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Similar to Marketing Your Library: 40+ Tips and Tools to Promote Library Resources
Similar to Marketing Your Library: 40+ Tips and Tools to Promote Library Resources (20)
Marketing Your Library: 40+ Tips and Tools to Promote Library Resources
- 1. Marketing Your Library Heroes, Tips & Tools to Promote Libraries and Resources
- 2. We Share the Challenge Today’s economy, and evolving roles for libraries and librarians, mean doing more with much less Today’s student – the digital native – defaults to the open Web for research Many adults (and jobseekers) unaware of the range of services that libraries offer Need targeted, high-impact, low-cost ways to reach and engage customers/users
- 3. Goals of this Session Prepare you to increase awareness of the value of your library and its online resources by covering: How various marketing approaches can work together to attract and engage users Tools to educate users about library databases – how they are more reliable and comprehensive than free Web
- 5. Create or provide the products/services that each group wants
- 6. Publicize or promote product/services so groups know you offer what they want
- 8. User Needs Hero:Brian Mathews Champion of user experience, library design-thinking at Georgia Tech, now at UC/Santa Barbara Author, Marketing Today’s Academic Library ALA Edition, 2009 Articles: American Libraries, Library Journal, C&RL News Blogs: Ubiquitous Librarian; Designing Better Libraries www.brianmathews.com
- 9. Customer Behavior Hero:Anastasia Goodstein Youth marketing expert focused on new media Blog: Ypulse Article: School Library Journal May 2008 Keynote: Michigan Library Assoc 2007 Author, Totally Wired: What Teens & Tweens are Really Doing Online St. Martin’s Press 2007
- 10. Next, Segment Customers Columbus Metropolitan Library Used customer observation study to track behavior, then cluster analysis to segment into “personas” to inform marketing strategy
- 11. Segmentation and Branding Hero:Alison Circle CML’s director of marketing Formerly with Jack Morton Worldwide branding (on Target account); Minnesota Public Radio, marketing Prairie Home Companion Blog: Bubble Room Library Journal
- 13. How can you build a better capability to reach to each group?
- 15. Basic Approaches: Push/Pull To push your message out to customers, choose such tactics as: --Publicity --Advertising & Promotion --Events Results are short-term, good for introducing new services, databases; recruiting Friends
- 16. Push: Timing is Key Farmington (MI) Community Library Friends of the Library send member outreach mailings at holiday and tax time, and include time-based incentives … 2009 membership increased 40%
- 17. Pull: for Long-Term Results Pull customers closer to further inform and engage: -- Website, blogs -- Opt-in e-mail Newsletters, RSS feeds/Alerts -- On-site promotion of collections/services/virtual library (fliers, posters, etc.) -- How-to’s (database demos, user guides)
- 18. Pull: Use Site to Start Conversation The University of Toledo Libraries polls students on aspects of library use and reports results weekly
- 19. Define Objectives and Measure Optimum to set goals, measure progress toward strategic plan Measuring can be as simple as Events: use registration process, send follow- up (inform about RSS feeds, alert system for further info). Count heads and opt-ins. Promotions: drive response to website, use Google analytics, other free software to track response.
- 20. Define Objectives and Measure Bloomington (IL) Public Library One of many to use Individual ROI Calculator for patrons to determine their view of library worth, measure customer satisfaction
- 21. “When you’re low on money… “… marketing is one of the last things you should cut from your budget.” - Kathy Dempsey, Marketing Library Services Newsletter May/June 2009 Five Ways Marketing Can Cut Costs Use customer input to confidently determine which services to keep and which to cut Use better marketing and promotion to tell folks about what you’ve already got Save training time by creating quick tutorials or videos Make your website work for all it’s worth Lean more on your colleagues and consortia
- 22. “True Marketing” Hero:Kathy Dempsey Library marketing consultant, firm is Libraries Are Essential Editor, Information Today Blogger, The ’M’ Word – Marketing Libraries The Accidental Library Marketer Information Today 2009
- 23. Think out of the box Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library -- Job Search Kit
- 24. Partnerships Work Camden (NJ) County Library System partners with SCORE – Service Corps of Retired Executives – to mentor small businesses as part of its “Your Library, Your Lifeline” initiative
- 25. Social Media: Ask Teens to Help Penguin UK recruited teens to build its site on “the life inside books”—they named it Spinebreakers.
