If there was ever a time when your library would need to survey your community and cardholders, it’s now.
This year has been wildly difficult for libraries and their communities. And the pandemic will be a factor in the lives of our cardholders into 2021.
To prepare our services, collection, and programs, we need to know exactly who is using the library and how they are using it. We must also anticipate our community needs going into the next year.
A customer feedback survey is the best way to gather this data. Here’s how to put one together.
Before you start
The first step in the survey process is to come up with a plan and answer some important questions.
Why are we doing the survey? You may use a survey to determine how people use your library. You may be testing to see whether there is a tangible need for a particular service before you invest in it.
Perhaps you are looking to gather demographic information about your service population. You might also want to ask questions to get at the psychographic makeup of your cardholders so you can better segment your marketing audiences.
Write down your reasons for creating a survey. You’ll also want to write down what you hope to learn from your community’s answers.
It’s important to put the answers to these two questions in writing to keep yourself accountable. The written answers will remind you of your goals as you write the questions, distribute the survey, and evaluate the results.
How will you distribute the survey? Distribution of surveys can be tricky for libraries because our populations are so diverse.
How do you make sure that people from all communities and demographic populations are represented? What about cardholders who don’t have digital access? Do you hope to have answers from non-cardholders? Create a plan for addressing these points.
What will we do with the results? The final step of this first phase is to plan for how you will work with the results of your survey.
Who will look at the results and aggregate them? Who gets to see the results? And who will be responsible for implementing changes to library services based on the results?
How many questions can you ask?
Survey Monkey analyzed more than 10,000 surveys to make their recommendations. And they found that fewer questions get better results. The more questions you add to your survey, the less time people spend answering each question.
To gather more thoughtful responses, you’ll want to use as few questions as possible. SurveyMonkey says an effective survey will take no more than 7 minutes to complete. Their data shows people will abandon surveys that take longer than that.
A 7-minute survey will be about 10-15 questions long, depending on the type of questions you ask. If you find that you need more than 15 questions, consider doing more than one survey.
Writing the questions
Writing your survey questions is like writing a blog post. For the final product, you’ll want a tightly written and concise set of questions. But to get there, you’ll need to get a little messy.
You should approach the first draft of your questions with no limits. Write down everything you want to ask your community about the library. Use whatever format of question first comes to mind.
This exercise will create an ugly but important first draft which you can mold into an amazing survey. Once you have that draft, go back through, and highlight the questions you absolutely must ask.
Be sure your questions don’t ask two questions at once. Doing so will confuse your respondents and lead to less reliable survey results.
For example, don’t ask “How would you rate our branch cleanliness and the wait time at the checkout counter?” Split those questions to get a more accurate picture of your community needs.
Consolidate questions that are repetitive. You may find you asked the same thing, or very similar things, but in a different way.
Once you have a final list of questions, mix the formats to create the best results. Data suggests that most of your survey questions should be multiple choice or matrix-scale.
Try to ask no more than two open-ended questions in a 10-15 question survey. The more time your respondents must spend composing their answers to open-ended questions, the more likely it is that they won’t complete the survey. While open-ended questions can be very insightful, use great intention when adding them to your survey.
Where to create your survey
With limited budgets, most libraries cannot afford to pay big money for a survey maker.
There are many free options, but most have limitations for how many surveys you can create and how many responses you can collect. Here are a few that have no such limitations.
Google Forms: Google Forms is my preferred free survey tool. You can create surveys and collect unlimited responses. It’s easy to create the survey and easy to export the data as a Google Sheet.
SurveyPlanet: Their free version allows for unlimited surveys, questions, and responses. They also have templates to get you started. Also, you can easily duplicate a survey. You cannot export your response data on their free plan, but you can look at it in a dashboard and use that data to create infographics, graphs, and other reports to communicate the results.
