The Library Marketing Show, Episode 155: In this episode, I want to share the early results of ongoing research in Poland about how non-library users view the library.
This research is being conducted with the help of mystery shoppers, who are asked to go into a library and perform a specific task. After their experience, they are interviewed.
The results are fascinating. I’ll share some topline findings and ideas for how to counter these results with smart library promotions.
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!
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Photo of the Old Main Library reading room for the blind, courtesy Cincinnati & Hamilton County Library
The Town Hall Library in North Lake, Wisconsin occupies a quaint white building with black shutters that looks like it might have once been a church. It serves a population of about 10,000 residents and its website says it’s “known for its friendly service and varied collection”.
The library’s summer reading program has two more weeks to go. But Town Hall Library is already taking the data from the program and putting it to use in its promotions.
The Library created a Facebook post that leads to an infographic, which lays out the number of participants, visitors, programs, and pages or books read in plain, easy-to-understand details.
Libraries have long counted circulation statistics, program attendance, minutes logged during summer reading, and the number of visitors who walk in and out of their building on any given day.
They’ve taken those stats and created videos and infographics. They’ve used those numbers to win awards. And they share that data to prove their value to their community, donors, legislators, and whoever controls their budget.
I wish libraries would measure their digital marketing with the same dedication. That data is crucial to figuring out which library promotions are working.
Metrics are the key to confidence in library marketing.
When I ask libraries if they measure their digital promotions, here are the three most common answers I receive.
“Measurement is hard.”
“We think we’re reaching our community.”
“It seems like our promotions are effective.”
My co-workers often describe me as “a data nerd.” And it’s true. But I’ll share a secret with you. My love of numbers is rooted in insecurity.
That’s because promoting your library can be scary. I often don’t know exactly which of my choices will work.
And when I’m facing a decision that could either lead me to a successful promotion or a total failure, I lean on the numbers to help me decide.
If you are not tracking the results of your digital library marketing, you are setting yourself up for failure. You may think you are doing a decent job.
But the only way to know if you are truly connecting with your community is through the consistent measurement of your digital promotions.
Measurement of digital library marketing is necessary and transformative.
Metrics are a game changer for your digital marketing.
They tell you what is working so you can replicate that success. They tell you what isn’t working so you can stop doing those things.
They give you the proof, in the form of data, to back up your decisions. They can justify more budget for things you need to reach your audience.
And most important, data holds information about when and where your specific audience wants to receive promotional messages from your library. You’ll also learn their favorite types of content.
Digital marketing metrics every library must track
On a basic level, every library should consistently track the following metrics.
Email
Open rate: the percentage of people who receive your email and open it.
Click-thru rate: the percent of people who click on something inside your email.
Actions taken by email subscribers: did they register for a program, check out a book, or use a database after receiving your email?
Social media
Reach: total number of people who see your content.
Impressions: the number of times your content is displayed. Impressions will always be higher than reach because your content may be displayed more than once to the same people. That might sound like a waste of time. But a high impression count means the social media platform you are using thinks your content is so good, that they want to make certain people see it!
Engagement: the number of times people take an action, such as liking, commenting, or sharing your post.
Website
Number of visitors to your website
Number of new visitors versus the number of returning visitors
The length of time visitors spend on your website
Traffic sources that determine how visitors find your website
What this data will reveal about your digital library promotions
At the basic level, measuring your promotions will ensure that you are using your valuable time and energy in the place where it will be the most effective.
Data can also help you make sure you create more effective promotions! Leslie Marinelli is Communications Manager at Forsyth County Public Library. She’s been closely monitoring the data around her email marketing.
She noticed her library’s subscriber list got smaller and smaller each month, even though her library was signing up a substantial number of new cardholders every month.
Because she was monitoring her email metrics, she was able to uncover a hole in her subscriber list process. Fixing that process led to an increase in subscribers to her email list each month. And that means more people in her community will discover what the library can offer them.
Make measurement part of your daily library work schedule.
