In this episode, in light of last week’s Facebook and Instagram outage, we’ll look at the term “rented land.” And I’ll give you some alternatives to putting library marketing content on “land” that your library owns. 🙂
Kudos go to Sayville Public Library. Watch the video to see why they’re being highlighted.
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.
There is a romantic notion attached to wandering the stacks of the library, aimlessly lost in a sea of books for hours on end.
But for a portion of our community, efficiency is the name of the game. They’re hoping to pop into your branch, find what they need, and get out as quickly as possible.
This is especially true in the Next Normal. Some community members just don’t feel comfortable spending a lot of time inside our buildings.
That’s where wayfaring signage comes into play.
Wayfaring signs help direct human traffic, making it easy for people to navigate our buildings. But the signs can do more than move bodies.
Wayfaring signage is a key marketing opportunity for libraries. An efficient and well-planned system of directional signs will make it easier for visitors to discover new or underused portions of your collection or services.
Unfortunately, for many libraries, wayfaring signage is an afterthought. Creating the best signage seems intimidating.
But now, when library buildings are just reopening for full service, we have an opportune time to reimagine and reshape the way the public moves through and uses our physical libraries. And this work doesn’t have to be complicated.
Here are six tips to help you create the traffic flow that is best for your community, your staff, and your library statistics.
Start with a signage audit.
Your first step will be to go through your library and make a list of all the wayfaring signs you currently have. Take photos to go with your list so that you can have an accurate record of your current signage situation.
Next, study how people are using your space. Pick an hour each day for three days and sketch a “heat map” of people entering and exiting your library. You’ll use a blueprint or map of your library. Watch how people enter the building, move through the space, and exit. As they move, trace a line on your map to indicate where they’ve been.
Using your heat map, you’ll be able to see how your current signage is affecting the way people move through your branch. This will help you identify which parts of the building are underused. You can start to imagine how to configure your new signage to move people into those key areas.
For instance, if you have a heat map that shows people are drawn to your computers and your holds shelf but are missing your Makerspace or your fiction collection, you’ll want to consider how you can use wayfaring signage to change the traffic pattern and draw people to those underused spaces.
Less is more.
It seems counterintuitive, but you don’t want to label every single shelf in every single section of your library. Too many signs are a distraction–the eye doesn’t know where to look and the brain gets overloaded.
Use your signs to point customers to underused areas. And consider leaving the other spaces blank. If a space is already popular and your customers know how to reach it, it likely doesn’t need any wayfaring signage.
Rely on a simple, consistent design.
Your library’s brand is your starting point for great wayfaring signage. Your logo use, color selection, font style, and wording should all be within brand guidelines.
Next, decide whether you’ll incorporate symbols, arrows, words, or a mix of all three. Moderation is key, but a well-placed arrow can help ease confusion and build confidence in your timid customers.
If your library has more than one branch, standardize wayfaring signs and signage terminology for all locations. Your customers will know exactly what to look for, no matter which branch they visit.
If your library doesn’t have clear branding, remember this: good signage isn’t fancy. It’s functional. Use a simple, accessible font in a neutral color like white or black with a plain background to make the sign pop. A clean, simple design will also add longevity to your signs and keep them from looking outdated.
You’ll also want to ask yourself whether your signs convey friendliness and helpfulness. Exclamation points, capitalized letters, and red font or a red background may come off as angry or unfriendly.
Ditch the library jargon.
In 2012, a reference librarian at the University of Berkley reviewed more than fifty library usability studies to pinpoint library terms that are generally not understood by the customer. His review uncovered problems with terms like “database”, “e-journals”, “periodical”, “serial”, and “reference.”
Whenever possible, we should be clear when we create our wayfaring signs. Instead of saying “reference”, you can use the word “research.” Instead of “periodicals”, say “magazines.”
Change the sign above your reference desk to say, “Ask us a question here!” The sign at your circulation might read “Check out your books here!”
Train staff to help with wayfaring.
Staff who know to look for signs of confusion in a community member are providing good customer service.
If an employee spots a customer who walks around directionless for a long time or who keeps looking around, staff can delight and surprise the cardholder by gently approaching them and offering to help find what they need.
It sounds simple but there is such an emphasis in our society on self-sufficiency that we often forget, sometimes our customers just need a little extra help.
Be flexible.
Good signage is always a work in progress. Wayfaring signage can be updated, taken down, or added to as your community needs change.
Re-evaluate your signage every 2-3 years. If you find that you need to make some changes, and you began with a simple, consistent design, it will be easy to correct any issues and create new traffic patterns that benefit your library and your community.
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In this episode, I’ll dive deeper into one of the big takeaways for libraries from Content Marketing World 2021. This is a concept that marketing expert Jay Baer explained during his keynote and for me, it was the most relevant takeaway for libraries from this year’s conference.