Free Online Surveys: This site has a limited free plan. I’m including it because they offer a substantial discount on their paid plan for non-profits. The paid plan unlocks some great features including unlimited responses and support. Their survey maker also has artificial intelligence to help you build an effective survey.
Launching your survey
Before you send your survey out to the world, be sure to thoroughly test it. You’ll want testers to look for spelling errors, confusing questions, and to make sure the order in which you ask your questions makes sense.
Send your survey to staffers outside of your department and to friends and family. Get as many people to test it as you can before you launch.
Once you’re sure your survey is ready, it’s time to send it out into the world. Email the survey to all cardholders. Place printed versions of the survey at the checkout desk for people who don’t have digital access.
For the duration of the survey, prompt patrons to fill out the survey in every interaction, including at curbside pickup, during virtual programs, and in reference emails and phone calls.
The amount of time you’ll leave your survey open for responses really depends on your community. You’ll need to monitor the results and be flexible.
In initial launch round, be vague with your respondents about how long they have to complete the survey. You might say “Take a few moments now to give us your feedback.” Then watch to see how well your community responds.
Once you start to notice a lag in responses, you may do another round of promotions that sound more urgent. “Complete this survey before Friday to make sure your voice is heard” or “We’re closing this survey in two days so be sure to give us your thoughts!”
In general, don’t leave your survey open for answers for longer than two weeks.
Have you done a library survey? Do you have other tips and suggestions for creating a survey? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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. Connect with me on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
In this episode, Angela answers a question from Emily Orischak, Community Relations Coordinator at Berks County Public Libraries. She wants to know how to gather stories from your library patrons about why they love and use the library! Angela shares some tips that any library can use.
Kudos in this episode comes from Carrie Weaver who nominated the Peters Township Public Library for the work they did promoting books during Banned Books Week.
Carrie said, “I have to nominate the staff members at my library who created an awesome video to explain Banned Book Week and show several examples of books that are banned. We also have a display of all of our banned books in the main lobby for people to check out and celebrate their right to read! I am so proud of them!”
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!
This is the second in a two-part series on email marketing for libraries. Read part one here.
At the Library Advocacy and Funding Conference in September, a new buzzword seemed to be on the lips of many of the presenters. They were all talking about psychographic segmentation of library audiences for email marketing.
I thought I knew most of the marketing buzzwords, but I confess this was the first time I’d ever heard the term. So, it was time to do some research.
What is psychographics?
Psychographics is the study and classification of people according to their attitudes, aspirations, and other psychological criteria, especially in market research (Oxford Dictionary).
Psychographics go beyond basic demographics: location, age, gender identity, and library card usage. To segment by psychographics is to divide your library audience into groups according to their beliefs, values, and reasons for being. It delves deeper into your cardholder’s values, dreams, desires, and outlook on life.
Psychographics identify motivation. Why does your library community take certain actions? Why do they feel the way they do about the library? How do they see the role of the library in their life? And what activities do they participate in, both inside and outside of the library?
Psychographics lead to compelling email marketing messages because they focus on your community’s unarticulated needs and motivations.
Understanding psychographics
The term is new to me but it’s not new to marketing. In 1964, Harvard graduate and social scientist Daniel Yankelovich wrote that traditional demographic traits—sex, age, and education level—lacked the insights marketers needed to target their audiences.
Around the same time, market researcher Emanuel Demby began using the term ‘psychographics’ to reference variations in attitudes, values, and behaviors within a specific demographic segment.
In the 1980s, the Stanford Research Institute developed the Values Attitudes and Lifestyles (VALS) psychographic methodology. It was hailed as a breakthrough in marketing.
One way to understand this concept is to find your own VALS type by taking this survey. My results show that I like to have historical context, that I buy proven products, and that I’m not influenced by what’s “hot.” I also like to experiment. Share your results in the comments.
The travel industry uses psychographics. Email marketing by hotels, cruise lines, and cities, states, and countries often focuses on why a person wants to travel: adventure, romance, curiosity, and relaxation.
