Marketing & Sales

Wouldn't it be great if your yearbook could help buy your school new Chromebooks or iPads or fund a new STEAM program? We think so too! Treering has already helped schools raise more than $11 million (and counting) and funded all kinds of wonderful things for schools. Make money from something you already do: add any amount to the price of your yearbook as a fundraiser.

Our books are so fairly priced that you don't need to feel guilty about adding a fundraiser to the cost of the book. Let's say the core price of your book is $45, and you add a $5 fundraiser. If you sell 500 books, you will have raised $2,375 for your school! That could cover the cost of a few educational field trips!

Full disclosure (because, hi, we love transparency): Treering charges just 5% processing to cover the credit card and bank fees.

Fundraising in Action

Mercury Mine Elementary

"Treeing's fundraising tools helped my school build a yearbook program that no longer creates a drain on our finances. Now with Treering we MAKE money on our yearbook program. Funds raised from the yearbook go to our school's 501c3 Parent Teacher Group and help us to support the school’s programs and services. Our PTG strives to promote communication, understanding, and cooperation among students, parents, faculty, and the Miner community. Our goal is to promote a supportive and engaging community atmosphere and Treering helps us reach those goals." - Erin

Augusta Circle Elementary

"We use Treering’s fundraising tool in two ways. First, we add to the cost of the book, making $1 off each book sold. We also sell celebration ads to parents. We use our extra funds to provide yearbooks to 5th graders who may otherwise not be able to buy one, so that all graduating students leave with a yearbook. Last year, we raised enough money to refinish the outside basketball courts, which were worn down, cracked, and had become hazardous, plus added two new basketball goals! This year we hope to add a large sunshade over part of the playground with the money we raise through the yearbook. We are so grateful for Treering!" - Ansley

Presidio Middle School

"We give books to 8th graders who are moving up to high school. I give away about 60 books to 8th graders. We call it a contest, [students have to fill out an online form to enter] but it susses out students who might not be able to afford a book and don’t want to ask for a free one." - Janet

PSA on Fundraising With Yearbook Ad Sales

Typically, yearbook ad sales are one way teams do their fundraising.

Generally speaking, schools sell yearbook ads for one of three reasons:

1. To pay back existing publisher debt
2. As an opportunity to teach business skills (sales, advertising, negotiation, and more)
3. As a fundraising effort to purchase new equipment

Number one can happen for myriad reasons: perhaps you bought far too many books last year, maybe your budget was slashed, or you inherited a yearbook program in the red. Negotiate, negotiate, negotiate with your publisher for more school-friendly terms. (Thank you for coming to our TED Talk.)

While selling ads is a good way to teach students about business, it’s not a necessity for every yearbook program. Virtually any fundraising opportunity can be turned into something teachable, and selling ads is probably the most resource-intensive of the bunch. This reality is what makes ad sales particularly alluring because they quite literally become part of the finished product.

If you want to add business development consider teaching:

• Problem-solving
• Goal-setting and project management
• Team leadership
• Social media marketing to promote your program, book sales, and crowdsourcing

You did all the work. You submitted it. And boom: boxes arrive, filled with memories and awaiting signatures. You could deliver a stack to each classroom, wipe your hands, and prep for next year. Or, you could create an epic yearbook distribution and signing party to further cement the yearbook’s role on your campus. Yearbook distribution doesn’t have to be a total mic drop moment (it can), but rather a unifying event to help close the year.

Make Unboxing a Moment

Unboxing the yearbook can help build excitement for yearbook distribution because it tells the campus community the yearbooks are here! A few ideas for social media posts are:

• Put a GoPro or tape your cellphone on the boxes as they get wheeled into the building
• Film your team cracking open the first box (make sure they smell the ink!)
• Photograph a box of yearbooks in various “seats” around campus: the principal’s chair, a student desk, a key locale in the caf
• If your yearbook company doesn’t label your books individually by buyer and organize them by class, do a time-lapse video of your team organizing the books for distribution

Start Distribution with the Yearbook Team

Being on yearbook staff has to have perks, and one is a fancy-pants dinner before yearbook distribution. (Please note fancy is a relative term: if an Oreo shake is your thing, you’re our kind of people.) 

Think of your typical sports banquet: the coach (adviser) stands and speaks a few remarks on the team then hands out the awards. Traditionally, the yearbook staff unwraps their yearbook and shares it with their family. It’s special because they have the first copies and it’s an individualized time for parents to see all the work their child accomplished. Do you have parents creating the yearbook? Celebrate these yearbook heroes!

