2. Working with a Limited Budget

3. Working with a limited budget
You want your money opportunities to
And you don’t want your program to
belly up
Ideas for
So here are some possibly
Working with a limited budget
And getting what you want

4. Really two parts to the problem
Know what you have
Any built in fundraisers?
Check last year’s budget
Communicate carefully and strongly with your rep. about the cost of everything
Make sure you know about any hidden costs: taxes, shipping
Plan for mistakes
Then figure out what you can add
Create your buying community
Utilize fundraisers that maximize money and minimize time
Find that undiscovered fundraising niche
Sell books, sell books, sell books

5. Build your budget and share with staff
Items to include:
What Jostens program do you have? What have you already paid for?
What help is provided by the school district?
Make friends with your financial secretary and/or business manager
What do you know you need to pay extra for? Designed endsheets? Supplement? Proofs?
Figure the percent of students you KNOW will buy. Add in the proven fund-raisers from the past. Don’t forget to figure the cost of shipping and taxes.
Plan your cover. That is where most of the extra cost comes from.
Plan for your pages. That will be the next expense difference.
Plan for goofs—broken equipment, big page mistakes. Plan 5-10% of budget to go for the unexpected.

6. Build your budget and share with staff
Items to include:
What Jostens program do you have? What have you already paid for?
What help is provided by the school district?
Make friends with your financial secretary and/or business manager
What do you know you need to pay extra for? Designed endsheets? Supplement? Proofs?
Figure the percent of students you KNOW will buy. Add in the proven fund-raisers from the past. Don’t forget to figure the cost of shipping and taxes.
Plan your cover. That is where most of the extra cost comes from.
Plan for your pages. That will be the next expense difference.
Plan for goofs—broken equipment, big page mistakes. Plan 5-10% of budget to go for the unexpected.

7. Nice to have but really not needed for an award-winning book.
Special paper
Special endsheets. Do take time to design and utilize endsheet for them, but a 1 color endsheet is much less expensive than a 4 color endsheet.
Special treatments on the cover: texture, foil, die-cuts, etc. Do make sure you have a program that allows you to design your OWN cover. If you want to enter a book into competition you must do your own work. However, a good 4 color cover or even a good silk screen still works.
Expensive camera equipment and computers.
Autograph pages

8. Setting your yearbook price:
Utilize online enrollment if you can. Many parents will pay for everything at once if they have the opportunity.
Early bird specials.
Discount for more than one student in the family.
Bundling together book and ad costs.
Check your local geographic area on yearbook prices. You want your book to be a real value. Do make sure you are the best value in the area and let your patrons know that.
If the cost of your book is going to be more than your program can afford (that includes any equipment, travel, etc. you must pay for), then you consider fundraisers.

9. Create a buying community
Allow students and teachers to be part of the creative process from the beginning.
Utilize focus groups to critique last year’s book.
Make cover ideas public and get student buy in.
Bring in guest authors, guest photographers, teams to describe season highlights, etc. Involve as many people as possible.
Hold contests that involve having work published in yearbook. Utilize interactive games.
Give weekly, monthly progress updates.
Let students know when you have placed them in book.

10. More on the buying community
Communication methods: parent internet program, facebook account, twitter account, paper invitations to buy, bulletin board with student names and pages upon which they appear.
Get help for those students who need help purchasing. Staff or other parents volunteer to be “Yearbook Angels.”
Hold a celebratory event (dance) where everyone is invited and book is handed out for the first time. Make entry cost cheap and then sell lots of food, drink, pens, autograph pages, etc.

11. Fundraisers--Advertising
Purpose should only be to make up cost difference between book sales and what is needed to run the program. Don’t sell ads ONLY because getting out and selling to businesses is tradition. Give sales a definite purpose. You and your staff are way too busy to do jobs that are not going to give you the revenue you need.
Be aware of what types of ads work for you. Booster/senior ads where you advertise but the ads come to you often work as well as the ads where you go and pound the pavement.
Seek ad sales within your school from PTA, sports booster clubs, organizations, etc.
When you have to go out, do consider, dentists, doctors, realtors, and popular restaurants. Also, that first ad contact really should be in person.

20. Fundraisers—Find a Niche
Look for money-making opportunities, that will bring in needed revenue but are not done by others.
We are in charge of district ID’s (no one else wanted to be in charge) and get revenue from all sports, groups, and individual photos.
No one was selling flowers at Valentine’s so we do. We told local businesses of our goal of providing books to students who cannot afford them and asked to purchase flowers at cost. Then we sell them slightly less than what grocers and Wal-Mart do.
Yearbook dance. Everyone is invited and DJ time is donated. We charge a minimum price and regular prices on refreshments.
Selling sports programs at local venues. We make good money plus staff gets in free which they love.
School concession stands. Track meets and all day tournaments work great. We use lots of parent help.

21. Fundraising ideas from other schools
Selling at a big event: fireworks stand, lunch concession at a Fall Festival, Valentine gift bundles.
Friend ads within the yearbook.
Selling unused photos.
Photographer for hire.
Booster buttons
Bake sales
Car washes
Things that do not work well (still fun though)

22. Ads beyond the usual

23. Real baby ads

24. Instagrams

25. Photo booth photos are sold and placed on ad pages.

29. Students may submit their own photos for a price.

37. Utilize Jostens Book personalization Icons Covers
Above can be purchased online or you may be in charge.
Detailed ideas
Products you may purchase where Jostens will do much of sales for you at a very inexpensive price.
Check out Yearbook Avenue

38. Schedule: this is how we do it.
We have sold to 95% of greater of our student body for the past 7 years. We do involve students, staff, and parents in every step of our yearbook.
We look at ourselves as a service organization and our mission is to remember the year for others in the best way possible at the most reasonable price.
We actually tell our parents that the more books we sell, the better the price we can give to everyone and we boast that we are most inexpensive book in the area per number of pages. Everyone likes to know he/she is getting a value!
Our first advertising for yearbook purchases begins with enrollment in July.

39. Maize South Middle Schedule
Create cover ideas in spring of previous year. Invite students to come in and critique.
Advertise via internet that book may be purchased with July enrollment.
Aug.--Cookie focus groups. These are helpful the first week of the current school year.
Aug.—All school thanking parents for purchasing books in July and reminding parents that books are still available.
Aug.—All school ID photos. We hand out small flyers with our book theme and a reminder to buy a book.

40. More schedule
Sept.—Big board of students is up and we checkmark every time a student is used.
Oct—April—Bring in teams and clubs to help us choose photos to use in book. Post page ideas on yearbook bulletin board.
Feb. –Student-led conferences. Students and parents who miss these must make them up so our attendance rate is 90%. In their portfolios, every student gets a paper either saying they have purchased a book or one saying they have not with the pages they are on.
March—Send home, via internet, notes to all parents of students who have not bought books along with information on how to get a free or reduced book if the student cannot afford one.
April—Final note to parents, after book has been sent to plant. This note is to everyone. It tells of our distribution dance in May, ways to purchase a book, pages students are on if they have not purchased, and ways to help others finance a book. We also hold lunch dates with students not in book yet three times and do short features or get quotes from them that are placed in index.
May—Distribution dance. Once books are out, we tend to sell any that have not been previously sold.

41. Final words
Do enter contests and critiques and let students and parents know when you do well.
The more books you sell, the less expensive they are to make.
Utilize student help for tip-ins, etc. The more you can do yourself, the more money you will save.