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.
In this episode, I share some tips for how to use your library’s FAQ’s into marketing opportunities. This idea can be a great way to establish your library as a place of answers.. And it can help you fill holes in your promotional schedule with valuable content.
Kudos in this episode go to Eileen Button of Genesee Public Library who wrote an open love letter to libraries that made me a little teary-eyed!
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know by clicking on the feedback tab.
And subscribe to this series to get a new video tip for libraries each week. Thanks for watching!
If you want your community members to do something, you must tell them what you want them to do. Explicitly.
That means you must add an amazing call to action for every promotional piece you create.
What Is a Call to Action?
A Call to Action, or a CTA, is a phrase that is used to tell the someone exactly what action to take and how to take it. It also implicitly provides the motivation for the recipient to take the action.
A CTA can be as simple as two words “Read Now.” It may be longer: “Want to take the next step in your career? Take a free career assessment test on our library’s website.”
It may be a link to your website, catalog, chat service, or email box. It may tell community members to call a special phone number to speak with a librarian or visit a certain desk at the library to talk with staff.
The call to action gives the person consuming the promotional material the instructions for taking the next step to use library resources. It must be strong, clear, and commanding.
For most of us, the CTA is the last thing we think about when creating a promotional piece. Staff put their time and energy into creating the layout, adding the right image, making sure all the text details are correct, and timing the promotion for the perfect release.
But I encourage you to spend some time thinking through your CTAs early in the process of creating any marketing piece. Here are seven tips to remember when you create a CTA for any piece. Practice going through this list every time you do a promotion.
Use positive, active language in your call to action.
Think of your CTA like a commandment. If you could order your community member to do something, what would you say?
Some examples of positive, active language which apply to libraries are:
Read
Watch
Download
Create
Join
Learn
Donate
Explore
Discover
Enter
You can also add a sense of urgency to your CTAs by adding the word “Now” as in “Read Now” or “Watch Now”.
Make your call to action as concise as possible.
For emails and digital signage try to keep your CTA between one and three words.
For flyers, bookmarks, posters, and videos, you can add a few more words like:
Register for this program
Place a hold on this book
Reserve your spot
Get the details
Sign up now
Read our step-by-step guide
For social media posts, a full sentence is good. But, on social media, put your sentence-long CTA into the text of your post, not as text inside the graphic or image you are attaching. If your CTA is in the image, use the one-to-three-word rule.
For blog posts, your CTA can be a longform sentence. Consider using bold text to draw the eye to that sentence. Or you can use a button (see the section on buttons below).
Try using the first person.
The marketing agency Unbounce did a fascinating study on CTAs and found that changing the text from the second person (“Register your child today”) to the first person (“Register my child today”) resulted in a 90 percent increase in clicks.
Your library can experiment using CTAs that say, “Reserve my spot” or “Get my personalized reading recommendations.” You may find that the change makes a difference in the number of people who take an action after seeing your promotional message.
Putyour call to action in a brightly colored box or circle.
There is something psychological about the look of a button that will compel your recipients to click on it.
The color of the button matters. You want something that’s eye-catching. You may be limited in your color choices depending on your library’s brand standards.
But, if you have room to experiment, read this fascinating post from marketing expert Neil Patel on color psychology. Then decide what kind of emotion or energy you want your CTA button to convey and choose the corresponding color.
CTA buttons work best in emails and newsletters. But try them also in promotions where you can’t click on a button, like bookmarks, flyers, posters, and digital sign promotions. The button will still serve the purpose of setting your CTA apart from the rest of the piece.
Put your call to action in the top one-third of whatever piece you are creating.
Moving your CTA “above the fold” as it’s called in the newspaper and magazine business, calls attention to the action you wish for your recipient to take.
Add white space to the area around your call to action.
The extra white space helps create a visual break and draws the reader’s attention right where you want it. Extra white space is also good for anyone reading your digital library promotional piece on a mobile device. It creates a clear area for fingers to click.
