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Here’s a 12 Month Promotional Campaign Plan To Skyrocket Database Usage at Your Library

Photo courtesy Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library

My former employer recently purchased sponsored content in the local newspaper to educate the Cincinnati community about all the library has to offer. When I saw the ad, I knew exactly what they were doing: Trying to drive more use of the resources they spend so much time and money curating for the community.

I’m frustrated by the fact that many regular community members are unaware of the existence of these databases. It’s great if you have the money to promote them. But most libraries have no advertising budget. So, how do they drive the use of the databases?

This is a marketing problem I want to address with this post. It’s vitally important for your library to boost usage of your databases so you can make the case to keep the budget you’ve set aside for them! A year-long promotional plan with strategic key messages can help you build awareness and turn occasional database or library users into regular users who rely on your library for information.

This plan goes beyond the normal “Did you know we had that?” campaign. It focuses on the core problems each database solves for your community. This method will effectively explain to your community why the database is essential to their life. Here’s how to do it.

Identify the problem the database solves

Your first step is to set aside time to play with the database yourself. This “playtime” is how you’ll uncover the real value of the database.

Pretend you’re a curious patron exploring it for the first time. What features catch your attention? What tools are easy to use? What specific problem does this database solve for your community? Is it saving students time on citations? Helping job seekers prep for interviews?

Write the problems down as you explore the database. Those problems will be the focus of your campaign. This will keep you from promoting the database with language that sounds generic, like “access to great information.”

Generic benefits are too vague to meaningfully connect with or interest your patrons. They don’t address the real-life needs of your community. And they make your library marketing sound like every other piece of marketing content out there in the world.

Call the database by its name and tie it to your library

Patrons usually have to sign in to the database using their library card, and that action can create a separation in the mind of your patron between your library and the database.

Using the name of the database builds name recognition for the resource. And, with a consistent, deliberate effort to add your library’s name to each database, (“NoveList Plus at the Maple Tree Library” or “Consumer Reports from the Maple Tree Library”), you will begin to create a connection in your patrons’ minds that solidifies all that your library provides.

Promote one database each month

Create a simple month-long campaign for each of these databases. Consider:

  • Who is the ideal patron who will benefit from this resource? This is your target audience for the month.
  • What channels are best for reaching your target audience? Focus your library promotions on those channels only.
  • Set goals for the month. How much of a usage increase will you be aiming for? This number will likely be different each month. Be sure to write your goals down and check at the end of the month to see if you’ve accomplished them.

12-month database promotional plan

I’ve put together a calendar of promotions to get you started. I’ve also identified the problem each database solves and suggested two potential key messages for your campaigns. Don’t you have one of these databases? Feel free to substitute any resources you wish for any month!

January: Homework Help Database (e.g., HelpNow, Tutor.com)

Problem it solves: Students get help with homework they might not receive at home due to busy caregivers, the cost of private tutoring, or a lack of subject expertise. These databases also typically offer test prep and FAFSA help.

Potential key messages:

  • Homework help is one click away. Get free online tutoring, test prep, and more—all from the comfort of home.
  • Test prep without the stress. SAT, ACT, and more—no expensive classes are required.

February: Full-Text Academic Research Databases (e.g., JSTOR, Academic Search Premier)

Problem it solves: Gives users access to credible, peer-reviewed sources with no unreliable websites or paywalls.

Potential key messages:

  • Say goodbye to paywalls. Find full-text articles for your next paper—free with your library card.
  • Need solid sources without the stress? These articles are 100% human-written and citation-ready—no AI, no trouble.

March: LinkedIn Learning or Career Skills Services

Problem it solves: Free training in business, tech, and creative skills for career growth.

Potential key messages:

  • Learn new skills. Land the job. Free classes in Excel, coding, communication, and more.
  • Your next promotion starts here. Learn in-demand skills on your schedule, at no cost.

April: Full-Text Newspapers & Magazines (e.g., Flipster, PressReader)

Problem it solves:
Avoids paywalls while providing access to current news and popular magazines.

Potential key messages:

  • Read the news without the paywall. Stay informed with full access to trusted newspapers.
  • Your favorite magazines—no subscription needed. From The Atlantic to People, it’s all here.

May: Reading Recommendation Databases (e.g., NoveList Plus)

Problem it solves: Helps readers discover books they’ll love based on the elements they love about stories.

Potential key messages:

  • Get personalized book recommendations curated by humans based on what you love about books.
  • Never fall into a reading rut again! Browse by mood, genre, or author and get recommendations meant just for you.