Distribution Parties

The last month of school is full of events and celebrations, yearbook distribution should be one of the reasons your community comes together. Here are three ideas for yearbook distribution parties our advisers hold, and since we’re all lovers of a good theme, we put together some end-of-the-year playlists for you. 

The Extended Lunch

Work with your school’s faculty and administration to add 15-25 minutes to the end of lunchtime for yearbook signing. Create designated areas for each grade with class color-coded pens to distribute the yearbooks and then play music while students mingle. 

The Afterschool Special

When yearbook distribution and singing are a family event, you build even more community. Meet at a public park’s gazebo and pass out books and play. Moms hang, kids hang, and the teachers breathe easier because they didn’t have to plan it. 

The Bundle and Save

For anyone thinking, “I don’t need one more thing to do,” this is for you: add a yearbook signing party to an existing end-of-the-year event such as award night or an all-school carnival. All you need to do is make a cluster of tables (velvet ropes optional) and have an organized distribution center. 

Want to make it next level? Have your distribution area next to a bounce house. Students get their books at the bottom of the slide as they celebrate bouncing to the next grade.

How will you celebrate? Be sure to tag @treering on Facebook and @treeringcorp on TikTok and Instagram to show us.

Some of these ideas originally appeared in our yearbook traditions blog.

Celebrating the students on campus—all of them—is what we love most about inclusive yearbooks. This year, the theme for Scholastic Journalism Week is “Amplifying Voices.” If you’re participating, or here for inspiration, here are some ways to integrate Scholastic Journalism Week into your school and get more students heard.

Monday: participate in #makingconnections

From PTA/PTO councils to journalism teachers, there are people willing to share best practices. It’s one of the reasons we love to share about Yearbook Heroes. Identify:

• Who is doing what I want to do?
• What can I learn from them?
• Who can inspire my students?
• What similar stories do we have on campus?
• Who is disconnected? How do we amplify their voice?

You may be the one to teach others—share your story! 

Tuesday: #teachmeTuesday

Because this is a celebration of scholastic journalism, take some time to teach journalism. Start with a writing lesson or practice interviewing. Collectively, you could tackle intorduce media literacy or a difficult reporting assignment such as covering the recent wildfires or tornadoes. 

Wednesday: be about the business of #sharingstories

Take advantage of our pre-planned social media calendar to jumpstart your shares. Make sure your posts feature diverse grades, activities, and subjects. This way, you show students the value individuals make to the whole of your school community.

In your yearbook, you may want to include quote packages or fill-ins to amplify voices and give students the means to share their stories.

Thursday: always fit in a #throwback

Throwback Thursdays are fun because you can do nearly anything:

1. Feature stories from alumni (don’t forget to use their yearbook photo!)
2. Collaborate with a social science teacher on campus to integrate journalism's impact on history
3. Print and display favorite yearbook spreads or covers from the previous years

Friday: #democracyinaction

JEA encourages schools to use the last day of Scholastic Journalism Week to share how their schools and communities value the freedom of the press. Here are some ideas on how to participate:

Elementary schools

• Memorize the First Amendment
• Start student-led media projects

Middle and high schools

• Have a conversation with school administration over the Principal’s Guide for Scholastic Journalism
• Learn to evaluate sources
• Memorize the First Amendment

Your participation in Scholastic Journalism Week 2022, be it one day or all five, will show your journalism students their voices matter as well as the responsibility they have as campus advocates to be the voice of others.

In honor of the season of giving, Treering will match up to five yearbook donations per school account. From November 29 through December 31, one community book donation equals one Treering book donation. Editors can reassign these books to teachers, promoting students, the principal, or students in need.

How the donation match works

1. Enable the Book Donation option on the dashboard
2. Let your campus community know ’tis the season to share the (yearbook) love
3. Re-assign the yearbooks so recipients can customize or order non-custom books to hand out

This promotion ends at 11:59 pm PST on December 31, 2022. Matched yearbooks will automatically be added to your account by January 30, 2023.

How to get the word out

Think about how your school communicates: social media, TalkingPoints, or email. One of the best ways to share this information with your school community is to use our email notifications which are found in the promote section of the application.

Download and share these images to share on social.

The fine print

• Promotion ends at 11:59 pm PST on December 31, 2022.
• Matched yearbooks will automatically be added to your account by January 30, 2023.
• Donations may not be combined with any other promotions.
• Donated yearbooks cannot exist on ship-to-home, invoiced, or PO orders. Credit card or PayPal orders only.
• Ordering donation books will not be available for After Deadline Orders.