Try to use as few calls to action as possible.
You’ll want to focus the energy of your reader on the next action you wish for them to take. If you offer them too many potential actions, they’ll be overwhelmed and less likely to do anything!
For most promotional pieces, you’ll want only one CTA. This rule includes CTAs for email, digital signage, flyers, posters, bookmarks, social media posts, and videos.
The exceptions are blog posts and newsletters. For blog posts, my personal experience is that two or three CTAs work best. For newsletters, try to offer no more than five CTAs.
Did you notice where I took my own advice in this blog post?
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In this episode, I answer a viewer question from Natasha Buran of Thousand Oaks Library. She asked, “I was curious if you’ve seen other libraries use ‘Revue’ – Twitter’s newsletter tool for writers and publishers. I thought it would be interesting to add monthly programs or resources and pin it to our profile. I haven’t seen libraries use this feature before and thought I’d ask.”
I gave my answer in the video. This is just my opinion of course!
Kudos in this episode go to the Topeka-Shawnee County Public Library. They recently opened a resource center for community members without a computer or internet access.
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know by clicking on the feedback button. And subscribe to this series to get a new video tip for libraries each week.
Use the feedback button to share your most pressing email marketing question. I’ll answer these in a future blog post!
I love opening the “reports” tab on an email platform. There is a second or two of anticipation as the page loads that brings me a thrill.
What will the numbers say? Will they be better or worse than last month? Will they reveal a new trend that I can use to better serve my target audience?
I realize I sound a little nuts. But honestly, I love metrics.
They are clear and concise. They show you what’s working and what’s not working. They give you permission to stop doing promotions that don’t help your library at all. If you try something new, they’ll tell you whether your idea worked or not.
Tracked over time, email metrics will help you to take the 30,000-foot view of your library marketing. You can see if your emails are doing what they are supposed to do… moving your library toward its overall strategic goals.
There is a lot we could measure in terms of email marketing. It would be easy to get lost in the quagmire of numbers and analysis.
So, I want you to focus on four data points that really matter to library email marketing. Use these metrics to determine whether your messages are connecting with your audience and promoting your library’s overall strategic goals. And don’t miss the bonus tip at the end of this list!
“Email is the only place where people, not algorithms, are in control.”
Ann Handley, writer, digital marketing pioneer, and Wall Street Journal best-selling author
1. Increase of raw circulation numbers.
Record the number of checkouts and holds before you send the message and then again after the message is sent. You can generally wait about three days to check those numbers. Cardholders who want to act on an email will do so within a three-day period of receiving it.
What this metric will tell you: Raw circulation numbers will likely be of interest to anyone in collection development at your library. They are also the basis for the next two metrics, which will help you compare the effectiveness of your emails.
2. Percentage increase in circulation.
Once you start collecting data on raw holds and checkout increases, you will want to calculate the percentage increase in circulation.
Let’s say on Monday, you send an email promoting one specific eBook. Before you send the email, you note that there are currently three holds or checkouts of this eBook. When you check on Tuesday, there are four new holds or checkouts placed on the eBook. In total, there are now seven holds or checkouts on this item.
Use percentagecalculator.net to calculate the percentage increase in circulation. For this example, we use the third calculation tool on the page:
That’s a 133 percent increase in circulation.
Now, the next week, you decide to send another email promoting a different eBook. But this time, the eBook you choose to promote has 15 holds or copies before the email is sent. When you check 24 hours after sending the email, there are 10 new holds or checkouts. In total, there are now 25 holds or checkouts on the eBook.
The raw numbers for the second email are bigger (an increase of 4 holds/checkouts vs. an increase of 10 holds/checkouts). But the percentage increase for the second email is actually smaller, at 66%! That means email #1 was more effective.
What this metric will tell you: Percentage increase in circulation lets you compare your promotions more accurately. If you are short on time, this kind of comparison will help you determine which promotions will give you the most success with your limited resources.