Libraries can do the same thing.
Imagine if we started focusing our library email marketing messages not on what are cardholders want to do… but WHY they want to do it.
Uncover the psychographics of your library audience
How do you figure out what makes your library audience do the things they do? You must ask them! A survey is the best way to drill down on the psychographics of your library audience.
Most library surveys focus solely on demographics like age, location, and income. They generally ask people how they use the library now. They may ask people to predict how they’ll use the library in the future.
By adding psychographic questions, you’ll get a look at your audience’s true motivations. That may include questions like, “The last time you checked out a book, what was the reason?” “How do you feel about the library’s work with people experiencing homelessness?”
You can also use matrix-rated questions to gauge psychographics. For instance, you could include a statement like “The library helps people find a new job” and ask respondents to select an answer from a range of “not important” to “extremely important.”
You can also use outside data sources to get at the psychographics of your library audience. Take a closer look at the comments on your social media posts. Can you uncover any reasons why your followers are interacting with your library on social media? Do they share or comment on a particular type of post?
Check Google analytics on your library’s website. Are visitors taking the same steps to move from one landing page to another on your site? Do they spend a longer amount of time on one type of page?
Your circulation stats are a source of psychographics. Are you seeing a surge in the checkouts or interest of one genre of book, or one format? What language do your cardholders use when they ask for recommendations using your form-based readers’ advisory service?
If your library answers reference questions, what type of problems and language are your cardholders using when they ask for help?
Try to look at any interaction your library has with your cardholders, in any arena, as an opportunity to unlock their motivations and psychology. Then use those new insights to craft compelling email marketing messages.
Using psychographics in library email segmentation
Libraries can segment their email audience without violating CAN-SPAM laws. If your cardholders gave you permission to send them email, you can segment them into psychographic segments. As long as your email includes opt-out language (i.e. “If you no longer wish to receive emails about job services at the library, click here”), you are complying with the law.
Combine your demographic knowledge of your cardholders with the research you’ve done on the psychographics of your cardholders. Then divide your email recipients into new segments and try sending them psychographic messages.
For example, let’s say you are already sending a monthly email to parents about storytime at the library. Now let’s say your library decides to offer a new program, like a virtual family literacy night, to help families whose children are not attending in-person classes during the pandemic.
Without psychographics, your email message may have looked like this:
But, thanks to your survey results, you know that many parents are worried about the effect that virtual learning is having on their child’s education. They believe their child will need extra tutoring and classroom attention to succeed in life because of the impact of virtual learning.
Now you can combine your audience’s motivations for attending with your message about the new program.
This marketing message pivoted from a simple invitation to a message that strikes at the heart of the caregiver’s concern for their child.
Psychographics activate the motivations and aspirations of your cardholders. When you get to know your community better, you’ll do a better job of getting your community to know your library!
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. Connect with me on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
In this episode, Angela invites you to join a new Library Marketing Book Club organized by Chris Boivin of the Jacksonville Public Library.
Kudos in this episode goes to Mid-Mississippi Regional Library System for their Dial-a-Story service.
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.
This is the first in a two-part series on email marketing for libraries. Part two is here.
If there is one thing that I know about library promotion, it’s this:
If you want to be successful in library email marketing, you must target your messages.
This isn’t just my personal belief. It is a method which worked, with impressive results, during my years at a public library. And I see it working now for hundreds of libraries around the country and around the world in my day job at NoveList.
Why are libraries hesitant to do targeted email marketing?
There are two big reasons that libraries fear the idea of segmenting their email audiences.
First, libraries are worried about email marketing in general. They feel it’s too promotional and that email messages from the library will be received as spam. They may even believe that people don’t want to receive email marketing from anyone, even a library.
This is not the case. The average consumer is accustomed to giving out their email address in exchange for marketing messages targeted specifically to them. Opt-in Monster research shows 99 percent of people with an email address check their inbox at least once a day.
