WOW! Thanks for all your great ideas!
Serendipity, a lot of good questions, questions that I've had myself and have no answers to. I'm just trying to figure out where to start. I like the idea of sending letters to local businesses, but due to the "time crunch" of the first newsletter coming out in September, I don't think I'd have time. So, I'll be getting on the horn calling business I'm sure!
Thanks for everyone's input on this subject, I appreciate it!
Ps: I tried to register, but am unable. Does anyone know why? Are they not accepting new members? Thanks again! [img]smile.gif[/img]
We did this for the first time this past school year. It began with a local self-storage place donating a space to us for all of our stuff. We decided to put a thank you and ad on the back side of our mnthly newsletter for them. The week after it went home, I got a ton of phone messages asking for pricing and availability. We kept the self storage as a half page (free to them), and sold four business card ads for $25 each.
The storage unit would run about $900 a year divided by 9 issues of the newsletter a year and it worked out to $100 in free ad space so the other half of a page we sold for $100. We thought it was going to be too much for a business card size ad, but we sold out every month with a waiting list.
Maybe we should change to legal size paper and sell more ads
Hi! My thoughts would be to try and assess what the expense the newsletters for the year would be and how many sponsors you want to put in the newsletter?
You also need to decide if you want to offer different sized ads at different prices. (full page, half page, quarter page, etc.) or do you just want to offer one size only?
You should have some idea of how generous your local businesses are. Our local businesses are very generous and we could probably turn a big profit if we did something like this as most of them would fork over money to have ads.
Once you establish price I would send a letter to the businesses asking them if they would like to have an ad in your newsletter. Include pricing and direct them to mail you their payment along with their logo and what they would like their ad to say.
Lastly, during the year when your newsletters come out I would mail a copy of the newsletter to each sponsoring business so that they can see their ads in your newsletter. GOOD LUCK!
We do a newsletter that goes home every six weeks, when report cards go out (6 times a year). A couple of years ago, we decided to try the sponsor thing. We are in a rural community, with many small businesses, several being parent-owned. Our newsletter editor personally approached these businesses, and offered them business card-sized ads--$10 per issue, or $50 for all six. Some ads use the actual business cards of sponsors, and others are designed by our editor. A few include coupons or discounts for customers. The response has been great, with many sponsors renewing the following year. Every sponsor is given a framed certificate, expressing our gratitude for supporting the school.
Good afternoon,
I'm new to posting, although I've actively been reading the message boards and have gained some very valuable information, thank you!
I have been on our PTO for almost 3 years and I am the "Publicity Coordinator", which mainly entails (what used to be a monthly) a bi-monthly newsletter. The newsletter used to be a one page document, which seemed to be unread by most parents. This year I'm "spiffing" it up by making it much more extensive to include pictures and more details on events.
The question I have is:
Has anyone ever looked for advertising sponsors to include in their newsletter? If so, how did you determine the cost? Did you have a "contract" for the sponsor to sign, etc?
My main thought behind sponsors is due to the fact that the newsletter will consist of 6 or more pages now and this would defray some of the costs of paper and printing.
Any input and/or advise in this area would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Sherry