With Proclamation 5703, former President Ronald Reagan made yearbooks even more celebration-worthy by setting apart the first week of October for “appropriate ceremonies and activities” to recognize the creators and the power of a yearbook program. Nearly 30 years later, National School Yearbook Week remains a time to reminisce and a time to look forward.

Monday: celebrate the heroes

For two weeks, we at Treering have been collecting stories of advisers, grandparents, parents, students, and school staff who make their yearbook successful. From collaborative efforts on original cover designs to timely communication on ever-changing school events, the positive contributions of many are making yearbooks happen.

Treering will announce the winners of the #YearbookHero contest. Schools can celebrate their own heroes by:

• Making banners to post on teacher’s doors to say thank you
• Sharing on social media photos yearbook heroes have shared with your team or a photo of a yearbook hero with a description of why he or she saved the day
• Hosting a pizza luncheon for your yearbook team, because pizza and yearbook are a clutch combo (Was that too cheesy?)
• Decorating your yearbook students’ lockers

Tuesday: celebrate the product

Just like VH-1’s Behind the Music series, you can do a Behind the Yearbook and showcase the story behind previous years’ themes or a yearbook staff member’s journey. Other fun ways to show off the importance of yearbook on social media include:

• School staff show off their old yearbooks photos
• Highlight important events such as State Championships or famous alumni in previous yearbooks
• Record a teacher or student reading encouraging messages from his/her yearbook

If you haven’t yet branded your book, National School Yearbook Week is the ideal time to do a theme reveal! Some schools make a video to share, others reveal just a theme element or two to tease buyers.

Wednesday: celebrate growth

Mid-National School Yearbook Week, yearbook lovers will unite. For the first time (in forever) Treering is inviting yearbook coordinators and advisers to gather for an epic evening at Treering Live!  In addition to breakout sessions for Elementary and middle/high schools, attendees will glean practical ideas on how to

• Sell more yearbooks
• Create an epic yearbook theme
• Overcome common objections
• Take newsworthy photos... on a cellphone

Follow #TRL2021 for Tweetable takeaways your fellow yearbook advisers shared, and work with your team to apply a few this year. We always say, try one or two new things (Treering loves yearbook advisers too much to let you try and do it all!)

Thursday: build on the momentum

Now that a few days were filled with celebration, take some time to use National School Yearbook Week to propel your team. Collectively, identify what is going well and why. Check your progress towards your goals for the year and ask:

• What is working?
• What needs improvement? How can our strengths help in this area?
• Do we need to refine any goals?
• How will we celebrate reaching our goals?

Schools that see success with goal-setting and achievement monitor progress and also make their goals attainable. Instead of sell more books, try something like if we increase our yearbook sales by the end of December, we will have an ice cream party when we return to school in January.

Fri-yay: #feelgoodFriday

You celebrated. You learned. You strategized. As you prep for some #weekendvibes, take one more opportunity to build unity among your team. Whether your YB teamis made up of students in an after school club or for class credit, or your shepherd a super squad of parents, create a feel-good moment to close out National School Yearbook Week.

With students, a chain of strength is a way for students to self-assess their team contribution. After a brief period of individual work, the group discussion is where the magic happens: students encourage and build up one another. (Pro tip: get paper in your yearbook theme colors to make your team’s chain.)

Parents too need edification. A quick trip to Dollar Tree for some fun thank yous will go a long way: incense for the wise moms, a skein of yarn for the dad who holds it all together, or a trivia book for the parent who is a lifelong learner. Focusing on the strengths of each team member, and celebrating their individual contributions, created a culture of support. This is key for collaboration.

Whether you're excited to get the kids out of the house and into the classroom or kind of dreading the hussle that back-to-school season brings, another year is here! Fear not, we’ve got your yearbook back, cover, custom pages, and everything in between. We’re a yearbook company after all! The first six weeks of school are the best time to set up your yearbook for success.

This might sound overwhelming given you already have to absorb a million new routines, teachers, rules, and other back-to-school rituals, so we’ve simplified it to 5 simple steps to yearbook success this school year.

Set the yearbook's tone: enthusiasm is contagious

The first six weeks of school are when everyone is ready to take photos. Welcome back Moma-razzi! It’s a new year, with new friends, new teachers, and new pencils. Bringing this energy into the yearbook can set the tone for the entire year (with rough patches, obviously. We’re all human). The more excited you are to start the book, take and collect photos, the more excited everyone around you will be. Enthusiasm is contagious and engagement is demonstrated by leaders. If the yearbook editor and/or committee is excited, then it’s way more likely everyone else will join in.

