Angela Hursh leads an outstanding team of marketing and training professionals at NoveList, a company dedicated to helping libraries reach readers. A 2023 Library Journal Mover & Shaker, she has also created courses on LearnwithNoveList.com designed to help library staff learn how to create effective marketing. Before her job at NoveList, Angela led the content marketing team for the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. She also has more than 20 years of experience as an Emmy-award-winning broadcast TV journalist.
The Library Marketing Show, Episode 161: In the wake of Hurricane Ian, libraries around the world should take the time to update their crisis communication plans.
Most libraries put a crisis plan into place during the pandemic. But if you haven’t revisited and revised the document since then, you could be in trouble.
Disaster strikes every library. We’ll talk through the things you need to update in your plan.
Kudos in this episode go to the Boone County Library. Watch the video to find out why they’re being recognized.
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know in the comments.
And subscribe to this series to get a new weekly video tip for libraries. Thanks for watching!
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email whenever I post. To do that, enter your email address and click on the “Follow” button in the lower left-hand corner of the page.
Photo Courtesy Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County
The first time I went to a conference, I made a plan.
I decided which sessions I would attend weeks before the conference began. I studied the floor map of the convention center so I could plot the best way to get from room to room. I made a list of local restaurants and tourist attractions within walking distance of my hotel so that I could make the most of my free time.
Am I bonkers? Nope. I am a planner.
A plan provides a guide for action. It ensures goals are met and time and resources are used wisely.
There are times when spontaneity is called for. But library marketing is not one of them. A marketing plan is key for the success of any type of library promotion.
What exactly is a library marketing plan?
A library marketing plan is a tool you use to help to achieve your library’s overall goals. It lays out the steps involved in getting a promotion out into the world. It helps you decide how and when promotional work will be done for a pre-determined time in a specific way.
A library marketing plan also ensures everyone knows the end goal of your marketing efforts. It sets deadlines. It keeps people accountable. And it clarifies how you will measure your results.
You don’t need a plan for everything you promote at your library. You do need a plan if you are creating a campaign that lasts for more than several weeks.
How to put your marketing plan together
Scroll down to the bottom of this post for a list of free project planning websites. They will help you with the execution of your plan. At the bottom of this post, you’ll also find a customizable template to download. It’s based off the library marketing plan spreadsheet I used for years.
Know the thing you are promoting inside and out.
Be sure you can answer every single question about the thing you are promoting. You must become an expert on the event, service, or item you will promote.
Ask yourself, what problem will this solve for my patrons? How easy is it to use? What are the features that can’t be found at any of my competitors?
Clearly define your end goal.
Use the SMART goal framework to ensure you and your co-workers know exactly what you are aiming to achieve. SMART goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely.
So, if you are looking to increase brand awareness, set an actual, measurable end goal like: “Within the next 6 months, we want 50 percent of residents living within a 30-mile radius of our Main Library to know that we have renovated the building and to be able to name at least one new service available at the library.”
Determine your target audience.
Many library marketers say their target audience is “our cardholders.” Be more specific.
Ask yourself:
Which cardholders?
How old are they?
How often do they use the library?
Fill out your picture of your target audience with as many demographic characteristics as you can. This gives you and everyone working on the plan a picture of who you are trying to reach.
Analyze your competitors.
Research anyone providing a similar program, service, or product. Ask:
What are they doing well?
What are they doing poorly?
What are the things that differentiate your library from their business?
These are your marketing advantages. You can use this information to create messaging that tells your target audience why they should use your library service, instead of a competitor.
Create the message.
Get the message or elevator pitch for your promotion set. It’s the most important part of your plan. You need it to create all the tactics you will use to promote your library.
Choose your tactics.
Go through all the available channels at your disposal for marketing and decide which ones will work best to reach your end goals.
You do not have to use everything that’s available to you. Sometimes, a video will work well and sometimes an email will do a better job. Not every promotion needs print materials, a press release, or a digital sign.
