What do you charge/size for and ad in you program?

Full page - $100
1/2 page - $60
1/4 page - $40
1/8 page - $30
1/16 page - $20

Don't do ads

Mine are full color and include pictures from our recital picture day. My book was 47 pages last year, I believe.

Full page - $300
1/4 page - $75
Half page - $150
Business card size - $25

I made a lot of money by doing ads. It was great. I don't recall my prices but offered parents a chance to earn $5 on each ad sold, towards their recital fee. I probably had about $1,000 in ads, no kidding.

I did charge less for good luck ads, from families, than business ads.

Full page $100
1/2 page $60
1/4 $30
Full color program (for sale $5 each).I make ~$500-800 profit.

I think it also depends on the size of your book. My programs, when finished, stapled and folded, are letter size. I know it is popular to do letter size, then fold and staple, making it half a letter size.

My programs letter size too.

My first couple of years I did it half size but I turn it into something like a year book with photos, accomplishments, graduation page, etc. and a color cover. So, I went to full size.

Full page = $125.
Half page = $70.
1/4 page = $45.

I don't offer anything smaller than 1/4 page.

I have a contest to see who can sell the most
and the winner gets "Miss Cover Girl" and a color
picture on the back of the program book.

I make around $2500. profit on the program with
approx. 65 students.

^^^ I would love to be able to do that, but here's my problem. We're a very small school, so our program books are seen by few adults. In good conscience, I can't ask for a business to advertise in it for $100 when it has such a puny distribution.

I also have poorer kids who can barely pay my super cheap tuition; their families could never afford the "good luck" ads. Another reason I don't do ads: I don't have a staff to help me, and I would be overwhelmed at recital time. I'm stressed enough typing and printing out our 2 sided single-folded-page programs.

In addition, our local schools have 3 musical theater shows a year, and their tribute ads take up over 100 pages in each of their program books. I feel families are tapped out with just this, not to mention community theater booklets, and sports advertising. Our town has a quarterly mailed community calendar with color ads that cost $200 for a business card-sized. I've advertised in it, and gotten little response, my final reason for being adverse to ads.

I do assemble 12" x 12" color photobooks after each of our shows, from hundreds of action pictures some parents take and send me for free. But even on sale, this bound Shutterfly photobook is too costly for but a few families to purchase, and I can't mark it up. I do it mainly for marketing, and the kids enjoy leafing through them in the studio, to see how they've grown. It serves as a yearbook to document our achievements that year too, especially now that we're doing competitions.

I am so on the fence of whether or not to do this. A full program with ads and pictures of classes seems to be the new trend. Almost like a special booklet and parents buy it separately. Like, the program with show order is free for all, booklet with pictures/ads costs $$.

I already feel like my families are stretched. I also am never into paying for ads for my kids. My parents never Did it for me so I guess that I inherited cheapness:).

I know some parents would like it, and some would not.

Besides the profit, what is your general response from these?

The ads pay for the cost of production. We give one free program to each student, additional programs are $3. That way people can get ads if they want to, don't have to buy one unless they want extras, and I everyone gets an awesome program from it. We do not put the group pictures in the program. The only way your child is pictured is if you buy an ad. If I did group pictures the program would be 100 pages!

Small bit of high jacking....Its my first year and I want to do ads in the playbill.
When do you put out the info for purchasing ads?
What is your normal picture day to recital length? I want to put pictures in...we have about 4 weeks between.

Thanks

My programs are full color, letter size, and 72 pages this year... I think my parents would die if I charged $300 for an ad! But hey, if you can do it... That's AWESOME!

My picture day is in late February and my recital is in mid April.
I give my parents the information about the ads after Christmas break, and they are due the week before picture day.

Well for an update for all of you I ended up doing $12.00 per square inch ended up getting about 10 ads out of 190 kids but it came to $264.00 profit. Most people just sent me their business card so there was no designing needed. Took a huge chunk out of cost for programs this year and also help out parents that have other small businesses such as me. Went really well and I’m planning on doing as long as I’m in business.

Do you find you get more business or personal ads?

Do you price them differently?

missingcharmin wrote:

Do you find you get more business or personal ads?

Do you price them differently?

After seeing this thread I am planning on doing program ads for our spring recital.

I am going to have a few options/prices available

1) Good Luck / Congratulations etc ad from parents for dancer
2) Business ad from parent in school
3) Business ad from outside person/company/business

The good luck ads will be the smallest and cheapest. Ads from random outside/local business' will be the most expensive.

Who prints your books?