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Plan for Library Marketing Success! How To Create an Effective Marketing Plan No Matter the Size of Your Library (Plus a Free Downloadable Template!)

Photo Courtesy Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County

The first time I went to a conference, I made a plan.

I decided which sessions I would attend weeks before the conference began. I studied the floor map of the convention center so I could plot the best way to get from room to room. I made a list of local restaurants and tourist attractions within walking distance of my hotel so that I could make the most of my free time.

Am I bonkers? Nope. I am a planner.

A plan provides a guide for action. It ensures goals are met and time and resources are used wisely.

There are times when spontaneity is called for. But library marketing is not one of them. A marketing plan is key for the success of any type of library promotion.

What exactly is a library marketing plan?

A library marketing plan is a tool you use to help to achieve your library’s overall goals. It lays out the steps involved in getting a promotion out into the world. It helps you decide how and when promotional work will be done for a pre-determined time in a specific way.

A library marketing plan also ensures everyone knows the end goal of your marketing efforts. It sets deadlines. It keeps people accountable. And it clarifies how you will measure your results.

You don’t need a plan for everything you promote at your library. You do need a plan if you are creating a campaign that lasts for more than several weeks.

How to put your marketing plan together

Scroll down to the bottom of this post for a list of free project planning websites. They will help you with the execution of your plan. At the bottom of this post, you’ll also find a customizable template to download. It’s based off the library marketing plan spreadsheet I used for years.

Know the thing you are promoting inside and out.

Be sure you can answer every single question about the thing you are promoting. You must become an expert on the event, service, or item you will promote.

Ask yourself, what problem will this solve for my patrons? How easy is it to use? What are the features that can’t be found at any of my competitors?

Clearly define your end goal.

Use the SMART goal framework to ensure you and your co-workers know exactly what you are aiming to achieve. SMART goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely.

So, if you are looking to increase brand awareness, set an actual, measurable end goal like: “Within the next 6 months, we want 50 percent of residents living within a 30-mile radius of our Main Library to know that we have renovated the building and to be able to name at least one new service available at the library.”

Determine your target audience.

Many library marketers say their target audience is “our cardholders.” Be more specific.

Ask yourself:

  • Which cardholders?
  • How old are they?
  • How often do they use the library?

Fill out your picture of your target audience with as many demographic characteristics as you can. This gives you and everyone working on the plan a picture of who you are trying to reach.

Analyze your competitors.

Research anyone providing a similar program, service, or product. Ask:

  • What are they doing well?
  • What are they doing poorly?
  • What are the things that differentiate your library from their business?

These are your marketing advantages. You can use this information to create messaging that tells your target audience why they should use your library service, instead of a competitor.

Create the message.

Get the message or elevator pitch for your promotion set. It’s the most important part of your plan. You need it to create all the tactics you will use to promote your library.

Choose your tactics.

Go through all the available channels at your disposal for marketing and decide which ones will work best to reach your end goals.

You do not have to use everything that’s available to you. Sometimes, a video will work well and sometimes an email will do a better job. Not every promotion needs print materials, a press release, or a digital sign.

You know best how your target audience reacts to each tactic and which will bring you the best results. If you have a budget, decide how you’ll spend it during this step.

Set the schedule.

Every library has a different approach to its promotional schedule. I am a fan of tiered distribution of marketing. The approach takes advantage of a consumer cycle of excitement. Here’s how it works:

  • Release one or two promotional tactics at the beginning of your promotional cycle, like a social media post and a press release. The promotion gets some play, and excitement builds in the consumer base. It gets shared and people talk about it… and then the excitement dies out.
  • Release the second tactic, like an email, and the people who see the email get excited and start talking about it and sharing it, and then their excitement dies out.
  • Release a video, and that builds excitement and gets shared, and the excitement then dies out. And so on!

When you use the tiered distribution approach, you get a longer promotional thread. Your promotions will be more successful because the excitement around them builds over time, not in one big burst.

It is also easier on the person running the marketing! It gives you a small break in between each tactic and creates time for you to measure the success of each tactic individually.

Assign tasks.

Delegate jobs and deadlines for appropriate staff. If you need help from another library department, assign their deadline now so they have plenty of time to get you the information you need.

Measure results.

Don’t forget to measure and record the reaction to each piece of your marketing plan. Analyze what worked and what did not, so you can put that knowledge to use next time.