3. Conversion rate.
This is the percentage of people who took an action after receiving your email.
Let’s pretend that you’ve sent an email to 1000 people. The email promotes a streaming video on your library website that hasn’t had any views in the past couple of weeks.
When you check the streaming statistics for that video, you see that 25 people watched the video in the days immediately after you sent the email.
Using the second tool on our percentage calculator website, you can calculate the percentage of people who “converted” or took an action after your email.
What this metric will tell you: If you start tracking conversion rates on your emails, over time you’ll have a clear picture of the types of emails your audience responds to. You’ll be able to establish a good base percentage for your audience. This number will be different for every library.
If you are short on time, this metric will help you determine which promotions will give you the most success with your limited resources. When you find a certain type of email promotion works based on conversion rate, you should do it more often.
4. Amount of traffic driven to your website.
Track how much traffic is funneled to your public website by your emails. You can use Google Analytics to analyze how efforts on those platform translates into action by your cardholders. If you’ve never worked with Google Analytics, here is an easy guide to get you started.
What this metric will tell you: This is an important metric to share with administration, because it clearly demonstrates the value of the time and energy you have invested in email marketing.
Special bonus tip!
If you promote the same collection item or booklist on social media, email, and your website, put some space between those three promotions. A week is a good amount of time. That allows you to really pinpoint whether your increase in circulation is coming from email, your placement of the item on your website, or social media.
In fact, that’s a fun experiment to run. Can you drive higher circulation numbers by promoting your collection on your website, email, or social media?
You can even get more granular: which social media platform is best for collection promotion? Which page on your website is best for placing collection promotions? Which email list responds best? See, this is fun!
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This is the 100th episode of the Library Marketing Show. It’s a celebration of YOU… the person who does marketing and promotions at your library.
I think you are amazing and awesome, and I’m sharing the five reasons why library marketing is the best job at the library.
And Kudos in this episode go to… you! Thank you for your comments, feedback, ideas, and support. The library marketing community is gracious and warm and wonderful, and I’m proud to be a part of it.
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 video tip for libraries each week.
Thanks for watching!
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email every time I post. To do that, click on the “Follow” button in the bottom left-hand corner of the page.
In this episode we cover three top social media stories that affect library marketing.
The stories includes a Twitter function allows you to un-tag your library from a thread, a story about how Instagram is testing “fanclub” stories, and news about a new Facebook features that tests public comments on Facebook stories.
Kudos goes to Karen Jensen of Teen Librarian Toolbox for speaking out against the narrative of “the library is more than just books!”
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 video tip for libraries each week.
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email every time I post. To do that, click on the “Follow” button in the bottom left-hand corner of the page.
Photo courtesy Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. Click on the image to visit their digital library.
For most libraries, the end of the fiscal year is here. I think this is the perfect time to implement two new areas of focus for library promotions.
As discussed last week, libraries are at a critical moment. As we emerge into the post-pandemic world, we should not go back to doing things the way we were doing them before the crisis. That includes the way we do marketing and promotions.
Libraries need to start thinking beyond simply churning out flyers, posters, emails, and social media posts. We must devote time and energy to two primary areas of marketing focus: customer service and content marketing.
Here’s why.
Excellent customer service as marketing
We can create the truly engaged library cardholder by offering consistent, personal support.
Customer service is an extension of marketing because nothing compares to the first-hand experience of a real person having a great experience with your library, and then sharing that experience with their friends and family.
Customers are comparing you to every other customer experience they have. Expectations are high.
A library with frontline staff who are friendly, courteous, and dedicated to personalized assistance will hold the key to customer retention. You want to retain cardholders because it’s less expensive and takes less resources to retain engaged and active patrons than it takes to get new cardholders.
The good news is that most libraries excel at customer service. There are two ways to take those excellent, basic skills to the next level so you can create those loyal customers.
