Work Toward a Sellout

No matter where you are with your book sales, we always have refreshing ideas to help your staff sell more… and in a perfect world, sell out. A sellout would mean selling all copies and at least breaking even, but only after you’ve accounted for additional copies you’ll reserve for your archives, the library, the alumni office, administration and contests or critiques. You may even hold a few copies back until you are aware of your overrun situation or in case any books arrive damaged.

Before we get started with a few brilliant ideas,

Make sure that your sales lists are accurate and up-to-date.
Consider sorting the non-buyers by grade to determine how many seniors (or eighth graders for middle school), juniors, etc. have not purchased yearbooks.

A poster* message such as “66 seniors without yearbooks, 27 yearbooks left” could work to sell more books. If you have lots left to sell, you might also check the youngest class’ numbers. You could divide the number of remaining books down so that your senior messages would announce 77 books left for seniors and another set would list 78 books left for freshmen, instead of saying that there were 155 books left.

A sales thermometer* in a very public location showing a rapidly decreasing number of books does a lot to promote your cause. If you create this, you’ll want to make sure to update it at least daily. If the week starts with a thermometer showing 24 books left to sell and there’s no change by Thursday, you’re sending an entirely different message than 24 books left to sell decreasing to 19 by noon, 16 after school and 11 the following morning. It’s up to the yearbook staff to create the sense of urgency to buy.

A targeted postcard* might alert non-buyers that they’ve appeared on certain pages in the book. When students are asked why they haven’t purchased a yearbook, one common answer is that they don’t think they will be included in it. If you run HJ Index Builder on your entire book, you will have easy access to the page numbers on which each student appears. Take advantage of the free merchandising materials from Herff Jones, including the “You’re in the Yearbook” and “We’re in it Together postcards”.*

Good luck! If your staff executes any of these ideas, or has a few great tactics of their own, we would love for you to share your tricks and/or success stories in the comments below.