Southwest DeKalb High School named Grand Prize Winner of Promotion Commotion contest

Kansas City, Mo. (June 30, 2011) – Walsworth Publishing announced that Southwest DeKalb High School in Decatur, Ga., has won the Grand Prize in the Promotion Commotion yearbook marketing contest.

Southwest DeKalb showed the biggest increase in yearbook sales from the previous year among schools that entered Promotion Commotion, boosting its sales 139% in one year.

By winning the Grand Prize, Southwest DeKalb won $500 for the yearbook program and the staff’s marketing manager, Nicole Slay, won a $500 scholarship. Slay will be attending the University of Alabama in the fall.

Southwest DeKalb employed several marketing techniques over the course of this school year, including banner ads on their school’s website, vinyl banners, Customized Marketing pieces with Walsworth, created their own posters, telephone All-Calls and set up a sales table.

Rashida Gaye, Walsworth’s yearbook representative for the school, said that along with all the marketing, adviser Erica Pitts and the staff at Southwest DeKalb put in hours of hard work improving their product. Gaye said the staff improved their design and coverage and all the improvements helped contribute to the increased sales.

“I am overjoyed with Southwest DeKalb winning the Promotion Commotion contest,” said Gaye. “Southwest DeKalb is a solid example that schools in a community where yearbooks weren’t previously valued can indeed sell and increase their yearbook sales.”

Promotion Commotion was a yearlong contest that encouraged yearbook staffs to implement a variety of proven marketing tactics to help them sell more books, ads and yearbook options by giving them a chance to win prizes in monthly drawings, simply for using those tactics.

Four winners were awarded prizes each month from September through April with prizes that ranged from a Nikon digital camera and a FlipCam camcorder, all the way to a $75 spending spree at Target and a pizza party from Pizza Hut.