You know best how your target audience reacts to each tactic and which will bring you the best results. If you have a budget, decide how you’ll spend it during this step.
Set the schedule.
Every library has a different approach to its promotional schedule. I am a fan of tiered distribution of marketing. The approach takes advantage of a consumer cycle of excitement. Here’s how it works:
Release one or two promotional tactics at the beginning of your promotional cycle, like a social media post and a press release. The promotion gets some play, and excitement builds in the consumer base. It gets shared and people talk about it… and then the excitement dies out.
Release the second tactic, like an email, and the people who see the email get excited and start talking about it and sharing it, and then their excitement dies out.
Release a video, and that builds excitement and gets shared, and the excitement then dies out. And so on!
When you use the tiered distribution approach, you get a longer promotional thread. Your promotions will be more successful because the excitement around them builds over time, not in one big burst.
It is also easier on the person running the marketing! It gives you a small break in between each tactic and creates time for you to measure the success of each tactic individually.
Assign tasks.
Delegate jobs and deadlines for appropriate staff. If you need help from another library department, assign their deadline now so they have plenty of time to get you the information you need.
Measure results.
Don’t forget to measure and record the reaction to each piece of your marketing plan. Analyze what worked and what did not, so you can put that knowledge to use next time.
Free or cheap project management solutions
Clickup: the free plan will work for small libraries. The unlimited plan is very affordable and would work well for medium to large libraries.
SmartSheet: their lowest plan tier is a little more expensive than ClickUp but has more integrations.
Asana: this is what my employer NoveList uses. It makes is easy to assign tasks and deadlines.
Marketing plan template
I’ve created a customizable marketing plan spreadsheet. It includes my suggestions for the timing of promotional tactics for an event or service promotion.
You can delete or add columns based on the tactics available to your library and the size of your library. Download it here.
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In this episode, I have three whopper social media headlines to share.
First, there is new insight into the Facebook and Instagram algorithm. What does this mean for your library? We’ll talk it through.
The second headline is making me reconsider the advice I give to libraries. And the third piece of news is about a change that will make it easier for you to make your library promotions accessible.
Want to learn how to transcend social media algorithms? I’ve launched a self-paced course called Conquering Social Media: A Strategy for Libraries. And readers of my blog can use the discount code SUPERLIBRARYMARKETING at checkout to get 20 percent off!
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know in the comments.
And subscribe to this series to get a new weekly video tip for libraries.
Thanks for watching!
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email whenever I post. To do that, enter your email address and click on the “Follow” button in the lower left-hand corner of the page.
Photo courtesy Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library
Effective internal communication is incredibly important to the success of any library. But it’s hard to do successfully.
Last week, I shared advice from libraries that have had success communicating with staff and stakeholders using tactics like email. But a friend of mine went about it in a slightly different way.
He used his storytelling skills to improve communication between his marketing team and other library staff members. And in doing that, he built support and unified his library around common promotional goals.
Jacksonville is a large library, with a main location and 20 branches. Chris’s team manages all the marketing for the system, including the website, social media, podcast, graphics, and volunteers.
“Our work is governed by three things,” explains Chris. “Requests for marketing assistance from other departments (Public Services, Learning Services—centralized programming, and others), an annual promotional calendar that we create with input from Library Leadership and Library staff, and the needs of the Library Director to meet the library’s strategic and operational goals.”
Like many libraries, the marketing department at Jacksonville Public Library operated on an order-taking model. Library staff would request flyers, posters, bookmarks, social media mentions, or digital slides for an event or service they wanted to promote.
Those requests were often not what the audience would respond to. And Chris and his staff were left to talk their co-workers into finding a way to reach their target audiences.
“This built up a lot of conflict between marketing and the rest of the library,” remembers Chris. “People felt like we enjoyed declining their requests and were either finding ways to do less work or doing just the things we liked doing.”
Chris says his department realized the form that library staff was using to make requests was part of the problem.
“They were looking at it like an order sheet (because that’s what we gave them) and focused on the stuff, not what they were trying to actually achieve,” explains Chris. “So, we created a new process where instead of the order form, they fill out a questionnaire that asks:
What problem is this solving for the customer that wants this?
