needs more thought, more emotion and more messaging coming from many different angles. We can’t just pull out our inner Yoda and tell parents what to do.

We’ve put together 7 clear actionable marketing steps to work through, to make sure you sell more yearbooks than ever this year. Carve out one week and work through one strategy each day.

In no particular order…

1] Big, bold and free advertising on Facebook 

Most of the school’s we have daily contact with have rather an active Facebook page. When it’s time to start marketing your yearbook, why not refresh your cover photo – the top banner image that sits behind your profile picture.

It can be tricky popping an image directly on here because of the custom dimension constraints but the simplest way to do this is to design the banner in Canva. Sign up for a free account and simply hit ‘Create Design’ and choose ‘Facebook Cover’. Pick a design template from the left or use a blank canvas and create your own. 

This isn’t just an announcement though, make sure you include a clear CTA (Call to action). What do you want your parents or students to do in order to buy the yearbook? Do you want them to pre-order by leaving their name and details or are you ready to sell? There should be simple clear instructions on the banner with exactly what they need to do next.

2] The Sneaky Peek

Pick out some tantalisers and show them off in a Facebook photo album or simply drip feed them through your social media channels. Use captions to tempt parents to purchase. 

>> ‘The coach ride to the best school trip of the year!’ – for all pics of the outing, order your yearbook here

>> ‘The moment before the whole class ended up in the sea’ – to see more of these, order your yearbook here

>> ‘Polly Temple being awarded Kent School’s Athletic Champion’ – for more awards from our talented sports pupils, order your yearbook here

3] Run a Competition

Now this strategy gives you a triple whammy win. 

Create a competition where the winner receives a free yearbook. Use our idea or just the framework for your own idea.

1. Create a Photo Caption contest
2. Announce the contest in the newsletter, in the parent email, on social media or if not in lockdown, on flyers and posters around the school.
3. Contest: Send in any photo and write a caption. A free school yearbook will be awarded to the best entry. The rest will be shown in the yearbook, after being vetted by the yearbook team 😉
4. Get the students to share their entries on social media using a specific hashtag #farnhamschoolyearbookcontest

Win #1 – You receive some great content for the yearbook

Win #2 – You create a buzz! Students will be sharing the funniest photos and captions with each other and they’ll be desperate to buy the yearbook whether they win or not, just to see all the funny entries.

Win #3 – Using the hashtag will generate a little hub of images on social media all grouped together. Every student will be desperate to see if they have been included in a funny photo caption! This in turn creates more buzz around the yearbook and more buzz equals more sales!

4] Plan a Sequence of Email Messages Leading To Purchase

Particularly since school closures in lockdown, the email newsletter has become the primary link between schools and parents. If your school sends out an email every Friday, make sure you write a carefully crafted email for 3 or 4 weeks as follows:

Week 1 – It’s time to pre-order the yearbook. Click here to pre-order yours now.

Week 2 – Exciting news! The yearbook has gone to print. It includes some amazing school memories that we know your children will treasure forever. Each and everyone of them is included. Have you ordered your copy yet? Click here to Buy Now.

Week 3 – And the winner of the Photo Caption is Bertie Smith with this photo and caption. Congratulations Bertie! You have won a free yearbook. See all the other hilarious entries in the yearbook. Time is running out, make sure you get your order in!

Week 4 – Last call, the deadline to purchase your yearbook is Monday, don’t miss out. 

5] Refresh The School Website

Use the messages from the sequence above to refresh your website. Include a banner at the top of your website with a clear call to action and align the messaging with the messages going out in the parent email or newsletter. You’ll be amazed at how the ‘Last Call’ email and messaging drives those final sales.

6] Create FOMO

‘Fear Of Missing Out’ is a thing. Use this proven marketing strategy well.

Drip feed tit bits across your school’s social media.

Advertise how many people have pre-ordered the yearbook with posts such as ‘297 students have ordered the 2020 yearbook’ This means that 297 will get to treasure moments like this (include a funny photo with caption). It’s not too late to order yours! Click here to Buy Now.

7] You’re on Page 5!

This particular strategy works well for smaller primary schools where the staff know every single student. It takes time but it works!

The most important part of this strategy is that every single student is included in the yearbook.

Cross check each pupil and mark down each page number in the yearbook where that pupil is featured. Then send out an email to each parent telling them that the yearbook is in print and their child is featured on pages 3 and 5. 

What parent will be able to resist?!

If you haven’t ordered your yearbook yet, there is still time! Use our resources to help you. First of all, get some ideas on how to put together the most awesome yearbook ever and then simply use our online yearbook editor to build yours right now. Get in touch with our team now for a free 10 minute demo.