June: Fitness Databases (e.g., Hoopla BingePass: Fitness)

Problem it solves: Accessible, at-home fitness for patrons at any level—no cost or commute.

Potential key messages:

  • Work out at home for free. Cardio, strength, yoga, and more with expert instructors.
  • No gym, no problem. Choose your fitness level, your time, and your goals.

July: DIY/Crafting Databases (e.g., Creativebug)

Problem it solves: Teaches patrons how to craft, repair, and create—without costly classes.

Potential key messages:

  • Craft your heart out—for free. Learn to paint, sew, or knit with expert video lessons.
  • Fix it, make it, love it. DIY that’s fun, easy, and budget-friendly.

August: Consumer Reports

Problem it solves: Helps patrons make smarter purchases with unbiased reviews and safety info.

Potential key messages:

  • Buy smarter. Get the facts before you shop with trusted product reviews.
  • The experts tested it, so you don’t have to. From fridges to phones, Consumer Reports helps you make the best purchasing decisions possible.

September: Genealogy Databases (e.g., Ancestry Library Edition, HeritageQuest)

Problem it solves: Allows patrons to research family history without costly subscriptions.

Potential key messages:

  • Build your family tree. Explore census records, marriage licenses, and more.
  • Trace your roots for free. Discover your heritage with genealogy tools from your library.

October: Auto Repair Databases (e.g., Auto Repair Source, Chilton)

Problem it solves: Provides trusted repair guides so patrons can fix their vehicles themselves and save money.

Potential key messages:

  • Fix your car and save your budget. Get trusted repair info for most makes and models of vehicles.
  • Do-it-yourself made simple. Step-by-step guides for brakes, oil changes, and more.

November: Language Learning Databases (e.g., Mango Languages, Transparent Language)

Problem it solves: Makes learning a new language accessible, fun, and flexible.

Potential key messages:

  • Travel smarter. Start learning Spanish, French, or Italian today.
  • Say it with confidence. Get fun, bite-sized lessons to build real conversation skills.

December: Streaming Movie Services (e.g., Kanopy, Hoopla)

Problem it solves: Free access to films, documentaries, and kids’ content—no subscription required.

Potential key messages:

  • Ditch the subscriptions. Watch movies and stream shows without paying a dime.
  • Worried about what your kids are watching on those other streaming platforms? Find fun, educational content with no ads or fees.

Need more inspiration?

From Shelves to Screens: How an Academic Librarian Captures Student Narratives for Library Marketing

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A Reader Asked for My Ultimate Top Ten Tips for the Most Effective Library Marketing Possible: Here’s the List

Photo courtesy Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library

The first thing I do when I visit my parents is greet their dogs. The second thing is to look for my list.

My parents are aging, so I like to help with things they can no longer do. I wash windows, weed the flower beds, and sew on loose buttons. As I work through the list, I get a certain satisfaction in checking things off.

Lists have always been a part of my life. My mother wrote a daily list for when I got home from school. Feed the dogs. Make a salad. Start your homework. It’s almost as if she thought I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I didn’t have a list to follow.

And she was right. I now make lists for everything. Lists for packing. Lists for groceries. Lists of tasks I need to complete during the workday. Gift lists at the holidays.

Lists help you focus and prioritize. So, when one of my readers asked for a list of the ten best tips and practices for library marketing, I dug in. (Imagine me cracking my knuckles, blowing on my fingers, and setting my fingers on the keyboard here.)

Top Ten Tips for Library Marketing and Promotions

#1: Send email to your community.

Email is the most effective marketing tactic. You don’t have to battle algorithms. And 99 percent of people with an email address read their email daily, usually first thing in the morning.

Starting a consistent library email program can be intimidating. But I put it at the top of the list because it’s the best use of your time.

You can start small by sending a newsletter. Work your way up to targeted email segments, where you’ll be sending shorter, more focused messages to specific groups of people. Don’t worry that you’re leaving people out with more niche emails… you are not.

Coming soon: a new course on email marketing from Learn with NoveList taught by yours truly. It’ll be part of the staff subscription plan.

#2: Post no more than once a day on your social media channels.

Social media for libraries works to create brand awareness and affinity. But they’re also ruled by algorithms that determine who sees your posts. The algorithms value quality posts, not quantity. So, posting often does nothing to boost your reach. Once a day is plenty.