Be in the know: reboot your inner Gossip Girl

Ok so maybe not exactly like the Gossip Girl reboot, but you get the idea. If you’re editing the yearbook, this is the time to know what’s going on. Since most yearbooks show the year in chronological order, be prepared for the first day of school photo opportunities like the car line, opening assembly, and bus drop-offs. You can even reach out to teachers (who are yearbook editors’ best friends) and try to either get inside a couple classrooms for first-day activities or ask them to share all the amazing photos from the day.

You’ll want to know all the back-to-school plans from the school —including the PTA calendar of events. Once you’re in the know, you can work with other parents and/or teachers to take some photos so you don’t feel like you have to be everywhere. If you’re working with students in yearbook creation, make sure you’re in the know about what you’re going to be teaching with an updated staff syllabus and curriculum.

K.I.S.S.: keep it simple silly

Alright, you’re excited and you know what’s going on the first day of school! You’re almost ready for a fantastic year of yearbooking fun, but we highly recommend getting ready for yearbook by setting up an easy photo system for contributors, whether they are coming from teachers, parents or students. Yearbook can be hard and stressful, so that’s why setting up a system where parents can upload pictures, like a Google Drive, or using a hashtag that’s specific to your school can be beneficial. By using a hashtag, you can tell parents that if they use it, it gives yearbook staff permission to use the photo. This can really take some of the burden off. Your unique hashtag can help you categorize the photos, and, since we’re all on social media these days, possibly get more photos than past years.

Another easy system to think about: Set up a regular posting cadence on the parent Facebook page, PTA group or the school’s main social media to encourage anyone with great photos to submit to the yearbook. Setting a realistic schedule up front makes it easier to stick to, and contributors get used to hearing from you. Starting a bi-weekly schedule up front instead of reaching out after the first six weeks of school will likely result in more photos. After all, it’s a lot less intimidating to send a couple photos at a time versus the “photo dump” some parents or teachers may have from the first six weeks.

Pay attention to your yearbook provider: they're your friends

Pay attention to “getting started” emails from your trusty yearbook company friends. The friendly yearbook companies - the ones with excellent customer service, not to name any names - will help you get your yearbook started, you just have to pay attention. Keep an eye out for email blasts to help kick off yearbook creation by walking advisers through back-end aspects of yearbooking. (Yes, it IS a verb!) Depending on what you’re looking for, you can get a mini-course on how to create a yearbook, more advanced design resources, marketing assistance and more. For a #MarketingMoment, brainstorm with your yearbook team on capturing your theme in your group photo. For example, if your theme is an anniversary book, you may want to photograph each member with a past yearbook. Another #MarketingMoment idea: Hype up your last yearbook to the PTA, students and teachers, and sprinkle in all the new plans you have for the first six weeks to build excitement!

Find Your yearbook crew: even if it’s just one other parent

Finding someone that can help you manage shot lists, reach out to teachers and come up with ideas is so important. As you know, and it bears repeating, yearbook is a lot, but it’s also a treasure for kids growing up. That’s what’s most important and what makes getting involved so worth it.

Food-for-thought on where and how to get involved:

Get in with the teachers. Classrooms can become like second homes to students, and their teacher is always there - that’s why they’re your best friend for photos. Ask to bring food and drinks to a staff meeting in exchange for 15 minutes to talk about the yearbook. Give teachers and administrators easy blurbs, talking points and material about the yearbook to include all of their back to school communications. There are some teachers who will not allow us to pull kids for interviews EVER, and some who prefer the first or last 15 minutes of class, so be prepared.

Start a "gotcha!" list. Using the early enrollment roster from the front office, make a card for each student with their name and grade. Once a week or so, go through your coverage report/index and mark off the students you’ve captured. Set a goal to interview or photograph every student at least three times with questions of the day or activities they’re involved in.

Celebrate! Set easy wins to give yourself, your crew, the PTA or school a reason to celebrate. Oh, you received 50 photos from the first day? BAM! Let’s go get dinner. This classroom submitted the most photos after the first six weeks of school? BAM! Reward that teacher and students with a little prize. Even small milestones deserve a celebration, and each celebration will motivate more people to participate.

Have questions on how to start building a better yearbook? Check out our Help Center for customer support.