Block off five minutes in every workday to gather or analyze the metrics of your marketing and promotions. Honestly, it only takes five minutes a day.
Check the basic numbers listed above. Every. Single. Day.
Pretty soon, you’ll notice patterns. You’ll be able to predict the types of content that get the most engagement. You might also notice that promotions on certain days of the week get better results.
At the end of your first month, ask yourself what is working and what isn’t. And adjust your promotions accordingly.
Tracking metrics will lead to more effective promotions. It’s that simple!
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email every time I post. To do that, enter your email address and click on the “Follow” button in the lower left-hand corner of the page.
The Library Marketing Show, Episode 154: In this episode, I will share how your library CAN compete with Amazon for readers!
A study by two researchers from Portland, Oregon shows us why readers prefer Amazon.
But libraries can win those readers back with some simple changes. I’ll show you what the researchers said libraries need to do to compete with Amazon.
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 every time 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
Imagine for a moment that you are walking down a city street, minding your own business when you see the clown Pennywise.
That’s right. The terrifying lead character from the Stephen King film “It,” remade and re-released in 2017, is hanging out in your city.
Now, what if I told you that the reason this horrifying clown was roaming the streets was to promote a library event?
Yea, that’s the reaction I had too.
But a library in St. Petersburg, Russia really went this route. And you know what? It worked.
The library used the wandering horror film character as a chance to draw attention to their Stephen King Festival. Someone dressed as Pennywise “would walk through the city, frightening passers-by and informing them about the upcoming festival.”
Honestly, I would never have approved this when I was working as a marketing manager in a library.
But it worked for this library. Because the media found out about the Pennywise clown stalking pedestrians. The clown, and the library, were covered in the press. We’re talking about dozens of outlets.
And that’s how people found out about the event. That led to record attendance. The library said 800 people showed up for the festival, more than four times what they had expected.
How do you draw attendance without scaring your community
Promoting your library is difficult. Events, renovations, new services, and additions to your collection cost money. They come with high expectations and goals. They require months of planning. The pressure to prove the value of your work to your community is high.
But there are things you can do to increase the likelihood your library gets noticed. This list does not include having someone dressed as a horror character wandering around your city or town.
But you know, I’ve learned a lesson from reading about the Friends Library. Sometimes you must be bold to get results.
Use storytelling to capture attention.
The first step is to think differently about the way you promote your library to the world. You want to capture the attention of your community, your cardholders, and the media. Telling a great story is a powerful and effective way to do this.
Your promotions need to do more than list off the details about your library. You want to set up the reason why your community should use your services. You want a memorable, compelling way to convey the valueof your work.
A simple storytelling formula begins with the people.
Talk with the library staff and community members about whatever you are trying to promote. If you’re focused on a big event, follow the organizers around for a bit as they attend meetings, make calls, and get materials ready for the big day.
Interview a community member who is benefiting from the event, service, or collection item. If you are promoting a project that involves a partner or sponsor, get an interview from those organizations.
You don’t have to do a full-length Barbara Walters-style interrogation. You can ask a few simple questions that will add color and humanity to your promotion.
Here are some interview tips.
Write down your questions ahead of time.
Ask open-ended questions like, “Why did you sponsor this event?” or “Tell me why the library is offering this new service to our community.”
Actively listen and ask follow-up questions.
End the interview by asking if there is anything else the interviewee wants to say that you haven’t covered.
Once you have all your interviews, it’s time to write.
Focus on the characters, not the library.
Put all the quotes you want to use into your document. Then, work the details of the event into your story where it’s appropriate. Before you know it, you have a compelling piece that you can use to promote your event on social media, in email, and in print.
Guille-Alles Public Library is on the island of Guernsey, just off the coast of Normandy. And they work with Storybook Dads, a charity that helps incarcerated parents stay connected to their families by recording a bedtime story for their children. The Library’s Outreach Team has been working with Guernsey Prison for several years to provide books and readers’ advisory support for people convicted of crimes on the island.
