Newsletters & Advertising Sales
As a school, your distribution list is a goldmine to some companies because you have a very specific demographic - children, young adults, and parents with children. Take advantage of this by offering to advertise products and services in your monthly PTO newsletter.
Just as a newspaper makes money by selling advertising space, the PTO can print a monthly newletter and sell advertising space.
Raising Money with a School Newsletter
SELL ADVERTISING SPACE
- Local Businesses: Sell advertising space to local businesses. InitialLY, focus on companies that offer products and services that appeal to your school families (movies, toy stores, book stores, fast food restaurants, ice cream shops, etc.). Once you have an established base, expand your client list. Allow them to offer special discounts or coupons to the school families.
- Home Businesses: Sell advertising space to school parents that want to advertise their home businesses.
- Call-Outs: Sell space to parents that want to print a note to their student (Good Luck, Best Wishes, Great Job, etc.) or just something they want to announce to the school.
PRICING ADS
While you can charge any rate you want for an advertisement, you should first understand the rates of local newspapers and price your ads at a rate that will actually sell.
Understanding CPM:
Advertising rates are based on CPM (Cost Per Thousand). CPM is the price it costs to reach a single individual. For instance, a magazine that's distributed to 10,000 readers may charge $400 for a 1/4-page ad. This means they have a $0.04 CPM ($400 divided by 10,000 = $0.04 per individual reached).
Ask your local newspaper their CPM rates and then price your newsletter rates comparably. While you have the benefit of a very specific targeted market (parents with young children), a new school newsletter has not yet proven that an ad will convert into actual sales.
So if your school consists of 500 families, you may want to charge just $25 for a 1/4 page ad. That's $0.05 CPM. Sell 4 ads at $25 per month x 10 months = $2,000.
Ad Rates - Examples
The following rates are examples. During your first year of selling ad space, it's ok to be open and negotiate rates with business owners. Offer deals to get hesitant customers to advertise with you. Placing coupon codes in their ads can help businesses track the effectiveness of the ads.
| SAMPLE AD RATES |
|---|
| Ad Size |
Sold To |
Sample Ad Rate |
|---|
| 1/4-Page | Local Business | $20-25 |
| 1/4-Page | Parent, Home Business | $12-15 |
| 1/2-Page | Local Business | $35-40 |
| 1/2-Page | Parent, Home Business | $20-25 |
| Classified | Local Business | $10-15 |
| Classified | Parent, Home Business | $5-10 |
| Call-Outs, up to 3 lines | Parents, Faculty | $5 |
NEWSLETTER CONTENTS
Newspapers include informational articles, news stories, obituaries, birth & marriage announcements free of charge to fill the bulk of the paper. Similarly, your newsletter could include contents information to keep school families and faculty updated on the PTO operations and the school community.
- School Calendar: include a single calendar where parents can find all of the upcoming important dates. Fundraising events, special events (cookouts, pajama day, wellness week, etc.), holidays, early release days, PTO meetings, report card release, conferences, school committee meetings, kindergarten registration, and any other scheduled events.
- Helpful Information: Fundraising instruction & ideas at www.ptoideas.com, Girl/Boy Scout troop leaders, Lunch rates, etc.
- Articles:Print informational articles related to fundraising. Provide step-by-step instructions for running an event and perhaps parents will be less timid about volunteering.
- Requests for Volunteers
- Income & Expense Data: Let parents know how much money you hope to raise with each fundraiser and exactly where that money will be spent. Once the fundraiser has ended, let parents know exactly how much money you were able to raise.
- Congratulations Corner: Whether they received 100% on a big test or won the big game, put the students' name(s) in print for a job well done.
- Puzzles & Games: Encourage students to read the newsletter by including a page of puzzles, word search, and brainteezers.
SELLING TIPS
- Prepare a Sell Sheet:. Anticipate the questions potential buyers will ask your salespeople and write the answers down on a single, concise sheet of paper. Include:
- Ad sizes & rates
- Distribution list size & demographics (i.e. Children ages 5-12 and their parents)
- Publication dates
- Submission deadlines
- Design Services - offer to lay out an ad for them (for an additional $10 fee). A simple ad can be prepared with programs as simple as MS-Word or OpenOffice.
- Contact Information - school name, address, contact person, phone, email
- Make a List of Potential Buyers: Make a list of the businesses you plan to contact, then divide that list between the salespeople so that a business is not contacted by multiple people.
- Prepare Your Volunteer Salespeople: Review the sell sheet with them and answer any questions. Set goals for them and let them know how many ads you'd like them to sell each month and by what dates.
Also check out our #1 fundraising idea - Proven to work! - The PTO Ideas' Educational Challenge...
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