Free or cheap project management solutions

Clickup: the free plan will work for small libraries. The unlimited plan is very affordable and would work well for medium to large libraries.

SmartSheet: their lowest plan tier is a little more expensive than ClickUp but has more integrations.

Asana: this is what my employer NoveList uses. It makes is easy to assign tasks and deadlines.

Marketing plan template

I’ve created a customizable marketing plan spreadsheet. It includes my suggestions for the timing of promotional tactics for an event or service promotion.

You can delete or add columns based on the tactics available to your library and the size of your library. Download it here.

Related Advice

What the Heck Is the Difference Between Library Statistics and Marketing Metrics? Here’s the Full Explanation and Why They Are BOTH Important!

Planning for Magic! How To Keep Your Eyes (and Your Schedule) Open for Unexpected Library Promotional Opportunities

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3

The Ultimate Library Marketing Checklist: How to Decide When and Where to Promote Your Library

I am a list maker.

This is going to sound crazy but one of the most enjoyable parts of my day is the moment when I get to check something off my to-do list.

Recently, one of my readers asked me if I have a checklist for library marketing. She wanted to make sure she wasn’t missing any opportunities to promote her library.

Of course I do! Scroll down for the master checklist for library marketing.

But just because there are so many tactics available to market your library doesn’t mean that you should use every one. There is a bit of science involved in deciding when and where to run a library promotion.

To help you make these decisions, there is a series of questions you need to ask yourself. Do this every time you create a marketing campaign for anything at your library. This will ensure your promotions are effective and you are working efficiently.

How does this event, service, or item serve your library’s strategy?

Every piece of marketing you do needs to be in service of reaching your library’s strategic goals. They are the reason you come to work every morning. So make certain there is a solid connection between your promotional efforts and your library’s overall strategy.

What do you know about your current cardholders and the people who live in your community? 

A clear image of the person who will consume your marketing messages will help you do a better job of marketing to them.

Where do these cardholders live? How do they engage with your competitors like Amazon and other bookstores? Where do they get their news? Do they have access to Wi-Fi? Do they have children? What is their living situation like? Do they work? What is their transportation situation?

The answers to these questions will help you create promotions that resonate with your intended audience.

Click here to download the master checklist for library marketing.

Now it’s time to decide what to promote, how to promote, and when to promote. Here are three rules to live by when figuring out the best channel for your library marketing.

Don’t feast at the buffet of tactics.

You don’t have to use every tactic available to you. Choose which ones will work best for each promotion. It’s a smarter use of your time and energy.

For example, my library held a teen poetry contest in April every year. We know that teens are typically considered to be a really hard audience to reach. So I went after their parents and teachers!

I marketed the contest on our website, in social media, on the digital signs in branches, with posters, and with email. Notice all the categories I didn’t use!

I didn’t send a press release because I had no evidence from past years to show that promoting this contest in the news would get us more entries. I didn’t use all the signage options available to me because teens don’t pay attention to signs. And I didn’t include the contest in our content marketing publication because the average reader of that publication was an older empty-nester–not the right audience for that promotion.

For each promotion, use only the tactics that work best for the intended target audience. You’ll be more efficient and effective!

Determine how you will measure success.

You must make sure that you accurately document the results of every promotion you do. This will help you to adjust your promotions to improve effectiveness. Keep meticulous records of data as it comes in.

As a starting point, you can measure every promotional request against two basic rules.

If the promotion doesn’t result in higher circulation, program attendance, or usage, don’t do it.
If the promotion is not tied directly to the library’s overall strategy, cut it.

When I worked at the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, my marketing team conducted a year-long experiment to see if we could drive attendance at events. We hypothesized that emails sent to targeted cardholders would result in higher attendance.

We were wrong.

We did 118 branch promotional emails that year and only half were effective in boosting attendance AT ALL. With that data, we decided to cut way back on email branch promotions.

The next year, we sent only 34 emails promoting attendance at branches. Our effectiveness level increased to 68 percent. More than half of the programs saw a significant increase in attendance–at least ten percent–after their cardholders received an email. 

Why did the emails work the second year? When we cut down on the number we were sending, we were able to create messages that did a better job of resonating with people. Turns out, our audience responded to quality, not quantity!

At some point, you may realize there is an tactic that just doesn’t seem to work. You have my blessing to drop anything that fails. Use only the things that can help you to achieve your goals and cut the rest.