Respond as quickly as possible to patrons, wherever they interact with your library
Customer service consultant STELLAService released a report a few months ago that found that 62 percent of companies ignore customer service emails. The average wait time for a customer service email is 12 hours! And only 20 percent of companies follow up to see if their original answer was satisfactory for the customer.
This is an area where libraries can do better than for-profit brands.
Make it a priority at your library to answer every email, phone call, and chat request in a timely manner.
Institute a policy to send a follow-up email or make a follow-up phone call to ensure that the original answers you gave to the patron are satisfactory.
For instance, if a parent requests a book bundle for their child, be sure to send them an email or call them a few days after they’ve picked up their hold to see if their child is enjoying the books you provided. Keep a spreadsheet where you can make notes about what the patron liked and disliked.
The next time that person calls the library for help, your front-line staff can consult that database and provide more valuable help to that patron.
That kind of deeply personal customer service is the best kind of marketing you can do because it builds a relationship with the patron that is meaningful and shows that you are deeply committed to creating the best library customer experience possible.
Listen to your community
To provide the most meaningful services, collection, and programs, we need to know exactly who is using the library and how they are using it. We must also anticipate our community needs.
You can do this by enlisting front line staff to ask three simple questions during every patron interaction for a three-week period.
How could the library better help you this year?
What services do you love?
What services do you need?
The answers will give you valuable insight into the services your library can provide that will truly create an engaged community.
If you notice a service that isn’t mentioned by patrons in these interactions, consider dropping that service, even if it’s been something you’ve been doing for a long while. You want to provide what your community wants and needs.
You can also survey patrons by email. If you’ve never created a survey before,this post will help you.
Content marketing deepens community relations
Content marketing is promoting your library, not through advertisements or push promotions, but through education.
By providing answers to your community’s main questions, your library builds trust and loyalty. People will come to see your institution as a valuable resource with services that can’t be replicated by other institutions.
Content marketing breaks through the noise and the clutter by providing compelling, useful information for your cardholder. It addresses whatever pain points your cardholders have. It positions your library as the go-to place for information. It builds trust.
And through content marketing, your library gets a better and deeper understanding of your cardholders. You can use that understanding to do an even better job of addressing your cardholders needs. It’s a constant circle of giving. It carries more weight for a longer period than a flier or a poster.
You don’t have to be a trained marketer to understand how content marketing works. In fact, my contention is this: since more library marketing departments are run by trained librarians, you’ll do better at implementing a content marketing strategy at your library than most people with a marketing degree.
You tell stories. You read stories. You review stories. You love stories. You’re the perfect person to tell stories about your library, its staff, and its users.
Stories stick. A good story will stay in your brain longer than a good ad. And once you’ve told a great story, your cardholders will remember your brand. Stories build a connection which leads to customer loyalty, which leads to customer action.
Next week: Content marketing basics for libraries: easy ideas about how and where to tell stories about your library to deepen community loyalty.
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email every time I post. To do that, click on the “Follow” button in the bottom left-hand corner of the page.
In this episode, I’ll explain what an email drip campaign is, why you might want to use a drip campaign for library promotions, and then HOW to actually put the campaign together!
Kudos goes to Barbara Swinn of York Libraries for her British Empire Medal!
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 video tip for libraries each week.
Thanks for watching!
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email every time I post. To do that, click on the “Follow” button in the bottom left-hand corner of the page. Connect with me on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, andLinkedIn.
I mean, you might as well ask me to explain the meaning of life. (I’m kidding. Please don’t ask me that question.)
There are two ways to define engagement in your library promotional efforts.
Transactional Engagement
One way to talk about engagement in library marketing is solely centered on numbers.
How many likes, shares, comments, and direct messages do your social media posts get? What is the open and click through rate of your emails? How many people signed up to attend your program based on the flyer you slipped into their checkout? How many people used a database after you mentioned it at your last program?
These hard numbers are measurable and easy to explain. They demonstrate that your community sees your marketing. They take an action.
