How can I sell more ads?
Ads Made Easy
If You Help Them They Will Buy — A Memory Page
As a new yearbook adviser, I pondered how to get more ad commitments. I needed to know how many content pages to plan. The ads trickled in slowly. As I was attending a scrapbook workshop, the idea hit me to have a workshop for parents to design memory pages for their children.
I advertised the workshop in the school newsletter. I charged $5 to cover the cost of supplies and light refreshments. I also called parents that placed memory page orders to invite them.
The event was held in my art room. I planned the workshop to start at 6 p.m. and before the event I arranged supplies on the worktables. On one table I placed 8” X 11” black and white scrapbooking paper along with stickers of sports, flowers, animals, etc . . . On another table I placed decorative-edge scissors, paper punches, paper cutters and the like. Each of the tables had glue sticks, white paper, regular scissors, several of my scrapbook magazines and excellent yearbook ads from past years for inspiration.
I expected only a few parents; however, I had a full class. I began the workshop with a five-minute presentation of do’s and don’ts for layouts. Then I let them loose to create their own. The parents loved it! They socialized with friends, created their pages and as they left, handed me their completed ads and payments. More than 95 percent of our ad pages were complete at the end of the night.
One parent said she tried to create the page at home, but didn’t know where to start. This workshop helped her organize her photographs and design a pleasing layout. Parents who brought their child let them be involved in the process of creating their pages.
If you feel uncertain about your creative talents to host a workshop, contact a local Creative Memories® or Stamping Up® consultant or your school’s art teacher to help. He or she can provide tools and sell supplies to parents and help with layouts. Scrapbooking is the hottest craft craze around so you can find all sorts of papers and stickers to use and the decorative cutting tools and punches can be used year after year.
Submitted by Beverly Williams, Yearbook Adviser
Union Academy, FL
Discoveries Volume 10 Issue 2