Share your results.

Talk about the results with your colleagues and share your results with other departments. Transparency in marketing is a good thing. It helps your co-workers and administrators have a clearer understanding of what you do. And they may look at the results and find some new insight that you missed.

Failure is okay, by the way. Marketing is an experiment! Sometimes the stuff you do will work, sometimes it won’t. If something doesn’t work, don’t do it again. Spend your energy on the things that do work.

You may also like these posts

Going Live on Facebook? Here are Three Tips to Maximize the Reach of Your Library’s Virtual Programs

The Virtual Library Conference is Over and Now the Work Begins! Here’s What to do Once You’ve Closed Your Laptop

Latest Book Review

Caste: The Origin of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

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3

Marketing is Not a Dirty Word! Why Libraries Need to Promote Themselves Now, More Than Ever

Photo courtesy Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County

Back in February, I had the great pleasure of attending and speaking at the Edge 2020 conference in Edinburgh, Scotland. While there, I heard from librarians across the United Kingdom as they shared stories about the fantastic work happening in their libraries. You can now see video of all the sessions on their web page.

Scott Simpson, Head of Library & Information Services, and Paul Martin, Systems Development & Support Officer, East Renfrewshire, discussed their library’s program, “Do Your Bucket List at Your Library.” Attendees can visit places they’ve always wanted to see, pretty much anywhere in the world, using a VR headset and guidance from a library staffer. Simpson and Martin told us that many older people use VR to revisit places they haven’t seen in years or to show their families where they grew up.

I think this is brilliant. And marketable. And I said so on Twitter.

That’s when this back and forth happened.

The discussion has been on my mind ever since. I thought about it last week, when I recorded an episode of The Library Marketing Show about the need for libraries to keep communicating their value. I want to expand on that point.

The debate surrounding the word “marketing” in libraries is not new. When I worked for a large metropolitan public library system, my department was often met with skepticism or wary looks from librarians.

Most staffers wanted me to promote their programs and events. But many told me they felt weird or icky about promoting the non-program library work, like the collection or summer reading or homework help or online resources.

Library staff was more than happy to talk one-on-one about how great their library was. But there was something off-putting about loudly proclaiming the value of the library in mass library promotions.

Frankly, we must get over it. We must stop being humble. We must talk more about the work we do in our libraries, as loudly as we can, to as many people as will listen. Our very existence depends on it.

I don’t mean to be overly dramatic. But I am deeply worried about the future of libraries.

Marketing is not a dirty word. The importance of library marketing is the reason I started this blog five years ago. It is my mission to help library staff communicate their value to the public.

I love the library industry. I truly believe that libraries are the key to building a fair, educated, and empathetic society.

We’re not very good at marketing libraries, to be honest. In 2018, OCLC released this report on the marketing approach of public libraries in the United States. According to the data, 96 percent of US libraries said they use social media. I bet that number is much higher now. 70 percent send emails (also probably higher now, due the pandemic).

Here is the bad news. At the time of this report, only 40 percent of public libraries had a communications strategy. Only 17 percent said their strategy was current.

Why?  75 percent of libraries say they don’t have the necessary staff resources to do marketing. They don’t even have a marketing professional on their staff. That’s a big red flag, my friends.

I’ve been frustrated by the lack of focus on library marketing for years. But now, amid a pandemic, when library buildings are closed and when libraries face imminent budget cuts, it’s become a serious problem.

Many library staffers make an assumption that the community knows what they do in the library. But I am certain your community does not know the full extent of your impact.

They don’t know how you help craft the resume of the single parent looking to get a better job so he or she can provide a better future for their family. They don’t see how you help a terrified cancer patient research the latest treatment option. They don’t have any idea that you provide after-school homework help or teach young children to love reading. They don’t have a clue that your building is the only safe space a teenager has to hang out. They don’t know that the library is sometimes the only place where a child in their community gets a meal. Heck, half the time, they don’t realize you have eBooks.

It’s important to talk about all your work–loudly, openly, and all the time. It’s more than pride. It’s survival.

If you educate your community about the work of your library, it’s going to be painful for leaders to make budget and staff cuts. Your community will come to defense if they understand the loss that those cuts will mean for their community.

This is a change in mindset for libraries. This is not something that you’ll talk about once at a staff meeting and forget it. This is something we need to do every day, without fail.