- 26. ProQuest Marketing Toolkits Versions for academic, public, K-12, corporate, and military libraries--on www.proquest.com Detailed “How-to” Guides
- 28. Easy navigation from school’s home page?
- 30. Add a search bar/widget
- 32. Develop a survey/offer a suggestion box
- 34. Keep your library events and happenings current
- 38. Local TV stations & cable accessMake them friends, keep them informed - Don’t just send releases… - Do invite for tours, events
- 40. Connect your announcement with current events.
- 41. What’s unique about the new database? Why did the library spend the budget on it?
- 42. How will the database impact library users?
- 43. Incite a response with your headline – be bold!
- 44. State “the Five W’s” up front: Who, What, When, Where and Why
- 47. Questions? Thank you.
Editor's Notes
- (talk through bullets)What do you need? MARKETINGRe: last bullet… we’ll touch on a range of library types today. I’ll use the terms ‘customer’… ‘user’… ‘patron’… and ‘student’, please know that they all refer to our marketing target.Technically, someone becomes a “customer” when they visit your library more than once. Until then, they’re a prospective customer or “prospect”
- [talk through bullets]
- [Talk thru bullet points]You could jump in at the “promote” stage of the process, but it won’t be as effective as when you start from the top. Marketing professionals find it extremely helpful to create a plan, and then work the plan.
- [talk thru slide]—need to add a bit more on conclusions/how usedThe DNA Project was the passion of user experience librarian Brian Mathews, who recently moved from Georgia to UC/Santa Barbara [change slide]
- [add a bit more color about Brian and his passion, any results]
- If you’re a school librarian or media specialist, to reach students you need to be where they are: on social media. Anastasia Goodstein has some great insights on tweens and teens as customers. She is author of the Ypulse blog, which chronicles areas where marketing and popular teen culture overlap—that’s a very specialized area and Forbes magazine named it “Best of the Web”. She wrote a great article last year for School Library Journal, and was keynote speaker for the Michigan Library Association.
- http://www.libraryjournal.com/flashVideo/element_id/2140319089/taxid/33552.html
- Use techniques such as publicity (news releases to local community or campus media—low cost, labor only. Have others promote an event or service for youadvertising (in vehicles most targeted to your community), but always with a “call to action” promoting something specific for readers to do to come to the library or your websiteevents (get them inside with something fun)
- At holiday and tax-prep time, people are rightly budget conscious… but they still can be convinced to join or renew their Friends of the Library membership.The Farmington (Michigan) Community Library sends a simple letter with a direct appeal for membership, highlighting the ways the library helps people--especially during a tight economy. They normally just include a reply envelope that also lists Friends benefits.Recently, someone donated a number of autographed books, and the Library used them in a raffle to encourage response within a two-week period. Both the renewal mailing and the new-member solicitation saw several hundred immediate replies, and with these two mailings the Library increased Friends membership from 900 to 1400 members (even with an increase in membership dues).
- Once you have your broad objectives identified, it’s time to turn them into a marketing plan.
- cite the source of the ROI calculator. It originally comes from Chelmsford Public Library in Massachusetts. Brian Herzog developed it and then the Maine State Library reformatted it and cleaned it up in 2006.
- Describe contents of job search kitAlso mention example from Sioux City Library – Letter Promoting Job Search Resources. Bring letter to the library and they waive all fines.
- http://www.spinebreakers.co.uk/Pages/Home.aspxEnlist teens to manage your social media. Even if your library already has its own Web site or page, have them set up a MySpace profile or create a Facebook page for your library. Students can also help you upload videos and photos, or add widgets and other Web applications. The U.K. division of Penguin Books has taken things one step further: it has recruited kids between the ages of 13 and 18 to run its new teen Web site, Spinebreakers.
- Not just the templates in downloadable Word format, but also directions on how to get materials in hands of the media