We’ll also share kudos for an amazing library promotional video. Watch the video to see which library we’re highlighting this week.
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, enter your email address and click on the “Follow” button in the lower left-hand corner of the page.
Last week, I felt like a groundhog venturing out of its hole after a long winter of hibernation. But groundhogs only hibernate for five months, and I’ve been in lockdown for 19 months.
I went to Content Marketing World, a global marketing conference run by the Content Marketing Institute. You’ve heard me talk about it (a lot!) here on the blog before. It’s the conference where I get the most inspiration. I come away with pages and pages of practical tips. And this year was no exception.
I listened to the top experts talk about the ways the pandemic has changed consumer behavior in email, social media, and engagement with brands. I will be bringing you more of those insights, and what they mean for libraries, in the coming weeks.
But I’m eager to share the top seven takeaways with you right now. These big ideas will impact the promotions you do for your library in the coming year.
Jill says you may hear from many experts that you need to be measuring certain key data points. And there are many things you can learn from data.
But, your library should focus on tracking and measuring the data points that will show you if you are meeting your strategic goals. And Jill gives you permission to ignore the rest.
Lesson #2: Email is a community builder.
Dennis Shiao, Founder of Attention Retention LLC, and Ashley Guttuso, Director of Marketing for Simple Focus Software.
According to Ashley and Dennis, the purpose of a newsletter is not to promote your events and services. It is to build trust between your library and your community.
I’ll be translating more of their tips in the coming weeks. But for now, here’s a challenge from Ashley and Dennis: Create a newsletter that’s habit-forming, one that your audience gets excited to read whenever you send it.
The first step to doing that is to make your email newsletters opt-in. Ashley and Dennis have data to prove opt-in newsletters are more effective because readers are intentionally choosing to receive your information.
Lesson #3: We have to stop forcing our content on people. Instead, we must work to be invited into their lives.
Jay is an amazing author and speaker, and his keynote gave me a lot to think about.
He used the analogy of a castle and a moat to explain why people might be ignoring your promotions. Here’s how it works.
Our audience lives in a castle. Marketers are always trying to take over the castle by putting out lots and lots of promotions.
But the audience has built a moat around their castle to protect themselves from the onslaught of content. The moat is when your community unsubscribes or deletes your emails, or bounces out of your virtual programs, videos, or website after only a few seconds.
In history, armies tried to get around a moat by building a tall ladder and forcing their way into the castle. Anyone who has watched any historical drama knows this never works. The ladder gets pushed off the castle, and the soldiers never make it inside.
Instead, Jay challenged the audience to “get moativated” and get invited inside the castle by being radically relevant. He pointed out that the word “custom” is inside the word “customer.” People want content that is custom-tailored to them!
I’ll dive deeper into this idea and what it means for libraries in this Wednesday’s episode of The Library Marketing Show.
Lesson #4: Make sure your library is active on social media if you plan to do a PR push.
Michelle says journalists look at your library’s social media, especially Twitter, when they consider covering your library. So, if you are planning to do a major press push, you want to be active on social media before you send out your press release.
Many libraries have scaled down their posts on certain social media platforms because of a lack of engagement. I still believe that’s a good strategy, especially if your library lacks time and resources.
But, if you are planning something big and you’d like media coverage, Michelle says it’s in your library’s best interest to start posting on those platforms again a few weeks before you contact the media. It will increase your chances of getting covered.
Lesson #5: You can’t be remarkable on more than one social media channel at a time.
You may think this piece of advice runs contradictory to lesson #4. But when your library posts on social media with information about an upcoming event or service ahead of a PR push, you’ll be fulfilling a relevant but short-term objective.
Your library’s long-term objective with social media is to build audience engagement and drive people back to your website or catalog. To do that, you must be truly memorable with your social media posts. And to be truly memorable, you need to focus your efforts on one channel, preferably the place where most of your community is engaging.
Start thinking about which social media channel you would use for your library posts if you could only pick one channel. Then, create content that is relevant and remarkable in that channel.
Andrew said the pandemic was a once-in-a-generation marketing experiment that answered the question: What happens when every business in the world is faced with the same disruptive forces?
Then he told the amazing story of a sustainable farm that made an incredible pivot during the first days of the pandemic. They ended up making a huge profit, more than they had projected to make before the pandemic.
And all I could think about was the work of libraries in the pandemic. The services you created and unveiled to the public in a matter of days, including curbside pickup, book bundles, phone reference, take and make craft kits, virtual author events, and so much more, were born out of constraints.
YOU proved Andrew’s point.