To show the value of their work and to make sure their community knew about this project, the library wrote a compelling story. It featured interviews with library staff and incarcerated fathers.
The logical place to put this story is on your library blog. Another option is to create a landing page on your website and post your story. You want your work somewhere where you can easily share a link, preferably on your own website.
Housing your story on your website has an added benefit. You’ll also be rewarded by Google, which will pick up you keywords in your post and start showing the post in search results for anyone looking for those keywords. Google doesn’t catch keywords on PDF or Word document press releases posted to a website.
If you are not allowed to post your story on your own website, you can post your story on Facebook or on LinkedIn as an article. Both social media outlets offer you plenty of space. Facebook gives you 60,000+ characters, which can be roughly 8-10,000 words. LinkedIn articles give you twice that amount!
Share your story link everywhere.
Your library has an available audience on a variety of platforms. Now it’s time to make sure they read your story!
Send an eblast to your cardholders and include the link.
Share the link on your other social media platforms.
Make bookmarks that include a few sentences teasing your article and a shortened URL. Insert those bookmarks in all your holds and checkouts leading up to your event. Share the bookmarks with your partner organizations.
And send a link to your story to your media contacts in a personalized email. I know it takes longer to send an email to each media contact than to send one mass email, but it’s worth it.
Here are some tips for writing the perfect pitch to journalists by email.
Keep the body short but personalized. Address the journalist by name.
Keep the subject line short and simple but intriguing.
Get to your point quickly and include the link to your story.
Explain why news of your upcoming event is beneficial to that media outlet.
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email every time I post. To do that, enter your email address and click on the “Follow” button in the lower left-hand corner of the page.
The Library Marketing Show, Episode 153: In this episode, I will try to put to rest a question that continues to permeate the library marketing world.
Libraries are defenders of truth, democracy, and privacy. And in that noble quest, they sometimes hurt themselves by repeating the false myth that they cannot send emails to their patrons because it’s an invasion of privacy.
Email marketing is not an invasion of privacy. I’ll explain why and what you can do even if there are laws (not privacy-related!) that limit the amount of emails you can send.
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 every time 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
When I was a child, my first pet was a goldfish.
I named it Goldie. Totally original, I know.
Goldie lived in a glass bowl decorated with neon-colored rocks and a tiny treasure chest that opened and closed to release bubbles. I’m sure when I brought her home from the pet store, she thought she’d landed in some kind of 1980s pirate hell.
I liked to watch Goldie swim around her bowl. And she liked to watch me.
When I did my homework or practiced my instrument or danced around my room to Phil Collins, she swam to the side of her bowl and stared at me. She could do this for hours. It would have been creepy had she not been a fish.
The statistic that some say ruined marketing
In 2015, large news organizations, including Time,The New York Times, and The Telegraph reported a single, mind-blowing finding from a new study by Microsoft.
The average human being’s attention span has shrunk to just eight seconds, about the same as a goldfish.
By the way, in researching this post, I found this great blog post from the University of Melbourne about the intelligence of goldfish. Their attention span is way longer than eight seconds.
The reports were grossly inaccurate
It turns out that the news organizations were not actually quoting the results of the Microsoft study. A BBC reporter investigated the origin of the goldfish statistic in 2017.
“All those references lead back to a 2015 report by the Consumer Insights team of Microsoft Canada, who surveyed 2,000 Canadians and also studied the brain activity of 112 people as they carried out various tasks. However, the figure that everyone picked up on – about our shrinking attention spans – did not actually come from Microsoft’s research. It appears in the report, but with a citation for another source called Statistic Brain.”
Simon Maybin, BBC World Service
The goldfish comparison has since been removed from Statistic Brain. And the original study from Microsoft is no longer listed on their website.
But it was too late. The damage was done.
Marketers were told to create short, scannable promotions, use clickbait titles, and make sure our blogs and videos were “snackable.” Promotions began to all look the same.
