Marketing and Engagement
Advertisement Sales
The Emery, unfortunately, is not a school-funded paper. We paid off debt as we returned to school in the fall of 2021. It was tough to sell ads during the pandemic since many businesses were also heavily impacted. Last year we sold plenty of ads, thanks to the direction of our business manager, Visruth (Vis) Rajendiran. Since Vis graduated, there was no one who showed interest or motivation to fulfill the place and help guide that, as most are seniors who need English credit.
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As EIC, I encouraged and made sure every editor (including myself) and staff writers contact businesses and sell an ad. Below is the spreadsheet we use to track ad sales.
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Listening to the people
I found that the student body liked a balance of visually appealing graphics AND good quality photos in a newspaper. Additionally, from the Spartan Critique we received last year, from the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association, the main recommendation was to incorporate more photos and fewer graphics as well!
New copies of the paper/issue are gone much more quicker now than before.
Click below to compare our third issue from 2021, which is super graphic-heavy and 2022 which is more balanced.
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Last year, as ME, I found out a lot of people were frustrated since around four to five stories were being jumped from in-print to our online website. This year as EIC -- unless it's an in-depth story -- I made sure that almost all of our stories would be placed, without a jump and I achieved just that! I even started putting a QR code on our front page, so there would be more traction on our website and people can scan the code instead of taking more time to search up, "thehuronemery.com."
This was the first issue, I introduced the QR code and it is there on almost all of our issues.
My friend, Varshini, reads the newspaper, hot off the press. I attend school about an hour early to pass out the paper as people are coming in.
It's been a vision of mine, since my sophomore year to start an "Under the Arch," series. Huron is known for being shaped as an Arch, so I love the title. It's personality profiles of students at Huron, past the Humans of Huron Q/A we have. It was nice to see know my peers loved the idea and designed and wrote in Issue 2. I can't wait to include more "under the arch" series in our upcoming issues.
I was promoting our latest issue during lunch holding up the paper, as we promoted the dance we were going to hold. We gain quite a lot of traction at lunch and pass out the paper just as people enter the school coming from the bus. Here, I am wearing the mask in the picture and had a blast promoting our issue. Due to Michigan weather, we had to cancel it and reschedule it to the end of April.
Online Coverage
Ultimately breaking news coverage is what draws the majority of our audience to our social media platforms. Our live tweeting and sports coverage also provides traction to our website. Due to the content we produce, which the student body seeks, our website and social media platforms have grown so much. As journalists, we story tell and seek the truth, which is enough to gain a lot of traction from our student body. In fact, our Assistant Principal Michael Sumerton only reads The Emery.
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Besides are the analytics of the website and then Instagram. We curate posts based on these analytics. This is what I exactly did when I posted the teaser of the Editorial Eats episode 1.
Yearbook Marketing
For marketing, the yearbook, I, alongside other staff members have taken the time to tape candies to sheets of paper with the QR code to buy them. One would say, "Don't be a dumdum, buy a yearbook." We also promoted on several of our social media platforms -- on TikTok, Instagram, and even Facebook.
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We also created several Valentine's day hearts for every class in school to promote the yearbook.
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I also edited this yearbook promo video using CapCut for the first time. We had a yearbook editor and sports editor of a Newspaper participate in this video. As we plan on publishing the video soon. I used several effects provided by cap cut and the song "Fabulous" from High School Musical does not break any copyright rules due to the audio being established/a part of Instagram reels, which we will make sure to add when we post the Yearbook promo video.
