Library marketers want to make sure that their entire community knows everything the library has to offer. That’s a tall order.
Is it even possible? I have some advice about that today that may surprise you. We’ll get into it in this episode.
Plus we’ll give away kudos to a library that created a one-of-a-kind QR code with a complimentary campaign to educate the community about their offerings!
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know here. And 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. You can also follow me on the following social media platforms:
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. You can also follow me on the following social media platforms:
One of my viewers is struggling with consistent messaging. They are wondering how to promote something across multiple channels without rewriting the text every single time!
This is a great question. And there’s a little trick you can use to save time and effort. I’ll share it with you in this episode.
Plus kudos go to a library for press coverage they received for their new RFID checkout stands. I’ll explain.
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know here. And thanks for watching!
Special note for viewers: The next episode of The Library Marketing Show will be released on Wednesday, June 5.
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. You can also follow me on the following social media platforms:
There’s some exciting new advice on how to create engagement on your library’s Facebook page. The 8 new tips are in this episode of the Library Marketing Show.
Plus kudos goes to an academic librarian who recently received a huge award!
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know here. And 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. You can also follow me on the following social media platforms:
“My office is where the Children’s Department used to be,” recalls Ann. “When I started working here 18 years ago, some of the librarians from my childhood still worked here, and I remember feeling excited to meet them on my first day, almost as if I were meeting celebrities.”
“I consider myself very lucky that I have been able to work in a library. It’s not hard to market a product you love.”
Ann is the library’s Marketing and Public Relations Manager. Her team includes a full-time graphic designer, a part-time writer, and an assistant. Her library has one location, which has a distinct benefit, according to Ann.
“It’s very easy to get information and collaborate with co-workers,” she notes. “I work closely with our director, and fortunately, our library did a strategic plan two years ago. It was quite a process, but it has made my job easier in that there is a clear path forward with our marketing efforts.”
Ann is a rare library marketer in that she and her team have been tracking metrics on her library promotions for nearly two decades!
“The metrics we gather have evolved over time with the advancements in technology,” explains Ann. “We are now able to gather more information about the tools we use to achieve our marketing goals. And the dashboards on targeted emailing, social media performance, and Google Analytics are very telling.”
That data not only informs the promotions that Ann and her colleagues create, but it also helps stakeholders to understand the value and impact of their library marketing.
“We share these reports with the Board of Trustees monthly to inform them about our work and how we make data-driven decisions,” says Ann. “This helps them better understand our department’s operations.”
“I used these reports to justify my department’s size and marketing efforts. Our reports also include the number of printed brochures, rack cards, bookmarks, and more we produce. I used this information to advocate for adding an electric trimmer, folder, banner printer, and our department’s industrial copier. I was able to justify these purchases when I compared them to outside costs and estimated saved staff time.”
Her team uses many tools to create reports and analyze monthly metrics, including their email dashboard, social media scheduling platform, and website analytics dashboard. The whole process takes about 8 hours from start to finish.
“You might think that sounds like a lot, but this is time and effort that’s well spent,” states Ann. “We analyze the results and plan our path forward with this information. We can see what’s working and just as importantly, what’s not. We can quickly adjust to make our time more productive and impactful.”
“Every time your leadership team reads these, you are documenting the value of what you are doing. Their importance cannot be overstated.”
Those metrics come in handy as Ann plans marketing for the rest of the year. Her library recently purchased a bookmobile and is creating a new Outreach department.
“Our department is responsible for creating the bookmobile wrap, which is fun!” exclaims Ann. “We are in the process of a massive parking lot reconfiguration and addition. And we are also doing a tear out and reconfiguration of our circulation department.”
“Keeping our customers informed and up to date with these changes has been our first priority. And it’s our 100th anniversary this year. We have our work cut out for us!”
For inspiration, Ann just keeps her eyes open all the time.
“I’m always looking for great design and marketing,” says Ann. “It’s all around us! And there’s some bad stuff too. The trick is how to incorporate the good in your library efforts.”
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I’m sure you’ve heard by now that U.S. President Joe Biden has signed a bill banning TikTok in the United States. What would that mean for your library marketing?
Now that the dust has settled a bit on the coverage of the ban, and speculation from experts, we’ll dive into it in this episode of The Library Marketing Show.
Plus kudos goes to a library that received a Peabody Award nomination for their short-form video content!
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know here. And 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. You can also follow me on the following social media platforms:
Photo courtesy Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library
This week, I’ll be able to see the world’s largest bottle of catsup. (Ketchup? Catsup? Is there a difference?)
When I learned that I’d be speaking at Reaching Forward South in Collinsville, Illinois, I Googled the area. That’s how I discovered the city is home to a 170-foot water tower shaped like a catsup bottle that just happens to be on the National Registry of Historic Places. It’s even got its own website and fan club.
If you’re like me, you do some strategic planning when you go on a trip. You decide to rent a vehicle or research public transportation. You purchase airline or train tickets and book a hotel. You pick restaurants to sample and decide which tourist attractions you’ll visit.