Nothing stood out. Everything we created lacked depth and interest. And people actually paid less attention to us.
A better way to promote your library
It’s true that humans have difficulty dealing with distractions. But it’s also true that when we are consuming quality content, we can focus.
There are two kinds of attention. Transient attention is a short-term response to a stimulus that temporarily attracts us or distracts our attention. It comes into play when you read a billboard or a sign, or watch a TikTok video.
Then there is sustained attention. This describes your ability to focus on something for an extended period.
We use sustained attention when we binge-watch an entire season of Stranger Things in a single day, read a good book cover to cover in one sitting, or attend a concert, play, or sporting event.
Sustained attention is where great experiences are found. It is also the basis for information processing and cognitive development. It is where real connections are made.
That means that if you can engage your cardholders’ sustained attention, your marketing will be memorable. And memorable marketing is more effective.
How do we do this exactly?
There are circumstances in which you will need to create short promotions that appeal to transient attention. Social media is a perfect example. So are printed signs. A few, well-written but interesting sentences, and an eye-catching design are required for those formats.
But many of your library promotions should aim for the sustained attention of your cardholders. Blog posts and videos are perfect examples.
These pieces of content should be as long as they need to be to tell a good story. That means you can create a video that runs 8 minutes or write a blog post that is more than 1000 words, as long as they are interesting and compelling. They must also contain two key features.
Emotion: The joy of finding a book, the fear of not getting a job, the frustration of another night of homework without any help… these are all emotions felt by our library’s customers. Other people can relate to these experiences and empathize. Emotion activates many portions of the brain, including the sensory, memory, and empathy sectors. The more active the brain is while consuming content, the more likely it is that the listener or reader will remember the story.
Conflict and a resolution. Your sustained attention marketing must include some conflict and a problem or situation that is resolved. Without conflict, your story risks being flat and unmemorable.
How to get started
Pick one tactic to focus on. Your print or online newsletter is a perfect place to start. Take six months and watch as your audience transforms.
I’m speaking from experience here. In my former library job, I turned our print program calendar into a magazine filled with stories.
It took our community members about 10 to 15 minutes to read the magazine. That’s time they spent thinking about the library, empathizing with the patrons and staff in our stories, and committing our stories to memory.
And guess what happened? Our circulation increased. Database usage grew. Our brand awareness grew. We passed a levy to fund renovations to old libraries.
Podcasts are also a perfect example of long-form library content that holds attention. Most episodes last between 20 to 30 minutes. That’s an invaluable time in which you are talking directly to your community!
Your cardholders aren’t goldfish. They are real people with attention spans that can be used to our advantage. You can help them to make a lasting and meaningful connection to the library with longer, interesting, memorable content.
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How many times have you been asked the question: which do you prefer most, print or digital books?
For me, the answer is… yes. Both.
I am not unusual. The Pew Research Center questions Americans about their reading habits and preferred book format every year. The survey for 2021 shows there are plenty of readers just like me who read both print and digital formats. Here are the topline numbers:
75 percent of adults in the United States read a book in some format over the last year.
33 percent say they read both print books and eBooks.
Nine percent say they only read eBooks or audiobooks.
And, although libraries don’t sell titles, book sales provide more evidence of our readers’ format preference.
Sales of print books increased in 2021 by about 9 percent.
eBook sales decreased, but that was to be expected after skyrocketing during the 2020 pandemic.
Audiobook sales continue to rise, up six percent in 2021 over the previous year.
The bottom line is that readers love to read. When they’re searching for a title, many readers want to get their hands on it in whatever format it’s available, as quickly as they can.
Who are these cross-format readers?
One email company I know has a name for people who read both digital and print books. They call them “transitionals”. But I think that’s not an entirely accurate way to describe cross-format readers.
First, most people are not transitioning from one format to the next. They are using both.
Secondly, that term lends an air of credibility to the notion that your print and digital collection are two separate things that need to be marketed in two separate ways. But they are not.