Now is the time to make marketing one of the main focal points of your library’s outreach. It’s our duty to advocate for our own professional services and expertise.

Your patrons don’t want you to remain neutral. They want you to take a stand.

If your library isn’t centered on marketing, you might well face more problems than just getting people to your programs.

The very survival of your library depends on marketing.

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4

The Four Library Marketing Myths That Need to Die RIGHT NOW!

One of my staffers wrote a post for our Library’s blog recently about common library myths. You can read it here. That post got me to thinking about library marketing myths, and how library marketing professionals can “bust” them. Here are my top four choices.

My library marketing video/blog post/article needs to be short because people will only consume “snackable content.” This one is really prevalent for all kind of companies and institutions, and it’s so, so wrong!

At the beginning of 2019, I started to write longer blog posts. Did you notice?? I went from 500-700 words to between 1000 and 1500 words.

And what happened? My site stats jumped. Already in October of 2019, I’ve exceeded the number of views and visitors for the site in 2018. I’ve had twice the number of people reading each post as I did in 2018.

When you write long form, more people will read your posts. People stay on the site longer. They read multiple posts. This is also true for longer blogs written for our library’s website.

I made the switch to longer posts because I’d read a lot of research about long form content and its benefits. It’s not easy. I spend more time on each post. I have to do more research. I have to be careful not to add words or sentences just to fill this imaginary word count goal in my head. It’s sometimes difficult. But it’s worth it.

The smart people at a company call serpIQ did a study of the average length of the content in the top ten results of search queries. The company found that the top-rated posts usually were more than 2,000 words long.

If your post is written well, helpful, educational, interesting, and builds interest or suspense, people will stay on your site longer. This will boost your library’s web page rankings in Google and drive more traffic to your site. Long form content also builds trust in the authority of your library. There’s no downside to longer pieces.

The only exception to this myth is email. The text inside mail marketing messages should be short, because evidence shows people will not read emails that are longer than 200 words (sorry, fans of the newsletter). Your short email can and should link to a longer piece but the actual text body itself should be 50-200 words max.

A high open rate is the best way to tell that my library email marketing is successful. So many libraries focus on high open rates for their emails. It’s sometimes hard to contradict that measure. But I’m going to do it because I want your work to matter. And if your open rates are high, you may still be failing at email marketing. Hear me out.

Open rates do mean something. They are a sign of customer loyalty. A high open rate means that your cardholders are eager to see what you’ve sent them. And that’s good. You are writing compelling email subject lines (Good job, you!). You have a loyal and eager audience.

But it’s what happens AFTER your cardholders open your email that counts. If your click-thru rate is low, you’ll know the content you are sending to your cardholders isn’t what they want.

The higher the click-thru rate is, the more excited I get. It means that my cardholders opened an email, saw something they liked, and acted!

Most of the time, my library emails direct cardholders to do one of two things: click a link for a specific item in our collection or go to the event calendar where they can register or put an upcoming event on their calendar.

If a cardholder takes one of those actions is a huge victory. It gives me data about what that particular cardholder is interested in. And I can use that information to craft future emails that are also compelling for that cardholder.

As happy as I get over a high email click-thru rate, a high conversion rate is the most accurate way to measure email effectiveness. It is the percentage of people who take an action after clicking through.

For example, let’s say 100 people click-through to look at a book I promote by email. If 50 of those 100 people put the book on hold, my conversion rate is 50 percent.

Conversion rate is the gold standard for the success of any email campaign. Your goal should always be to get people to act!

I need to grow my Twitter/Facebook/Pinterest followers. I’m not saying that a huge social media following wouldn’t be nice. But in the age of algorithms, it’s not as important as it once was.

What you really want is a large audience of ENGAGED followers. You don’t just want people to see your posts. You want them to compel people to take an actual: like, share, subscribe, comment, post emojis, and generally jump up and down virtually.

It’s kind of like speaking at a conference. You might be thrilled at the prospect of talking to a huge group of people. But it’s disheartening if half of your audience is yawning or looking at their phones. It’s much more meaningful to speak in front of a small room of people who are riveted by what you have to say.

I don’t care how many followers my library has on any social account. I want to see people engage with our content. Focus on actions and not the number of followers.

If you need to tell your cardholder something, just make a sign. No one reads signs. Seriously, we just don’t. I lead the team that makes signs at my library FOR A LIVING and I don’t read them.

