How To Create An Award-Winning Viewbook: Girls Preparatory School

Chosen because Girls Preparatory School won Gold for Viewbook Overall in the 2022 Brilliance Awards. InspirED talked with Pamela Hammonds, Director of Communications and Marketing, to find out how they created this winner…in-house.

“A fantastic way to engage future students in the school selection process, presented in a way that captures so much personality about the school.”

— Brilliance Awards Judge's Comment

OPEN

Step 1: Target Your Audience

I’m sure you’ve asked yourself these questions at your school: Who is the view book’s audience? The parent? The child? Both? The messaging for these particular audiences is vastly different as is the messaging for upper school students vs. middle-schoolers.

Pamela Hammonds, Director of Communications and Marketing at Girls Preparatory School says, “So, we created three distinct viewbooks this year: parent, upper school, and middle school.”

Step 2: Speak Directly To Them

As a 6th- through 12th-grade day school, part of GPS’s admission strategy includes a robust futures marketing plan. The school previously sent a custom calendar to current fourth-graders in December to introduce girls to their campus—its curricular and cocurricular offerings and traditions. This piece won bronze in the 2022 Brilliance Awards.

The viewbooks were approached as an extension of this messaging. The format of personality quizzes became a way for girls to see themselves as students before they were even enrolled.

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Step 3: Develop Strategy and Execute Creative…In-House

GPS created the project(s) in-house with their 4-person team. “We began the brainstorming and content generation process over the summer,” says Pamela, “prioritizing the middle school version over the upper school viewbook because we find most of our upper school students tend to be later to the admission process.” The upper school viewbook was completed in the fall and mailed out in November. The print run was short — only 100 pieces — and, in spite of high paper costs, the outlay was $1,500.

Step 4: Garner Praise, Results, and Awards

GPS reports that throughout the admission process, feedback about the viewbooks was overwhelmingly positive. As a result of the team’s targeted efforts, the school saw a 30% increase in applications this year over last year.

“We are so proud of our MarComm Team for the amazing work they do to promote our school. Each time they create a new publication, it is more fabulous than the previous one, which is a feat in and of itself. Each publication truly gets to the heart of our school, our mission, and our girls. You can feel the energy, excitement, and engagement around you. We are truly lucky to have such a wonderful team who continually captures the heart of our school.”

— Lynne Macziewski, Associate Head of School

Step 5: Celebrate Your Team

from left: Caitlin Riddle, Lucy Blancett, Pamela Hammonds, and Rachael Land.

“We were all excited to be recognized externally for our work. We are lucky to have a lot of internal support from school leadership, but to be able to share with our community international recognition was very uplifting.”

— THE GIRLS PREPARATORY VIEWBOOK TEAM

Congratulations, GPS! You are brilliant!

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TEAM
Pamela Hammonds, Director of Communications and Marketing
Caitlin Riddle, Associate Director of Communications and Marketing
Lucy Blancett, Marketing Communications Manager
Rachael Land, Digital Marketing and Communications Manager

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