I want you to recognize the awesomeness of what you did when you were constrained. Now, think about how constraints on your time and budget may lead to new creative ideas in the future.
Lesson #7: Purpose-driven marketing makes people follow, engage, and get behind your brand.
Jacquie Chakirelis, Director of Digital Strategy, Quest Digital Great Lakes Publishing
Jacquie’s talk made me realize that libraries need to highlight our doing purpose-driven work. She points out that consumers know that they have a voice. And that they are using that voice more frequently to make statements in their decisions to engage with brands who have a purpose.
Our mission statement differentiates libraries from our for-profit competitors. This is the core reason why library patrons feel loyal to your library.
Jacquie encourages you to find stories of how your library has taken a stand on issues in your community. Those stories will activate your community to become loyal fans of your library.
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In this episode, I’ve got three big updates for libraries that will affect your ability to post to social media.
Kudos go to the University of North Carolina Libraries for their free racial equity challenge syllabus.
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, enter your email address and click on the “Follow” button in the lower left-hand corner of the page.
More than once, I’ve sat down at my computer to turn out a clever, groundbreaking, truly engaging library promotion… and ended up staring at a blank wall.
There are days, or weeks, or months (or let’s be honest, years… like 2020) when work in a library will run you ragged. As much as you’d like to create the most inspiring and noteworthy marketing piece for your library, you are just Too. Dang. Tired.
When I worked in a library, the exhaustion usually hit me after summer reading ended. With fall and winter looming, I felt my inspiration seeping away as quickly as the leaves fell from the trees.
If this happens to you, there are some things you can do to get your creativity back. If you need a little inspiration, look no further than your community.
The easiest and most effective library promotions are the ones that solve your cardholders’ big problems. If you have no idea what your community wants and needs from your library, here are three easy ways to figure that out and find the inspiration for your next effective promotion!
“Stalk” your library users.
There are three places you can go to learn more about your community.
Inside the building
If your library is currently open, take a walk around the library or visit the branches. This is your spy moment! Take off your badge and pretend to browse. Or sit at a table in a corner with your laptop.
Observe the way the cardholders browse the shelves, interact with staff, work the self-checkout machines, and use the public computers. Answer these questions.
Do they look for a map?
Are they drawn to a particular book display?
Do they linger over the new books, or do they dash in for their holds and dash out?
Do you notice all customers follow a particular path through your branch or are drawn to a particular place within the branch?
If your library has a drive-thru, is it busy? What kinds of customers use the drive-thru?
Watch how your community behaves inside the building to get an idea of what customers love and what problems they encounter during their interactions with your library. Both of those discoveries can be the basis for your next library promotion.
On your website
Take a close look at your library website’s analytics to find out who is visiting and what they’re doing.
Google Analytics is the best place to get a sense of how your community is interacting with your library’s website. If you don’t have access to your library’s Google Analytics, make an appointment to meet with whoever does have access. Talk with that person about their work. Then, share your goals for the library promotions you create. It’s your chance to form a collaboration that can lead to a more effective library website.
When you get a chance to see the data, ask these five questions:
Which landing pages are the most popular?
Which pages get zero traffic?
Has website traffic to certain pages changed over time or remained relatively the same?
How long did people stay on our website?
How does the bounce rate compare on your landing pages?
If you notice that people are interested in a certain section of your website, you may want to create promotions that support that. Likewise, if you realize that cardholders are missing some key places on your website, you may want to create promotions to entice people to visit those pages!
And if you notice that people are visiting a certain webpage but bouncing right off, you may want to think about improving the customer experience on that page.
On social media
Social listening is an insightful way to get promotional inspiration. It’s kind of like eavesdropping. It’s the purposeful search for conversations about your library on social media platforms.
Social listening will give you a clearer picture of how people feel about your library. You may be able to spot problems before they happen. And you will certainly spot promotional opportunities which you can amplify to connect to more users.
For full details about how to actively use social listening for promotional inspiration, read this post.
Check your statistics.
Your library likely makes circulation and programming stats available on your internal website. These pieces of data can inspire you to find ways to help make their interaction with the library more worthwhile.
If you make it a regular part of your job to check your library statistics, you will find promotional inspiration. You’ll notice when there is a dip in the use of a service. When it happens, you’ll want to consider shifting some of your promotional focus to re-educate your community about that service.
If you work for a system with more than one location, you may notice trends in visits and circulation between the locations. Library staff at branches with lower visits and circulation can reach out to those with higher visits and circulation to see if you can steal some of their successful promotional ideas!
Talk to your coworkers.
You might find inspiration simply by “interviewing” your fellow staffers. Some key questions you can ask include:
You might also learn that there is a customer problem that you can help to solve with your promotions. Answering a commonly asked cardholder question is an easy and effective way to promote your library.