Why? Because they are looking for messages from friends, family, and places they love. They love the library. Your cardholders and community members feel excitement when they receive an email from you.
Libraries worry that, by sending targeted messages to segmented audiences, they will miss out on the chance to get a message to all their cardholders.
Many libraries are sending the same message to every cardholder, sometimes hundreds of thousands of people in one burst. It feels like the natural thing to do. “Everyone needs to know about this!”
The problem with that approach is that your cardholders are individuals. One message never fits them all.
This is particularly true if your service area covers a range of incomes and demographics. The needs and interests of your cardholders vary greatly.
By targeting your message, you are more likely to say something that matters significantly to your cardholders, which makes them more likely to take an action, which makes it more likely that your email will be successful.
Targeted email marketing for libraries is effective because it serves the right message to the right group of people. And it works for all kind of messages.
Do not let your fears about email set you up for failure. Your cardholders want to hear from you. There are not very many industries which can say that. Let’s take advantage of it and give the people what they want!
Libraries who do segment their audiences tend to use three main methods. There are benefits and drawbacks for each.
Segmenting by library card use
Some libraries group their cardholders by the type of material they most frequently check out: kids’ books, print books, e-books, etc. Then, they send targeted email messages about those formats or collection types to those specific users.
This was the method we used when I worked a public library. For example, we would send an email promoting three new e-books every month to people who appear to favor e-books.
Benefits: This method is great for collection marketing. Most libraries will notice holds and checkouts increase, sometimes exponentially, when they send messages about items to people who have shown a previous interest in those items.
Drawbacks: The way a person uses their library card may not correspond to their true library interests.
For instance, an adult who frequently checks out children’s books for their kids may also love to read e-books. By focusing solely on the fact that they more frequently check out children’s books, a library may miss a key opportunity to market e-books to that cardholder.
A second drawback is that your library will want to promote things besides your collection, like programs, big events, and advocacy messages. Segmenting audiences solely by their favorite collection format gives you no clue as to your cardholders other potential interests.
Finally, this kind of segmentation often requires sophisticated email marketing programs that are expensive and time-consuming to manage. Smaller libraries without a dedicated marketing department and libraries with limited budgets may find these programs cost prohibitive.
Letting people self-select
Many libraries have an opt-in page on their website listing email interest groups. Visitors can self-select which emails they prefer to receive.
Benefits: When a person chooses to receive an email from you about a certain subject, they are also likely to open and engage with that email. They have already indicated their interest by selecting it.
Most library email opt-in pages do not require a person to be a cardholder to sign up. So, a second benefit of this method is that you can send marketing messages to people who aren’t in your cardholder base but can be enticed to use your library. That’s a fantastic way to expand your cardholder base!
Drawbacks: A library using this method must commit to intentionally market the marketing lists. They must make sure the community knows the opt-in page exists and convince people to sign up.
Segmenting by cardholder location
Some libraries have sent messages to people who have indicated a certain branch is their home branch or to people who live in a certain portion of the community.
Benefits: This is a great method for in-person program promotion. People are more likely to attend events that are near their home. Segmenting your audience by their location is an efficient use of your time for program promotion.
Drawbacks: There is a certain set of library cardholders who are willing to travel to attend programs and events at branches far from their home. They may be interested in hearing from your library about certain types of events, no matter where they are held.
In addition, the branch a person most frequently uses may not actually be near their home! Many people frequent the library branch near their workplace or some other important and frequently visited location.
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. Connect with me on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
In this episode, answers a viewer question about how to use customer testimonials for library marketing.
Kudos in this episode goes to Madison County in Mississippi for creating a Virtual Library.
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!
I don’t ever want to hear anyone tell me ever again that libraries can’t adapt and be flexible. My friends in the library world have proven their adaptability this year in dozens of ways.
The biggest sea change is around how libraries deliver programs to their community. Librarians shifted on a dime when buildings closed and limited service due to the pandemic.