Some people just land in a city and let fates carry them where they may. (No shade from me. You do you!) I prefer planning because I don’t want to risk seeing or experiencing the best the area has to offer.
A plan, on vacation or in the library, sets clear goals and outcomes. It ensures your time, money, and energy are spent on the most valuable things. It gives you direction and purpose.
Marketing for a library works best when the promotions are tied to a library’s overall strategic plan. But that’s not always as easy as it sounds.
What is the difference between a strategic plan and a marketing plan?
A strategic plan defines targets and objectives for the entire library organization, including facilities, human resources, reader services, youth services, outreach, and more.
A marketing plan outlines your initiatives to support your library’s strategic plan. It clearly defines the collection items, programs, and services you’ll promote, who you’ll target, and how you’ll target them to reach your library’s overall goals.
In a perfect world, every library would have a strategic plan with clearly defined objectives and goals that are specific, measurable, actionable, relevant, and timely (SMART).
But…
If your library lacks a strategic plan, has a strategic plan that’s very vague without clear goals, or is in the middle of creating one (that can be a lengthy process), you may feel stuck and directionless. How do you know what you should be promoting?
What to do when you have very little direction
You can ask your library director or board of directors what they want to accomplish. Without a strategic plan as a guide, you must understand the director’s and the board’s goals.
Even basic statements like “We want to increase program attendance by 25 percent” or “We want to make sure every child has a library card” will guide your marketing.
If you don’t feel comfortable approaching senior leadership, ask your supervisor to step in. Stress the importance of a cohesive plan for moving forward in all areas of your library. This really is the cornerstone of your work.
Once you know the goals of your library, it’s time to create your marketing plan.
Step 1: Define your marketing goals.
Lay out exactly how you’ll help those overall library goals be reached.
For example, let’s say your library has a goal to partner with schools to ensure all third graders in your town are reading at grade level. Your marketing goal might be:
Increase the participation in our library’s 3rd-grade reading program by 25 percent within the next 12 months, as measured by the number of 3rd-grade students enrolled and actively engaging with the program materials and resources.
Step 2: Write down what you know about the community you serve.
Marketers call this a “situation analysis.” This will give you a starting point for your strategy. Ask yourself:
What does your typical cardholder do with their card?
Where do they live?
How do they view your competitors?
How does your library currently fulfill a unique position in your community?
Step 3: Create a list of all your tactics and assets.
Write down all the channels you use to promote your library. This list should include every social media platform you use, every website your library owns, and every print publication you send out, plus emails, print collateral, influencers, in-person events, press releases, podcasts, and videos.
Step 4: Set goals for each tactic and asset.
Let’s say one of your goals is to make sure job seekers in your community use career resources at the library. And let’s say you have a print newsletter that you send every quarter to all the residents of your community.
Look at the specific marketing goal you created in step one. Underneath that, you might write:
“In each issue of our newsletter, we will feature a cardholder who used our library’s services to advance their own career, such as by taking our GED course or using our online job resume builder. We’ll do at least one story on library work as a career. Every quarter, we’ll highlight a service or program that will help our cardholders reach their career goals.”
Step 5: Populate an editorial calendar for the next 12 months.
Now it’s time to plan content topics and themes for each month that will work to reach your goals. Planning a calendar for a full year makes it easy to coordinate promotions across channels. And it will help your supervisor and coworkers to understand what you’ll be doing, when, and why.
You may end up moving things around as you go through the year. That’s okay!
Step 6: Measure success and failure.
Accurately document the results of every promotion you do. This will help you to adjust your strategy next year.
Sometimes you won’t have a clear understanding of what’s working and what’s not working until you see the actual results in numbers on a paper in front of your nose.
One final note of encouragement
Don’t be discouraged if you don’t reach all of your goals. Marketing is an experiment. Sometimes the stuff you do will work, sometimes it won’t. Don’t repeat the things that don’t work! Spend more energy on the things that do work.
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. You can also follow me on the following social media platforms:
There’s a specific library marketing task that I admit I personally struggle to make time to do. It’s complicated and tedious. But it is so important that I dedicate this episode to it. Note: scroll to the 2:00 mark for a special message for managers of library marketers.
Plus, kudos go to a library that got press coverage of a fun event that didn’t involve any “real” visitors to the library!
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know here. And 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. You can also follow me on the following social media platforms:
Not long ago, I got back in the social media game posting for the company I work for, NoveList. Very quickly, I remembered how difficult it is to get organic reach on regular Facebook feed posts!
But then I learned two little tricks that take me about 30 seconds a day. They work! So I’m going to share them with you in this episode
Plus, kudos go to a library that got national press coverage for an initiative to get people back into their physical branches.
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know here. And 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. You can also follow me on the following social media platforms:
Super Library Marketing: Practical Tips and Ideas for Library Promotion 