What does success look like for this thing?
Who is the target (and it can’t be everyone)?
This new focus helped the marketing department improve things, but Chris says the change wasn’t easy for everyone on the library staff.
“Many of the folks we work with had been doing the other request process for so long that it was very hard for them to give it up,” he recalls.
Then Chris had an idea. He asked for some time at the monthly manager’s meeting to review the process, ask about pain points and gaps, and share marketing’s vision for how promotions could improve at Jacksonville Public Library. There were also some misconceptions about marketing’s role that needed to be addressed.
“There was a long list of things,” says Chris. “There was a clear lack of trust with our internal clients. It needed to be addressed head-on.”
So, Chris carefully crafted a presentation that would give his coworkers a clear understanding of how his department worked to support them and the library. When the day arrived, he was a mix of emotions.
“I was worried that they weren’t going to receive what I had to say well,” recalls Chris. “But (I was) also excited because I was confident that I was going to show them lots of things they probably didn’t even realize we were doing to promote things, and I had data and results to back up the methods we use.”
“I used some of the tactics that Dr. JJ Peterson from Storybrand talks about in this podcast about speaking,” said Chris. “I started by saying that this is how they might feel when they are trying to get messages to customers – they’re shouting and shouting but getting no reaction.
“I said that we in Community Relations & Marketing often feel that way too, and I’m going to tell them what things we do to make that better. I also acknowledged that they might feel this way when working with us.”
“Next I set the situation: where we are, where we need to get to and how we can help each other meet these goals will follow. I talked about how important email is to get the right messages to the people who have the problem that we can help them solve.”
Chris used examples to explain how email marketing is working for his library, emphasizing the importance of collecting addresses to build their subscriber list. He also explained how the library and marketing can work together to solve problems for their community. And he positioned marketing tactics, like bookmarks, the website, blog, and flyers as ways to provide an exceptional customer experience.
“I saw a lot of head nodding, got a few laughs, a few looks of ‘oh, I get it now!’ recalls Chris. “I felt like this was making sense, especially the opening where I talked about their frustration with customers and with the marketing department. That frankness really seemed to help disarm everyone and set up a good conversation.”
It’s been a few months since his presentation, and Chris says he’s seen a positive impact. “Resistance to complete the new request forms has gone down, and my team is reporting more cooperation and less tension than before,” reports Chris. “It’s a long road but the more we keep delivering this message, the better.”
And now Chris’s presentation is part of his library’s new employee orientation. He’s also looking for chances to recognize library staff to foster a sense of community amongst workers and encourage them to find positive solutions together.
Chris has some great advice for libraries that want to make sure all staff understand and value the role of marketing. “Use every opportunity you can to inject your messages whenever talking with staff and leadership and try not to get hung up when people aren’t getting it,” advises Chris.
“Remember that in this scenario YOU are the guide, not the hero. Your staff are the heroes using the strategy and plan to find their success in helping customers. Celebrate every win even if it’s just a fist pump to yourself.”
“Lastly, when you find those staff members who get it, keep them in the loop and ask them for their advice and feedback. You’ll build wonderful allies and advocates.”
He also encourages you to connect with other library marketing staff members in the wider library world. “There is a wonderful community of support out there for those who market libraries,” explains Chris. “You will find that we are all experiencing the same frustrations and will be thrilled to learn of any breakthroughs no matter how small you might think they are.”
“It’s easy to feel like you’re all alone because you’re operating in a sea of people who largely share the same skills, experiences, and goals as each other (but different from you). They may seem like the enemy sometimes, but you can help them reduce wasted time and effort and really make a difference in your customers’ lives.”
“Reach out to Angela, me, and other library marketers and library marketing enthusiasts anytime you feel unsure, frustrated, or just want someone to share in your success. You got this. Seriously.”
Chris was also recently featured on the new podcast, “Library Marketing for Library Marketers“, hosted by Katie Rothley. Listen to his episode.