Make a schedule to create quality posts and give your social media feeds consistency (which the algorithms love). For example:

  • Monday: Promote an item in your collection.
  • Tuesday: Share a video.
  • Wednesday: Ask a question.
  • Thursday: Promote a program.
  • Friday: Share something about a library staff member or something behind the scenes of library work.
  • Saturday: Promote a service, like your seed library, a database, streaming videos, or your MakerSpace.
  • Sunday: Share something funny, inspiring, or thoughtful about the joy of reading or the importance of intellectual freedom.

Each year, beginning in November, I publish a best practices guide for each of the major social media channels. To see the guides, type the name of the platform you want to research in the homepage search bar.

#3: Put a bookmark in every hold and checkout that leaves your library.

Your collection is a marketing tactic! No library visitor should ever leave the building without a piece of promotional material.

To get started, pick three areas of focus for your bookmarks. Make one bookmark for each of your three focus promotions. For example:

  • A booklist
  • An online item like streaming music
  • A recurring program.

Teach staff to add a bookmark to every hold and checkout. They use context clues to decide which of your three focused promotional bookmarks will resonate most with each library visitor.

#4: Write a general marketing script and have staff recite or read it before every program.

Your programs are also a marketing tactic. Use the first minute of each program as a “housekeeping moment”, so share a marketing message to this captive audience.

The message should be short, 3-4 sentences. And it should be tailored to the audience.

Here’s an example. Let’s say your library just purchased a set of after-hours holds lockers. You want people to use them. You can create a script for staff to read before programs.

For children’s programs your script might say:

“Hello everyone! I wanted to let you know about a new service we have at the library – our after-hours holds lockers. You can pick up your reserved books and materials anytime, even when the library is closed. It’s a convenient way to get the books your family needs, on your schedule!”

For adult programs, your script might say:

“Hello everyone! Before we begin, I want to tell you that our library now has after-hours holds lockers. Maybe you saw them as you walked in: they’re just to the right of the front doors. You can pick up your reserved books and materials at any time, even outside of our regular hours. So if you work a late shift or you’re going to have a particularly busy day and can’t get to the library before we close, you can still get your books!”

#5: Talk to one community group every month.

Reach out to the Kiwanis Club, Chamber of Commerce, Junior League, and local professional groups. Ask for five minutes during their next meeting to talk about what is available at the library and to sign up members for a library card.

#5: Analyze your promotional metrics each month.

Schedule 30 minutes once a month to look at the past month’s performance on social media, email, and your website.

Watch for trends. Did your social media impressions spike this month? What may have caused that? Did your email open rate plummet? Take a look at the emails you were sending to determine what may have caused the dip. Did attendance skyrocket at your monthly book club after you posted an Instagram Reel promoting it? Do more Instagram Reels!

This work will help you spot issues and opportunities. You can replicate the things that your audience responds to. And you can stop doing the things that don’t work for your audience, and have the data to back up your decision! It’s time well spent.

#6: Create an editorial calendar for the next 6-12 months.

Planning your promotional schedule gives you time to thoughtfully create your promotions and get approvals. Plus, you can share your plans with your coworkers and supervisors, so everyone at the library knows what’s been marketed and when.

Schedule your emails, when you’ll change your website graphics, your book displays… even the signs in your library lobby.

Some of this planning will be easy. You know when summer reading, Library Workers Week, National Library Card Signup Month, back-to-school, and holiday events happen.

Leave space in your calendar for those unexpected things that come up. If your director announces his or her retirement, your building needs renovations, or your library buys a new database… you’ll have space in your calendar to accommodate those promotions.

Here’s more advice on creating an editorial calendar.

#7: Ask for time at the next all-staff meeting to discuss library marketing.

One of the most common things library marketers struggle with is their coworkers. They don’t understand how promotions work!

Transparency is always a good idea. You want everyone, from the front-line staff to your senior staff, to understand what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.

Talk about your goals. Talk about how you work to accomplish them, and why you use certain marketing channels for certain promotions. Then, share successes to show that your efforts are working and share failures to drive home the point that marketing is an experiment and you’re always learning.

Here’s a great example of one library marketer who built advocates and allies inside his library.

#8: Follow best practices for press coverage.

The media is an audience you must court, like any other target audience! The easier you make their job, the more positive press coverage your library will enjoy.

I used to work as a television news producer and I have many friends still in the business. Here are the top six tips they give for garnering press coverage for your library. Here are more tips from another former journalist turned library marketer.

And, I hope you’re planning to attend the 2024 Library Marketing and Communications Conference because this is the focus of my session this year! I’ll be moderating a panel with three former journalists turned library marketers who will share their top tips for building positive relationships with your local media.