Too many signs in a branch, particularly in a small location, can create clutter and confusion. And too much signage can annoy your cardholders, particularly if most of your signs are bombarding them with marketing messages.

Just as white space works to create breadth and depth for a website or a graphic, well-spaced signage in a branch creates flow. About 75 percent of the signs in your library locations should be wayfaring only, directing cardholders to important service points in the building. The other 25 percent can be selective marketing–promoting services and items that are of interest to your cardholders.

Don’t rely on signs to convey everything you want to tell the customer. Hire staff who are willing to speak with customers and show customers where items are located.

Do you have a myth you encounter in your work? Let me know about it, and how you’re busting it in the comments.

Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email every time I post. To do that, click on “Follow” button in the bottom left-hand corner of the page. Connect with me on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

2

The Library Marketing Show Episode 15: 🤷What to Do If You’re a Librarian Who HAS to Do Marketing!

WATCH NOW

In this short video, we talk about what you should do if your a librarian and your library has asked/forced/demanded/requested that you also handle the marketing. If you don’t have a communications degree, what should you do? Can you do it? Answer: YES!
(Watch episode 14 to see why I generally don’t hire librarians to do marketing).

Also KUDOS to Chicago Public Library for going fine free!

Talk to me! Share thoughts about this video in the comments, LIKE it, SHARE it, and subscribe (Pretty please!). Let’s grow this channel together.

Stay in Touch

Check the Upcoming Events page to see where I’ll be soon. Let’s connect! More events are coming soon.

Have an idea for the next Library Marketing Live Show? Submit it now.

Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email every time I post. To do that, click on “Follow” button in the bottom left-hand corner of the page. Connect with me on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.  

2

The Library Marketing Show Episode 10: Why Email Marketing is the BEST THING EVER for Libraries

Library Marketing Show Episode 10

Watch Now

Library News: IFLA’s new Idea Store! I’m obsessed. It’s a great place to exchange ideas. Check it out here.

Reader question: Leigh of Pikes Peak Library District asked: I’d like to talk about how to convince the powers-that-be that email marketing is the best thing ever. That email is not dead and ROI is high. That automatic opt-in upon card signup is a great option, and that people expect to be catered to. How to segment and the welcome campaigns…all that good stuff!

I talked about the value of email marketing and made a personal plea to senior leaders to let library marketing professionals do email marketing! Here are some more posts about library email marketing that you’ll want to read.

Be Quietly Relentless! A Guide for How to Win Senior Leadership Support for Your Library Marketing Ideas

Email is Not Dead! Here are Eight New Ways to Help You Get the Best Results

Kudos: To the Tulsa Public Library for their My Neighborhood Library video, which showed the value of libraries AND made me want to move to Tulsa! It had energy, it evoked emotion, it did exactly what it was supposed to do… it made me feel connected to Tulsa and I’ve never been there! Watch it here.

Stay in Touch

Have an idea for the next Library Marketing Live Show? Submit it now.

Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email every time I post. To do that, click on “Follow” button in the bottom left-hand corner of the page. Connect with me on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.  

 

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Email is Not Dead! Here are Eight New Ways to Help You Get the Best Results With Your Library Email Marketing

I have a thing for email marketing.

I think it’s fun. I like trying to figure out all the pieces. Which subject line is best? To emoji or not to emoji? How much text? What should it say?  What kind of photo or graphic should I use? What’s the best call to action? Who should I send it to? On what day and at what time?

I love experiments. I love sending the message and then watching the results. How many people opened it? More importantly, how many people clicked on my call to action? MOST IMPORTANTLY, how many people did the thing I wanted them to do?

Maybe I just like convincing people to do stuff.

Email is not dead, at least not for libraries. People want to hear from us. They love free stuff and that’s basically all we have to offer! I send tens of thousands of emails a week to my cardholders (I live in a large county service area with nearly a million residents). My unsubscribe rate is zero percent. No kidding.

Email marketing truly is the most effective method of digital promotion for libraries. I use it whenever I can at my library because it gives the best return on my investment of time and money.

And because it’s the most effective digital tactic at my disposal, I spend an awful lot of time researching email marketing. I read a ton of blogs. I listen to a lot of podcasts. I comb surveys for insights that will make my emails better.

I’ve started a document where I keep a bunch of statistics and insights gleaned. I realized that I needed to share these insights with you. Email marketing could be your most valuable asset too. So here are the eight newest things I’ve learned about email marketing that will improve the work you’re doing at your library.