Transactional engagement is data that proves people are interacting with your library marketing.
Relationship Engagement
But engagement cannot, and should not, be solely defined by the hard numbers. It must also be the ongoing relationship building that your library does with patrons.
People may be opening your emails and clicking on your social media posts. They’re checking out books and using your services.
But more importantly, how do they feel about your library long term?
Engagement must involve building a deeper relationship with your patrons over time. When that happens, the relationship will manifest itself in ways that go beyond hard numbers.
This is the real value of your library. Your cardholders will not only use the library more, but they’ll also donate more, volunteer more, speak out to support you more often, and influence others to use the library.
If this relationship building has not been in your list of priorities, you’re not alone. A study by Chief Marketing Officer found that most marketers fail to nurture long-term relationships. Instead, they focus more on the transactional nature of engagement.
That’s because transactional engagement is easy to measure. You can take those metrics to your supervisor and to the board. You can prove what you’re doing is effective. And you can feel good about your work.
It’s far more difficult to explain to your library administrators and stakeholders that you are building a lifelong emotional connection and loyalty with your community. It is hard to convince them that this is important. It’s also difficult to measure this work.
And building relationships doesn’t happen overnight. Libraries may feel they don’t have the luxury of devoting time to this work.
But we must. And we must do that right now.
Why this is the moment to focus on relationship building
Libraries are at a crossroads. I cannot stress this strongly enough: as we emerge into the post-pandemic world, we should not go back to doing things the way we were doing them before the crisis.
Libraries were already facing budget cuts, apathy, and accusations of irrelevancy. And that was before the pandemic forced us into lockdown and severed tenuous ties with our community by physically separating us from our customers.
The pandemic forced us to take our service models in a whole new direction. We proved that we can pivot.
We should use this opportunity to move our marketing in a new direction too. We cannot let the fear of doing something different keep us from making the bold changes needed to move into a real position of success.
Libraries should use this time to turn their sights on building loyalty. We’re going to need it to survive in the post-pandemic world.
Relationship engagement is the key. When we focus on building loyalty, we’ll learn more about our communities. We can put those discoveries to use to create services that actually solve problems. We can provide the services our community needs, not the services we *think* they need.
Yes, I know this sounds a little aspirational and far-fetched
Now, when I gave this answers to the folks who asked me do define engagement, I could see the look of skepticism on the faces of some of my peers. And I understand why.
We are just coming out a major life changing event. Most libraries think they must be solely focused on trying to get their circulation and usage numbers back up to pre-pandemic levels.
But I think this is a chance to do something bigger. This moment is an opportunity that comes once in a lifetime.
Library staffers often seek to find the deeper meaning of the work they are doing. They want to know that their jobs are having an impact on the community. If we focus on building sustainable relationships of loyalty and trust with our community, staff will feel like they are contributing to the library’s overall goals in a meaningful way.
How does relationship building work in a real library?
Let’s say your library does personalized reading suggestions. Staff members may view their work as transactional. A reader asks for a suggestion and answers a few questions. The library staffer sends them a list of suggested books based on their reading preferences. Interaction complete.
To turn this from solely a transactional interaction to a relationship building interaction, the library staff member could write a personal email or note to the reader, to explain why they chose these particular books. A few weeks later, the staff member could reach out to the reader to ask for their thoughts about the selections. Did they like them? Which books did they check out? Did they learn anything new about what they like to read?
This interaction takes longer but it’s more meaningful. It shows that the library cares about the person and strives to provide the best customer service possible. And that’s how you build loyalty in your community.
Here are more ideas that will help you take transactional library interactions and turn them into relationship building engagement.
By the way, this weekend, I heard someone say they believe the meaning of life is for us to help each other get to wherever we are going next.
That view has a connection to the work you do at your library, don’t you agree?
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Super Library Marketing: Practical Tips and Ideas for Library Promotion 