#9: Start a blog.

A blog is one of the best ways to share information about the library and drive visitors to your website. It allows your library to tell your story, create brand awareness, and promote your library to your audience for free, without having to deal with the rules of someone else’s platform.

And, frankly, it’s fun! But it can be difficult to get a blog off the ground. It took me five years to launch a blog at my former library. Now, I’m running the blog at my day job at NoveList. Here are all the things I’ve learned about blogging from those experiences.

#10: Set aside 20 minutes a week to learn.

Marketing is changing all the time. You can keep up with the latest social media news and marketing tips by dedicating time to this work.

Hey library marketing friends: Remember, every promotion you put out into the world can spark a lifelong love of reading in someone. Your work makes a difference!

P.S. You might also find this helpful

Library Cracks the Code on How To Tell Stories to Stakeholders: They Use Email! Here’s How Their Targeted Newsletter Works

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Tips for the Biggest Marketing Conflict Libraries Face: How Do You Balance Your Library’s Needs and Your Community’s Needs?

Watch this video now

#LibraryMarketing Show, episode 222

Library marketing… it’s sometimes a balancing act.

There are things that your library wants to promote. And there are things that your community wants from your library. Sometimes, those two things conflict with one another!

In this episode, you’ll get some tips for finding the balance between building things that your cardholders and community need versus working on your library’s overall vision. Plus, a library gets kudos for a patron as hero story!

Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know here. And thanks for watching! 

Miss the last episode? No worries!

Will I see you soon?

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Don’t Release All Your Library Promotions at the Same Time: Why a Staggered Approach Reaches More People!

Shelver in the 16mm film area of the stacks, May 26th, 1974. Photo courtesy Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County.

I am a new-ish fan of K-pop.

During quarantine, my 20-year-old daughter asked me to watch a reality series with her. It features her favorite Korean boy band, Stray Kids.

I was touched that she wanted to spend time together. I couldn’t say no, especially when I know she’ll be moving out of our house soon.

So during those dreary days of lockdown, I had something to look forward to: the point in the evening when she and I would make tea and snacks, and crawl into her bed to watch the members of Stray Kids compete to see who could sled down a hill holding a pitcher of water without spilling it or who could catch the most fish.

I became a fan of their music. And because I work in marketing, I started taking note of the way the promotion for Stray Kids, and other Korean musical groups, is coordinated.

Right now, six big K-pop groups are competing in a music variety reality show called Kingdom. It’s a master class in promotion. The marketing team builds excitement in the fan base by staggering promotional content over a specific period of time before each episode airs. Fans are seeing content at different times and days as they move across various platforms.

Libraries can learn something from K-pop.

Creating a compelling message, picking images, and deciding which tactics you will use to promote your library is important. But, deciding when you’ll release those promotions is just as critical.

When I started work in library marketing, I would create a marketing campaign and intentionally release all the promotions on all channels in the same day.

On the appointed day, my team sent an email and a press release. We added a homepage graphic and posted on all our social media platforms. We changed out the digital signage in our branches and put up posters.

And it was never very effective.

Then I heard marketing expert named Andrew Davis talk about staggered distribution. The approach takes advantage of the consumer cycle of excitement to expand your reach.

When you use staggered distribution, you release one or two promotional tactics at the beginning of your promotional cycle. Maybe you put up posters and send an email to your community.

Your promotion gets some play, and excitement builds in your community. People start talking about it. They might even share your promotion with their family and friends.

When the excitement dies out, you release your promotion on a second channel. The cycle of excitement and sharing begins again.

When that ends, you release your promotion on a third channel. You cycle through your promotion like this until you’ve used all the tactics planned.

When you use the staggered 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. Everyone in your audience sees the promotions. And more people take the action you want them to take!

For decades, my library used a traditional, all-at-once promotional approach to our Summer Reading program, which ran from June 1 through July 31. We released promotions using all our available tactics on May 1. And our registration numbers and check-in numbers were never as high as we wanted.

By the time we got to June 1, our audience was already tired of hearing about Summer Adventure. We used up all their excitement before we even got to the event!

So, we switched to a staggered approach.

We released promotions on our website on May 1 and installed yard signs. On May 15, we sent an email. On May 20, we put up all the signs around the inside of the library and started promotions on social media. From May 21 until June 1, we’d post once a day on one of our social media platforms. We started our ads on May 25. We sent a second email on June 1.

Throughout the course of our summer reading program, we would stagger promotions around all channels, so the message reached everyone in our audience, wherever they were consuming our content. We kept our audience excited, engaged, and interested.