How cardholders look at your emails

You’ve heard it before but I’ll say it again. You must make sure your emails are mobile-friendly and responsive. About 3 in 5 consumers check their email on the go. 75 percent of Americans say they use their smartphones most often to check email. (Blue Corona)

And you must assume your cardholders will use their phones to respond to your email call-to-action. 62 percent of email opens occur on mobile. Only 10 percent occur on desktop. That’s huge! (Adestra)

Your cardholders are checking their email literally everywhere. People admit to checking email while watching TV, in bed, on vacation, in the bathroom, while walking, during meals, during commuting, while talking, while working out, while driving, and while at a formal ceremony! (Adobe)

Your cardholders are spending more time reading emails. In the last decade, the amount of time people spent reading an email actually increased by 7 percent, to 11.1 seconds. (Litmus)

How to design the best library email

Your subject line is the most important part of your email. It gets your cardholders in the door, so to speak. Focus on sentiment by using emotional words. Use different words for different audiences. The subject line for a message you send to teens will be completely different from the message you send to parents. Make it simple and easy. However, length doesn’t matter anymore, so you can make your subject longer if you need too!

Write like a human and make sure everyone can read your text. For the text, speak conversationally. No industry-speak (words like periodicals are out!).You don’t have to convey all the information about your product or service or collection item in the body of the email. Get to the point and drive users to your website or another platform for more information. Avoid multi-colored fonts. Use fonts that are accessible, like Arial, Helvetica, Lucida Sans, Tahoma, and Verdana. (Bureau of Internet Accessibility).

Make your email design hard to ignore. Use a one-column layout so people can scroll easily. Make the text large! Headlines should be no smaller than 25 pixels, body text should be no smaller than 18 pixels.  Call to action buttons can be pretty huge– anywhere from 44 x 44 pixels to 72 x 72 pixels.

Images matter. Photos of real people, especially faces with emotional expressions, are best. But don’t be afraid to use gifs too!

Learn more about email marketing for libraries

The Step-by-Step Method for Figuring Out the Best Time to Send Library Marketing Emails and Why You Should Never Stop Experimenting!

The Tiny Little Mistakes That Ruin Your Library Marketing Emails AND How to Fix Them!

This Advice Will Boost Your Library Marketing Email Click-Thru Rates

Don’t forget to join us for the LIVE LIBRARY MARKETING TALK ON INSTAGRAM every Tuesday at noon ET. We’ll talk about library marketing topics for about 15 minutes each week. My handle is Webmastergirl. You can email questions and topic suggestions ahead of time. Just fill out this form.

And check out these upcoming events and webinars where we can connect and discuss library marketing. Registration links included.

Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email every time I post. To do that, click on “Follow” button in the bottom left-hand corner of the page. Connect with me on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.  

2

The Library Marketing Live Show Episode 5: Ideas for Marketing Your Library’s Collection

Watch it now

Can you answer this super short survey about the live show? I need some feedback, please!

Things We Talked About

Collection marketing! Tracy from Wright Memorial Public Library asked to talk about marketing the collection. I do this at my library mainly through email and social media. I have a strong relationship with my friends in the Materials and Acquisition Selection department and I talked about that and why it’s important to not take it for granted that your cardholders know that the library has new materials.

Learn More

How to Pick Books and More for Collection Marketing

The Story of the Yeti: Why You Should Make Friends with Collection Developers

Stay in Touch

You still have time to register to attend the free webinar on digital promotions happening tomorrow, Thursday, July 25! You’ll find the link to that plus two conferences where I’ll be speaking on the events page.

Have an idea for the next Library Marketing Live Show? Submit it now.

We’ll chat on Instagram on Tuesday at noon EST for about 15 minutes. My handle is @Webmastergirl so follow me to see the show live!

1

Part Two of the Library Marketer’s Definitive Guide to Creating an Editorial Calendar That Actually Works!

This is the second part in a series on creating an editorial calendar for your library marketing. Read part one here.

You’ve chosen a tool for your editorial calendar, and everyone on your team is using it. Now the fun part begins! At least, I think it’s the fun part. Deciding what kind of content to promote and how you’ll execute those promotions is arguably the most crucial part of library marketing. Here’s a simple guide to get you through the process.