The collection is the collection, no matter what format our community members use. And the reasons they read both digital and print formats are opportunities for our marketing.
Remember, if your community is checking out books in all formats, circulation numbers will increase for your library. And you’ll be fostering a deeper level of engagement for these readers.
They’ll become dependent on your library for their reading material. And they’re more likely to volunteer, donate, and advocate for your library.
Cross-promote readalikes using context clues during in-person interactions.
Most people who visit your physical library branch are there to check out print. But you can cross-promote readalikes in digital formats to these readers.
To do this, look at your current print circulation statistics. Identify the three genres or topics of physical books most often checked out by your patrons. Next, create a bookmark or a quarter sheet flyer with three readalike suggestions for each of these topics. Specifically suggest your readalikes in a digital format.
Or, instead of suggesting three specific titles on your print piece, create a booklist of readalikes in digital format on your website. Your readalike bookmark or flyer should include a shortened URL link that leads to your online booklist.
When you see someone checking out print materials that might match your digital readalikes, hand them your digital readalike bookmark or flyer. Or slip the bookmark or flyer into holds.
You can also cross-promote print readalikes to your digital readers. Most digital format vendors will let you download the email addresses for your eBook and audiobook users.
Pull those lists and then send an email to those digital users promoting readalike titles, both new and backlist, in print formats.
Remember if you live in the US, you are not breaking any laws by emailing patrons, even if they don’t opt-in to an email. In fact, they expect you to market to them.
If they don’t want to receive emails from your library, they will opt-out. The overwhelming majority will appreciate your reading suggestions.
Libraries outside of the U.S. can add a section to their library news email to promote their digital and print collection. Use a link that allows your readers to check out your book suggestions in whatever format they prefer.
Make sure you track holds and checkouts of the titles you promote in your emails. That will give you data to help you make decisions about what to promote next. It will also be proof of the effectiveness of your work.
In my experience, one collection-based email a month can drive a circulation increase on average from 125 percent to 375 percent!
Include a digital option for your physical library book displays.
A patron who visits your library and sees your display may want to read those books in digital format. You can serve that patron by including a small sign or a bookmark with a QR code that allows readers to check out those same books in digital formats.
Offer titles in the format with a shorter wait list.
A few weeks ago, a staffer at my library was helping me search for a book I’d been wanting to read. She mentioned the holds list for the title was shorter for the audiobook version than for the print or eBook versions.
I honestly appreciated that! It’s a simple thing, but it’s good customer service. It gets books into the hands of your patrons more quickly and drives circulation.
Promote the benefits of each format.
In library marketing, we often focus on the title itself. But the format is a promotional opportunity too.
People find it easier to retain information when they read print. Readers also talk about the tangible experience of a print book: the feel and smell of it.
This is an opportunity for you to create experience-based marketing. Talk about the physical and emotional experiences readers have when they read print materials.
Likewise, you can talk about the benefits of digital formats in your promotions. eBooks let readers adjust font and background color for accessibility. They take up less physical space and they’re automatically returned at the end of a loan period. And audiobooks allow readers to get lost in a book while doing something else like exercising or cleaning.
Incorporate these features into your collection promotion. Your marketing will resonate with readers who feel comfortable jumping between formats.
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email every time I post. To do that, enter your email address and click on the “Follow” button in the lower left-hand corner of the page.
The Library Marketing Show, Episode 151: In this episode, I’ll introduce you to a new social media platform launched by the AARP called Senior Planet Community.
This is an excellent promotional opportunity for libraries. I’ll share what I’ve learned about this new site.
Kudos in this episode go to the Racine Public Library. 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 every time 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
Self-absorbed. Screen-obsessed. Entitled. Lazy. Those are just four of the many stereotypes I’ve heard about young adults.
I’ve raised two Gen-Zers. My daughters, now aged 18 and 22, are hardworking and socially conscious. They set boundaries for their work-life balance. They have an easier time setting down their phones than I do. And they read books from the library.