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In this episode of The Library Marketing Show, I’ll answer a question from the viewer about sharing original content from other creators on social media.
This viewer asked for clarification on the correct online etiquette for sharing content, specifically cartoons or memes, from another page. I have two tips that worked for me when I worked in a library plus advice from experts.
Kudos in this episode go to Saul Hernandez of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Public Library.
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know in the comments.
And subscribe to this series to get a new weekly video tip for libraries.
Thanks for watching!
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email whenever I post. To do that, enter your email address and click on the “Follow” button in the lower left-hand corner of the page.
Photo courtesy Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County
The library I worked for when I started this blog had an annual tradition. Every year, our staff would march in the Cincinnati Reds Opening Day parade.
Now, you must understand that Opening Day in Cincinnati is a holiday. Legitimately. And people look forward to the parade as much as they do the game. So, marching in it is incredibly exciting.
It was my job to organize the library’s entry every year. That involved getting library staff members to sign up to march in attire and carrying props that matched our summer reading theme.
You’d think that would be easy.
It was not.
Every year, I’d panic because I had too few staff members signed up to march. Then, staff would start calling me days before the parade, asking why they hadn’t heard about our library’s entry.
This happened because we had a messy, unorganized internal communications strategy. And that was dangerous.
If we were having problems getting information to staff about a fun event, we were really in trouble when it came to communicating the information they needed to do their work properly.
On this blog, we focus mainly on marketing and promotions aimed to reach your library community. But for the next two weeks, we’re going to turn our attention to a different audience: your staff.
Effective internal communication is incredibly important to the success of any library. Without it, staff feels disconnected from the library, their community, and each other. Morale can drop. Initiatives may not be successful when workers don’t feel like they understand the context and their role in the work.
And when library staff feel frustrated, they quit. Turnover is bad for your library. It costs you money and productivity.
But the people who really suffer in this equation are your community members.
That’s why every library, however big or small, needs an intentional internal communications plan.
Setting a realistic course of action
First, let me tell you from experience that an internal communications plan won’t magically transform the staff experience overnight. These things take time. But, if you create a solid plan and are consistent in your communications, you will see improvement.
You should approach this work just as you would for a customer-facing marketing campaign. First, you’ll want to answer some questions about the state of your library’s internal communications.
Ask:
Do you have a strategy? How effective is it?
What are your biggest strengths and weaknesses?
Who is currently involved in shaping and executing your current internal communications?
Who needs to be involved in improving those communications?
Next, you’ll want to determine your goals. Use the SMART goals framework to set your library up for success.
Your goals should be:
Specific: Define what you want to accomplish in clear, simple terms that everyone on your library staff, from front-line workers to senior leaders, can understand.
Measurable: Create milestones and targets that can help you see your progress toward each aspect of your goal.
Attainable: Set goals that are manageable and realistic.
Relevant: Create goals that develop your library staff members, serve your community, and connect to your library’s overall strategic plan.
Time-based: Create a specific timeframe for reaching your goals. This timeframe will ensure you are accountable to the staff. It will also prompt you to reflect on how your plan is progressing, and change direction if you encounter any issues.
Finally, you’ll want to decide how you’ll measure the success of your internal communications. You may want to measure:
Decrease in employee turnover
Increase in candidates applying for new jobs
Increase in staff workplace satisfaction
Increase in staff performance review ratings
Library staff is an audience
The next task is to uncover the best way to connect with your audience: the staff. What do they need to know? When do they need to know it? And how do they want that information delivered?
Jill Fuller is a Marketing and Communications Librarian for Bridges Library System. Her job involves a lot of communication with staff at various libraries in the system. And she uses surveys, like this one, to figure out what her audience wants to see in her staff emails.
“They have excellent open and click rates,” she explained, “but I wanted to get quantitative data too. I asked them questions about how helpful they were, whether they were relevant to their jobs, which topics they wanted me to focus on, the frequency and length of the emails, and more.”