And most importantly, it was effective. The first year we tried this staggered approach to distribution, we saw an 18 percent increase in registrations and a 67 percent increase in weekly check-ins.

This approach will work for your audience for any large-scale promotion. Stagger the elements of your promotion across various channels over time. More people will see your marketing and your efforts will be more effective.

I talked more about this idea in this episode of the Library Marketing Show. Try it and let me know if you see an increase in the effectiveness of your marketing work.

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

I don’t know about you, but I spend the majority of my day as a library marketer making decisions. I answer probably two dozen or more questions a day from co-workers, staff, and friends about everything from the title of our library’s next blog post to the photo used in an email campaign to the kind of swag we give out at library events. This may be why my poor husband often has to choose the restaurant when we go out to eat. By the end of the day, I’m tired of making decisions!

Library marketing often feels like air traffic control. So how can a library marketer work effectively without losing their ever-loving mind? Organization, my friends. And the best way to get organized is to live and die by a working editorial calendar.

An editorial calendar will define and control the process of creating content, from the creation of an idea through writing and publication. A good editorial calendar will help you decide which content ideas to publish, where to publish, and when to publish. After those decisions are made, the editorial calendar will help you assign tasks and keep up to date on deadlines.

The editorial calendar is literally the heart and soul of the library marketer. Mine is open all the time, as long as I’m at work at my desk. It’s a score card, to-do list, and road map all rolled into one. Without it, I’d be lost.

A number of readers have asked me how they can create an editorial calendar that will lead to effective marketing. I’ve broken it up into two parts. First, let’s go through the steps to setting yourself up for success by funneling your team and tasks into one tool. You need to pick the tool, define your process, and learn how to work your calendar in your role as the project manager.

The Library Marketer’s Definitive Guide to Creating an Editorial Calendar, Part One: How to Pick Your Tool and Use It

Step #1: You need a tool that will help you keep track of everything… and I mean everything! You should consolidate all of your team’s tasks into one place. That means anyone who has anything to do with creating content for your blog, social media, video, email, print, press release, digital signage, or newsletters is on the same tool.

The one tool approach will help everyone to know where each promotion is at any given time. It will also help to maintain a consistent voice and message throughout all of your marketing. Working off the same tool will also maximize the effective use of every piece of content. The one tool approach will also help you, as project manager, to minimize overlap and mistakes.

Set expectations with your team early. Tell them you’ll do your best to pick the right tool for your team. Then make it clear that there will come a point at which everyone will be expected to have transitioned to the new tool.

Step #2: Get your team involved in picking your tool. First, you’ll want to explore how the new system will make their jobs and their lives easier. You can do this by asking your team to list the problems they have right now with content creation. Then, ask them to prioritize them. Which problems cost your team the most time and energy?

How to create an editorial calendar in Google Calendar

Marketing Strategy Bundle from CoSchedule (includes editorial calendar)

Free Excel Spreadsheet-based templates from Smartsheet

Step #3: Enforce compliance. Once you pick the right tool for your team, you have to delete all your other calendars and tools. I’m not being harsh. Your team may need that extra push to use one tool. And it’s likely there may be someone on your team who doesn’t like whatever tool you end up choosing. You cannot allow them to go rogue. In order for this to work, everyone has to use the same base.

Step #4: Make checking your editorial calendar a part of your daily ritual. As the project manager, your job will be to keep everyone on track using your new tool. Some days, this task will take five minutes. Some days it will take longer.

I add promotions into my calendar as soon as I learn about them. I have some promotions planned six months in advance. Advance planning helps me to visualize the promotions I’m doing and make sure everything gets the proper attention it needs. I can still be flexible and change things around as needed. But if I know what my marketing will look like in October during the month of July, I’ll have a better chance of getting everything done in time. That also gives me time to think about what’s coming up and to work on creative and innovative ideas to make those promotions better.

Step #5: Leave plenty of room for data. Measure the results of your content so you can adjust the editorial calendar and improve the effectiveness of future promotions.

Analytics should drive most of the decisions in your editorial calendar. I say most because I believe analytics should be responsible for 75 percent of the decisions. The other 25 percent is experimentation, gut instinct, and a deep knowledge of your audience.

Measuring results has two benefits: It helps you to decide what to do and it helps you decide what to drop. If you find a particular content subject or format isn’t getting the results you want for your library, you have data to back up your decision to drop it. Likewise, when something is working well, you can use data to reinforce your decision to that thing more often!

Read this next!

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

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