Their generation and the one before them (Millennials) are the subjects of a study by two researchers from Portland State University. I first learned the results at ALA 2022. This is one of the only studies that shed light on this key demographic’s reading and library habits.
Dr. Rachel Noorda and Kathi Inman Berens’ findings are part of a larger study that included questions about video games, publishing piracy, and TV and movie-watching habits. Noorda and Berens’ drilled down on the results of about 2,000 Millennial and Gen-Z respondents who were part of their original study.
Anyone born between 1981 and 1996 is considered a Millennial. Anyone born from 1997 onward is Gen Z.
Pew Research Center
Noorda and Berens made a lot of fascinating discoveries, some of which I’ll cover in an upcoming episode of The Library Marketing Show. Here are five key implications their research has on your library marketing.
Millennials and Gen Z toggle between virtual and physical spaces.
What this means for library marketing: Don’t make the mistake of thinking that all your promotions aimed at Millennials and Gen Z need to be in the digital space.
92 percent of people in this age group check social media every day. But 54 percent have visited a physical library location in the last 12 months. That compares with 45 percent of Gen Xers (born between 1965 and 1980), 43 percent of Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964), and 36 percent of the Silent Generation (born before 1945).
Remember the Rule of 7 marketing principle: it takes an average of seven exposures to your marketing message before a person will act on it. The rule is less about the number. It means you must promote your library services, collection, and events more than once on multiple channels.
You’ll want to check your platform insights to identify the preferred digital platforms for these two age groups. For most libraries, you’ll likely discover that your Gen Z and Millennial patrons prefer TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and email.
And they love print materials, especially mail! This article has lots of great stats about young adults’ attitudes toward print promotions. It’s clear that postcards, brochures, and magazine-style pieces, must be part of your marketing aimed at Millennials and Gen Z.
For more tips on communication with Gen Z and Millennials, watch this:
Millennials and Gen Z reader get their book recommendations from many places including the public library and online library catalogs.
What this means for your library marketing: Collection marketing and readers’ advisory must be a part of your strategic promotions. We want young adults to turn to your library for expert reading recommendations. That will help your library to build loyal users in these two generations.
Booklists need to be front and center on your library’s website. Book recommendations should make up most of your library’s promotions aimed at young adults. And if your library offers personalized readers’ advisory, you should be promoting it specifically targeted to this generation.
Millennials and Gen Z prefer print, eBooks, and audiobooks… in that order.
What this means for your library marketing: Your collection marketing promotions aimed at young adults should include cross-promotion of titles and formats.
The study respondents told Noorda and Berens that they are deterred from checking out digital items by long wait times. So, if there is a shorter wait list for holds in another format, offer a choice. And include read-alikes in multiple formats when the holds list is long.
Don’t feel conflictedabout promoting both your print and your digital collections. Over time, promoting print and digital offerings on a consistent basis will drive home the idea that your library is focused on the wants and needs of your community.
Coming up next week: Key points about digital and print reading habits that will help you create effective promotions of both formats!
1 in 3 members of this demographic bought a book they first found in a library.
What this means for your library marketing: Author events at libraries drive book sales. But publishers have no idea that we are helping them make money.
Most libraries work with authors, not publishers, to schedule events. As a result, publishers are often unaware of library events’ positive impact on sales. They need to know that your work is having a positive impact on sales for these two generations.
Your library needs to track, measure, and communicate your full impact on book sales back to publishers. Develop a media kit that defines the audience of the event, and the actual monetary value of promotional platforms like email, social media, and press coverage. Once the event is over, send that data to the publisher directly.
Millennials and Gen Z readers are motivated to read by escape, self-improvement, and social connection.
What this means for your library marketing: This study uncovered the psychographic motivations of these two generations. Those pieces of information are the key to compelling marketing messages.
The words you use, the images you use, and the emotions you create with your promotions should be focused on evoking these motivations. Think about how you craft your messages to activate the things young adults care about.
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Super Library Marketing: Practical Tips and Ideas for Library Promotion 