“I never knew how much the emails were appreciated! With the data I gathered, I have been able to focus more on the topics the library staffs were most interested in and scaled the frequency down to every other week.”
Use Jill’s advice and create a survey to gauge the needs and preferences of your staff. Jill suggests you ask:
Their preferences for getting information
How they share system information with their staff or colleagues
Whether they feel they receive enough communication
Whether they feel the communication is accurate
How comfortable they feel contacting your library with questions.
Make the survey easy to fill out, and as short as possible. Let the staff know that the survey is their best way to share their thoughts about the direction your library should take with internal communications.
And give staff time to fill it out. It should be available for at least two weeks. You want a participation percentage of 80 percent or higher. Reminders in email, delivered by managers, and in signage in staff areas will help.
Even better, ask managers to set a meeting appointment on staff calendars for filling out the survey.
The benefit of a newsletter for internal library communications
If you have a lot of information to share, as Jill does, consider creating an internal library newsletter. Newsletters take what could have been multiple emails and condense them into a simple, easy-to-read format.
Cindy Starks is the Communications Coordinator for Coal City Public Library District, a small library southwest of Chicago, Illinois. They serve a population of 11,000 residents and have 22 employees.
After each monthly department heads meeting, it’s Cindy’s job to prepare a summary in a newsletter to staff called the Staff FYI Newsletter.
“The newsletter can be a lot of information to retain for staff,” admitted Cindy, “but by having it emailed they can refer to it at any time when they don’t remember something.”
Tips for a staff newsletter
Provide the right news and information. Carefully consider the kind of information your employees need. Try not to send too much information in one email, or too many emails.
Remember your calls to action. Encourage staff to take the next step, such as sharing information on social media, filling out a survey, or signing up for training or new initiatives.
Strengthen your subject lines. You want staff to open your emails, so consider your subject line just as you do for any email communication to patrons. Use emojis or power words to catch the attention of your staff.
Advice from a library
Grace Riario and Anita Baumann of Ramapo Catskill Public Library System send a newsletter six times per year to all library trustees serving on the Boards of their 47 member libraries.
They’ve got three pieces of advice for internal communications.
“Keep the text short and positive,” says Grace. “Pictures representing the topics are a must.”
“Lists, such as the three best things about being a library director, ensure that people will read that piece in your newsletter,” continued Grace.
“A third ‘strategy’ we employ is consistency in formatting and color palette,” shared Grace “Prominent display of the organization’s logo, as well as a uniform look and subject line in the email when it’s distributed help readers to recognize the material when it hits their inbox.”
Staff communication beyond emails
My library ended up adding an internal communications position to our ranks. That person attended meetings, created talking points for managers to explain new initiatives, and organized our internal staff website. She discovered our staff liked to hear the news directly from senior staff, so she started a weekly video series where senior leaders appeared in short videos to share information.
If your library cannot add a staff member specifically tasked with internal communications, there are still things you can do. Libraries can be very siloed and bureaucratic organizations. But the libraries that open those siloes and promote productive and meaningful conversations have success in internal communications.
This can be done by leaving space for question-and-answer sessions at the end of all-staff meetings. You can also add a Q and A board to your internal website. Encourage staff to ask questions and share information with each other.
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In this episode of The Library Marketing Show, we talk about one of the most frustrating parts of library promotions: getting approval for your work from your supervisors.
In my recent survey of readers and viewers of SuperLibraryMarketing.com, this was a common complaint: how do we create great work that passes inspection by supervisors? I’ll share tips that have worked for me!
Kudos in this episode go to the West End Library in Pennsylvania. Watch the video to see why they’re being recognized.
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know in the comments.
And subscribe to this series to get a new weekly video tip for libraries.
Thanks for watching!
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email whenever I post. To do that, enter your email address and click on the “Follow” button in the lower left-hand corner of the page.
Photo courtesy Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library
There’s nothing wrong with tooting your own horn.
A few months ago, I received an email from a library marketer nominating her library system for recognition in the “Kudos” segment on The Library Marketing Show. This particular project was so good, that it deserves an entire post.
