School spirit wear is a long-standing tradition. It not only is a great tool for motivating and bonding a community together, it gives students a sense of pride and ownership. When a community wears their spirit wear, they are committing themselves to be successful. Not to mention, your organization can make some serious money. It’s a win-win! Here are some spirit wear ideas for your school to help make your spirit wear sales a year-long success!
Spirit Wear Prepping Starts in the Spring
It’s spring time and schools are already prepping for next fall. Spirit wear is definitely a project that needs to be worked on starting in spring and into summer. Think about holding a graphics or artwork contest to get your students involved. You can prize the winner with new school swag for next year. If not, seek out a parent within your community that does graphics. Nothing beats tapping into a local resource!
School Spirit is All About the Merch
When one thinks of school spirit wear, you often think of t-shirts. But don’t stop there. There are so many options these days: hoodies, water bottles, hair bows and headbands, socks, antennae toppers, license plates, bumper stickers, spirit sticks, shoelaces, hats, temporary tattoos, and for the current times, masks! Seek local print shops and crafters for certain items. They’ll want to support your school and in exchange you can tag them and give them a shoutout in social media or in your newsletter on your spirit days.
Properly Promoting Your Spirit Wear is the Key to Success
Build Excitement in Your School Community
Get your community excited about the new school year starting in summer. By the time the last few weeks roll around, parents are excited to send their kids back (whoo hoo!). The kids might be dreading the early wake ups, but seeing some fun new spirit wear can help get them in the mood (fingers crossed). This is why it benefits you to start prepping in the spring giving time for graphic re-works, printing, manufacturing, and getting it in your ordering system, if you are planning to handle it yourself. We can help you with this with our online sales forms that allow you to control inventory so you never oversell!
Show Off the Goods AND Gift Your Teachers at the Same Time--
Multi-tasking at its Finest!
Think about gifting your teachers and staff. There are no better advertisements than your entire faculty walking around in the new spirit wear. This will not only help you promote it, it will be a great gift to your teachers and staff that is affordable and a thank you that goes a long way.
Be Sure to Model Your Spirit Wear
Ask your committee members and board to purchase their spirit wear early. Then, grab some super cute kids and families and snap pics of them sporting the latest and greatest in school spirit! Post on your social media pages, newsletter, and your website. Don’t forget the power of your principal’s voice. Ask to take a picture of your principal in and with the new line and have them send an email out to your families with info on how and when to purchase. Sneak peek teasers sent via social media drum up interest for your store launch date too!
Tips to Remember When It Comes to Selling
Online, table set-up, forms, or flyers–any way you can sell it, sell it! If you are handling the inventory yourself, using an online platform like Membership Toolkit can be a great way to do so easily. Posting the link on any and all flyers (digital or hard copies) to get that link across to everyone will benefit your bottom line. Set up tables (if you are able to with health guidelines) at Back-to-School Night, events, and Open House. Later in the year, think about hosting a spirit wear blowout sale. All things $5!! We’ve done this every year at my kiddos’ school towards the end of the year and have not only cleared out old inventory of some random items, but we’ve made a mighty good profit doing so!
All School Spirit Days
You should have one Spirit Day every week. Maybe fun day Friday is your day. Or, maybe it’s Monday, so your parents don’t have to think about what their student is going to wear. Color war spirit days are a fun way to collectively show school spirit. Group your spirit wear by colors and grades and give shout outs during assemblies. Make sure to snap pics of the kids in their spirit wear to post on social media (if allowed), or on your internal newsletter to show off the excitement of Spirit Days! They are always a fun and easy way to bring your community together.
Any way you wear it, school spirit is a good thing inside and out. Good for the soul of your school, and along the way, you can raise some dough that will help you check off your list of “many things to fund” for the year.