The Library Marketer’s Definitive Guide to Creating an Editorial Calendar, Part One: How to Decide What Goes in the Calendar

Step #1: Do everything you can to focus your marketing efforts.

In a perfect world, there are two basic rules for determining your promotions. The first would be: Does this promotion do anything to move our library’s overall strategic goals closer to reality? The second would be: Is this a service or item that cardholders want and need in their lives? Does it provide a tangible value to our cardholders? Anything that falls outside of those two benchmarks is cut. In this perfect scenario, you only promote the things that really matter to your cardholders and to your library’s mission.

But we don’t live in a perfect world. Everyone has to market services, collection items, and projects that have nothing to do with the library’s mission. Library marketers are treated like short order cooks. Promotional requests come in from various coworkers, and we fill them. It’s ineffective and it’s why so much of our marketing fails.

The only thing a library marketing professional can do is to battle back. It may be a slow process. It’ll take time and a lot of persuasion to get the rest of your library system to change its mindset about marketing. But you have to start somewhere!

Your first editorial calendar task is to set parameters for your marketing to the best of your ability. Figure out what you have the power to approve and what you can say “no” to. Then do it.

Change is slow in coming in the library world. This shift toward marketing with a purpose rather than marketing everything under the sun may be met with a lot of push back. I’ve been in my job six years and I’m still working on it. It’s a constant battle. But it’s one worth having because it’s better for my library and better for my cardholders.

Step #2: Choose the tactics that will work best for each promotion. Library marketers have a natural tendency to want to promote everything with every tool in the toolbox. You don’t have to use every tactic available to you. In fact, you don’t really want to! Thoughtfully selecting the method of promotion for each campaign is a smarter use of your time and energy.

For every promotion, I write down a short list of what I know about the promotion. Then I write down my best guess for the kind of library cardholder and non-cardholder who might be interested in the thing I want to promote. Finally, I look at all the tactics at my disposal and decide which ones would be the best for reaching my target audience.

Here’s an example: Earlier this year, my library put a collection of lantern slides on display as part of a specially curated exhibit. These slides were part of our collection. They’d been sitting in a dark storage area for ages.

We do a lot of exhibits at our library, and most feature interesting pieces of our collection. But this one felt special. The librarians who discovered and arranged the slides were psyched. Their managers were psyched. I ran the exhibit idea past some non-library friends to see how they’d react. They used words like “cool”, “unusual”, “interesting,” and “vintage” in describing why they’d want to see the collection.

I decided to promote the exhibit with just four tactics: a press release, posters, wayfaring signage, and social media posts shared with lovers of vintage stuff. I did not promote the exhibit with a slide on the library’s homepage. I did not send an eblast. I did not create digital signage. I did not create a video.

I made these decisions based on my imagined persona of an exhibit guest. They would be a reader of traditional news. They would be someone who like vintage collection items and photos online. They would be someone who might take the time to read printed sign as they walked into the front door of the library.

In the end, the four tactics we chose to use worked well because we spent our time and energy making them really, really good. They fit the target audience. We focused on the content, not the container. We got a ton of press coverage and our social media posts did better than I expected, particularly on Facebook.

Creating four really good pieces of promotion is more effective than creating ten crappy pieces. That’s why choosing the tactics to fit your promotion is important.

Step #3: Leave room in your calendar to remind your cardholders about the services and items they love but might not use daily.

Here’s a good example. My library has a reading recommendation service called Book Hookup. Our cardholders answer three simple questions and they get three reading recommendations back in whatever format they prefer–print, eBooks, or audiobooks. These recommendations are personally selected by a librarian.

I do two campaigns promoting this service every year. I must remind people that it exists because it’s not a service our cardholders use every day. But, those promotions are consistently so successful that, before the promotions begin, we have to assign extra staff to manage the recommendations. That’s because so many people will sign up for personalized reading recommendations through our promotions that we can’t keep up!

Your library has a lot of services that will help people in their everyday lives. Work those into your editorial calendar on a regular basis, even if no one is telling you directly to promote them, particularly if those services are tied to your library’s overall strategy. Your library will thank you.

Step #4: Be flexible. You will want to program blank spaces into your editorial calendar for last-minute promotions. Those holes give you space to make decisions that positively impact your library and your cardholders. And if you don’t end up having anything to fill those holes, they still have a benefit. Space in your calendar will give you and your team time to breathe!

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