Rebecca Kilde is the communication and marketing coordinator for IFLS Library System in western Wisconsin. She’s been with the system for five years and has a background in graphic design.
IFLS Library System covers ten counties with 53 libraries, mostly small, rural libraries. The libraries she served were facing a problem.
“My librarians were telling me that their visits weren’t bouncing back up to pre-pandemic levels,” recalled Rebecca. “There was some general confusion about whether libraries were even open.”
Rebecca Kilde, IFLS Library System
“Our libraries were open during almost all the last two and a half years and were important resources for some people in our communities. We didn’t want anyone to miss out on getting support from the library. We wanted our funding bodies to get that message as well.”
In the fall of 2021, Rebecca and her colleagues decided to explore a passport program system-wide. This program’s goal was to get people back into the library after the pandemic as well as educate people about the scope of their consortium services and benefits.
The idea was simple. All the libraries in the system had to have passports and entry forms available and a staff person to stamp passports and collect entry forms.
Setting a goal for any type of promotion is incredibly important to success. Rebecca had three things she wanted to accomplish.
First, Rebecca wanted patrons to experience the benefits of a library card firsthand. “We wanted to show how easy it is to check out and return items throughout our system,” she said. “We also wanted to send a clear message: Libraries are open, and libraries are fun!”
“Our app is new and includes navigation to all our locations in one handy spot, so this was a good opportunity to promote that. For our libraries, we wanted to increase circulation and engagement. A significant factor in support for library funding is having interacted with a librarian, so we built that in. We wanted people to engage with one of our wonderful librarians.”
Rebecca put her background in graphic design to work, creating a logo, a public-facing landing page on the system website, the passport, and marketing collateral.
“We printed enough for each library to get 25 passports,” explained Rebecca. “(We) sent them through courier as a kit that included a little rubber stamp, a stamp pad, signage, and a master sheet to make entry forms.”
Rebecca worked diligently to provide direction, content, and encouragement to her libraries. Each month, she emailed a marketing toolkit to all the participating libraries. The toolkit contained everything the libraries needed: a focused message; four social media posts with suggested messaging; updated posters; ideas from libraries, and comments from participants.
Some of the libraries took the passport program idea and ran with it. “Ellsworth handed out a water bottle with a bag of fun things that included a goat-milk soap sample from a local producer,” said Rebecca. “Clear Lake created prizes and a drawing of their own for their cardholders; Somerset ran out of their fun swag bags. Lots of libraries created great displays.”
The program was an outstanding success. Rebecca told me that over the course of the program, which ran from April 4 to July 15, participating libraries handed out more than 1500 passports and recorded more than 2800 stamps. Each of those stamps counts as one visit to the library. Nine people visited all 52 libraries!
Participating libraries saw robust circulation of travel-related items featured in library displays. Most libraries invited passport visitors to participate in other activities, like a scavenger hunt for kids in River Falls or library bingo in Menomonie. And they were able to identify some library super fans, who may become influencers in a future campaign.
Rebecca credits several factors for the success of the program, including timing and collaboration. “People were ready to go out and explore,” she explained. “And this was NOT a top-down promotion. It was library-driven the whole way.”
Rebecca has one final piece of advice for libraries looking to put together a successful program. Simplicity is key, she said. “We’re looking for ways to expand what the program offers without requiring a lot of extra work.”
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In this episode, I want to share some good news for libraries about something called Perfection Fatigue.
This is the idea that people don’t want to see your library in its most perfect form. They’re looking for something much more authentic. And that’s good news for libraries! I’ll explain why.
Kudos in this episode go to Escanaba Public Library. Watch the video to see why they’re being recognized.
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know in the comments.
Subscribe to this series to get a new weekly video tip for libraries.
Thanks for watching!
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email whenever I post. To do that, enter your email address and click on the “Follow” button in the lower left-hand corner of the page.
Super Library Marketing: Practical Tips and Ideas for Library Promotion 