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In this episode, we’ll talk through some tips for coming up with a name for your library program or event that will help you with promotion. Yes, this has marketing and promotional benefits! I’ll explain.
Kudos go to the Chesapeake Public Library for telling patron stories on Facebook for Library Card Signup Month.
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, enter your email address and click on the “Follow” button in the lower left-hand corner of the page.
In 1960, Kelly Johnson was the lead engineer at a division of Lockheed that made spy plans.
One day, he handed a team of design engineers a handful of tools. Then he told the engineers that they must design a jet aircraft that would be repairable by the average mechanic in the field under combat conditions using only those tools.
At that moment, the popular design phrase “Keep it Simple, Stupid” or KISS was born. It describes the idea that most systems will work better if they are designed simply.
I first heard this phrase in journalism school. Reporters, marketers, ad agents, and public relations employees are all taught the power of simplified language in copy.
Simplified copy is easy to read and understand. It sounds authentic. Conversational copy subconsciously signals to your audience that you are a person, and people like communicating with other people.
Librarians are intelligent and sophisticated people. They have a deep understanding and appreciation of complex concepts. They’re driven by accuracy and information. It’s challenging to write clearly when you’re an expert in your field!
But our cardholders may have a difficult time understanding library brochures, posters, blogs, and websites with convoluted and confusing language. They may be tune out if the wording of your promotions isn’t conversational.
Your job as a library marketer is to translate complex thoughts and concepts into a concise and clear language your audience can understand and appreciate. You must present information in a way that the cardholder can understand.
It’s easier said than done, but here is some guidance you can put into practice any time you’re asked to write a piece of library marketing.
Identify your target audience and the action you want them to take.
Before you even write the first draft of any promotion, pinpoint your audience as precisely as possible.
Are you writing for teens ages 13-15? Are you writing for women, ages 25-54, who love to read cozy mysteries? Are you aiming your message at parents of preschoolers who need help finding books to read to their children?
When you’ve settled on your target audience, write a sentence about them at the top of the page. Be as descriptive as possible.
Underneath that, write a sentence that describes the point of your marketing material. Are you trying to persuade someone to try a new service? Do you want to increase participation in a preschool storytime? Are you trying to get teens to enter an art contest?
Once you know precisely who your audience is and what you want them to do after they’re read your marketing material, you’ll have an easier job of writing clearly.
Define unfamiliar or difficult words, titles, or services.
Go through the draft of your material and highlight words or terms that may confuse your audience. Then, find a better way to say or explain those words.
Never take it for granted that your reader has been a lifelong user or follower of the library. Words used by librarians to describe services, programs, catalogs, and databases, which may seem common and every day to you and your staff, may not be so to your reader.
Shorten your sentences and paragraphs.
You may have noticed that, about 18 months ago, I started writing shorter sentences and paragraphs here on the blog. Views rose by 118 percent!
That’s because shorter sentences and paragraphs make it easier for your reader to understand and absorb what you are saying. Long paragraphs look thick and off-putting. Multiple studies show readers will skip lengthy paragraphs. And the Poynter Institute’s Eyetrack Study shows people are more likely to read an entire webpage when the paragraphs are short.
There are two rules you can remember to help you get into the habit of shortening sentences and paragraphs.
Ziomek’s 1-2-3-4-5 rule: Created by Jon Ziomek, a professor at the Medill School of Journalism. The rule says each paragraph must contain: 1 idea, expressed in 2 to 3 short sentences, taking 4 to 5 lines.
Nityesh Agarwal‘s 80-20 rule: You can convey 80 percent of the information in any piece of writing using 20 percent of the words.
Get into the habit of hitting your return key more often. You can also break your writing up using bullet points or lists.
Use online writing tools.
There are lots of free tools that can help you craft sentences that are clear and concise, even when the subject matter is not! They can help you figure out a headline that will draw readers in. They can help you discover just the right word to make your meaning clear.
I often ask my family members to read my writing. If they find anything to be confusing or convoluted, I know I need to change it.
Bonus Tip: Read or listen to the book Everybody Writes by Ann Handley. It’s life-changing. Check your library collection first. If you have Overdrive, you’ll have the audiobook version. You MUST read this. It will make you a better writer.
Do you have tips for writing more clearly or examples where you have taken a complex library concept and simplified it for an audience? Share your experience or questions in the comments.
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This video is for anyone who works in a library with a long holds list and frustrated readers. I’ll share some ideas for keeping people engaged with your collection even as they wait for that one book they are dying to read.
Kudos in this episode go to Indian Trails Public Library for this cute Library Card Signup month video, created by staff member Stephanie Diebel.
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.
Super Library Marketing: Practical Tips and Ideas for Library Promotion 