One of the major changes came in the way libraries deliver programs. Almost every library I’ve worked with is now delivering programs live on Facebook. And they’re doing a fantastic job.
But many librarians say they have a hard time getting people to attend these live programs. They want more people to be a part of the livestreams.
It takes a lot of work to put a livestream virtual program together. And the more people who attend, the more likely they are to recognize the value of your library.
I’ve got some tips that will help you promote your Facebook livestreams to get more viewers.
Plan it out
Before you go live on Facebook, you ask yourself these questions:
What are my goals? Your main goal should be more than “I want to get 20 people to watch the livestream.” Think holistically about what you want your audience to get from your livestream. Be as specific as possible.
Some good goals are “To teach our audience how to search for articles, marriage and death notices, and other information about their families in our newspaper archive” or “To show viewers how to use the new feature updates on the Libby app from Overdrive to better manage their holds.”
A goal or goals for your live video will help you when it comes time to decide how you’ll structure your live and what you’ll say. It also gives you a measurable outcome that you can use to assess the use of live virtual programs.
What will my main message be? The main message is how you translate your overall video goal into a line that you can repeat in your promotion of the video and while you are live.
For example, if your goal is to explain those new features on the Libby app, your main message might be, “You now have more control over the e-books and audiobooks you check out from your library.” Repeating your main message in your video pre-promotion, during the video, and when you post the video on-demand will help drive that message home and make it stick in your viewer’s mind.
Who is my target audience? Readers of this blog know that the best way to have success in marketing is to pick an audience and market to them, rather than marketing to the whole of your cardholder base.
Picking a target audience is important when you’re working in Facebook, because the platform will pick up on any keywords you use in your program description. They’ll help you find those specific viewers by showing your organic post to people who may actually be interested in it.
Once you’ve answered these three questions, you’ll have a good foundation as you head into the stage where you promote your livestream.
Promote before you go live
Facebook suggests that you schedule an announcement post in Live Producer. That feature will automatically create a Facebook preview post. Your library followers can then set up a reminder to join the live broadcast.
You can also set up a Facebook event as a preview to your livestream. If you choose to go this route, be sure to explain that you’ll be going live on your main Facebook page, not within the event.
You can also create organic preview posts. Use an eye-catching graphic or photo and link to your virtual event calendar, where people can register to attend.
Registration for your virtual programs is a great option because it gives your library control over communication. Ask for your potential viewer’s email. Then, send them a reminder to watch from your own email marketing system.
In your reminder email, include other virtual program choices and collection items that compliment your livestream. You should also ask recipients to sign up for other email or newsletter marketing from your library.
Whichever option you go with, be sure to promote your livestream at least two weeks before it happens.
And don’t forget to promote your live program on your other channels, like in your email marketing, on your website’s homepage, or even with fliers or bookmarks that you slip into holds or curbside pickups.
Focus on the conversation
Your promotional efforts don’t end when you hit the “live” button.
Facebook will serve a notification of your live virtual program to people who may be scrolling the news feed while you are live. And the best way to get those notifications to happen is to make sure your audience is having a lively conversation.
To help facilitate the conversation, come up with a list of questions for viewers of your livestream before you go live. If the conversation with viewers lags during your livestream, refer to your list and ask the next question to spark comments again.
Now, that’s hard to do when you’re also the person who is hosting or talking during the livestream! So, ask one of your library co-workers with admin access to your library’s Facebook page to post a comment as the library.
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. Connect with me on YouTube, Twitter,Instagram, and LinkedIn.
In this episode, Angela shares a key point learned at the Library Advocacy and Funding Conference, sponsored by EveryLibrary. Presenter Kimberly Solarz Gordan shared three questions to ask yourself that will set your library apart and make your marketing inspirational.
Kudos in this episode goes to National Trust South East for their fun Twitter game of Clue, something I’d love to see a library replicate.
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!
Super Library Marketing: Practical Tips and Ideas for Library Promotion 