Is Artificial Intelligence (AI) a threat to your job as a library marketer? It’s a serious question I’ve been pondering for a while. I turned to someone I truly admired for advice and we’ll unpack what she has to say about AI and promoting your library in this episode.
Plus we’ll give kudos to someone doing great work in library marketing. And this week, it’s a surprising choice!
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know here.
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Photo courtesy Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library
The worst day I’ve ever had in a job was in 2009.
I was working in television news as a producer. It was during the recession, and times were tough for TV stations. Most of our ad dollars came from car dealerships. Vehicle sales fell 40 percent that year, which meant the dealerships had no money to spend on television ads.
One morning, as I sat down at my desk, our news director called one of our morning editors into his office. Andy was in there for about 10 minutes. He emerged crestfallen.
Over the course of the next two hours, a dozen or so of my 60 fellow co-workers made the same journey in and out of the news director’s office. When they emerged, all of them had lost their jobs.
I could barely function that day. Writing was hard and my concentration was nonexistent. The only thing that got me through the day was the conversations I had with my fellow, still-employed co-workers, in hallways, offices, and in the back parking lot. We spent time trying to process what had happened and how it would impact our work.
I’m certain you have a similar story. And to make it through the day, it’s likely you pulled aside a friend, or a co-worker, or called your spouse or parent and talked it through. Sharing your story and receiving validation for your experience made you feel better or at least, more able to handle the crisis. Someone practiced empathy for you.
Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. It can, and should, play a role in your library promotions.
Libraries are uniquely positioned to put empathy marketing to work. We care about our communities. We want our patrons to find the information they have, to experience joy, to learn, and to feel included. And that can play a significant role in creating effective promotions.
What is Empathy Marketing?
Empathy in marketing means communicating with your audience that you understand and share the emotions they feel. It’s more than pushing out promotions, one after another, on all channels.
Empathy marketing shows your community that you understand their pain, frustration, hurdles, and problems. When you demonstrate that, you’ll unlock the key to turning your audience’s emotions into action.
Emotions that drive action
Think about your favorite novel. The author used empathy to make you care about what happens to the characters. Without that, you likely would never have finished the book.
In the same way, a promotion that lacks empathy is just noise to an audience. You need to make people understand that you care by harnessing emotion in your library marketing.
People are motivated to action by four main emotions: greed, fear, love, and the chance to grow. And under those main emotions, there is a range of nuance: stress, anxiety, worry, compassion, hope, and many more.
How does this work in the real world?
Research shows empathy in marketing increases engagement. Social media platforms take full advantage of this. They count on users to respond emotionally to posts with emojis, and comments, and share the thoughts, struggles, celebrations, and memories of their family and friends.
This is why storytelling works so well in marketing. When your promotions are emotional, they are more memorable. Your audience can see themselves in the story and imagine how they would react in the same situation. And the emotion someone feels after hearing that story has a greater influence on whether that person takes action and uses their library. It’s that simple.
When I worked in a library, the people in our community were worried specifically about jobs. They wanted valuable, stable employment. Many were stuck in low-paying jobs with no prospects for advancement.
At that time, there weren’t many programs in our area aimed at giving people the basic coaching they needed to put together a resume, ace an interview, or even sort through prospective job openings to find the right fit for their life and their family. So, my library partnered with another organization to put on a series of free workshops aimed at improving the job prospects of members of our community.
The emotion we’ve used to market that program was hope… a sense of hope for the betterment of our community and a sense of hope for those who want a better-paying, more fulfilling job. Hope is related to that fourth base emotion: the chance to grow.
Hope infused every promotional piece we created to promote the workshops. We knew that if we really leaned into the hope this program provided, we would compel our target audience to sign up and attend the workshops.
And it worked! Our workshops filled up and we had to start a waiting list.
A subtle but important shift
I want you to take a look at the last few promotions you have created. Were you merely telling your audience that a service existed in your library? Did your promotion include any emotion?
Here’s how to bridge that gap. Look at the difference between the two paragraphs below promoting Weiss Financial Ratings Site, a library database that allows patrons to find and compare insurance companies. Let’s say you want to compel your community members to do their insurance coverage shopping using your library.
Push marketing: Introducing Weiss Financial Ratings – Your Ultimate Insurance Database! Tired of sifting through endless insurance options? Look no further! Weiss Financial Ratings is a comprehensive database that helps you find the perfect insurance company tailored to your unique needs.
Empathy marketing with fear: The fear of making the wrong insurance decision can be overwhelming, leaving you vulnerable and uncertain about your coverage when it matters most. But your library is an unwavering ally in this sea of uncertainty. Weiss Financial Ratings, available for free at your library, lets you easily and confidently navigate through insurance options. Peace of mind is non-negotiable when it comes to safeguarding your future.
See the difference?
Here’s another example. When I worked at a library, we had a personalized reading recommendation service called Book Hookup. Cardholders used a form on the website to tell a librarian what books they like. Then the librarian gave them three personalized reading recommendations.
When we sent emails promoting this service, I used empathy in my subject lines. To parents, I appealed to their need for convenience, saying, “You’ve got a lot to do. Let us pick out your next favorite book.” To teens, I used greed and a little bit of rebellion as motivation, saying simply, “Read something YOU want to read for a change.”
For a streaming movie service, you can center your promotional message on frustration, saying, “Tired of endlessly scrolling through streaming platforms, only to be met with the frustration of not finding anything captivating to watch? Say hello to a free, curated selection of blockbuster hits, timeless classics, and hidden gems. Your precious time deserves to be spent indulging in the magic of cinema, not lost in the labyrinth of choices.”
It’s a slight, but effective change in wording that leads to big results. For your community, empathy marketing feels less like promotion and more like help.
How do I know what emotions motivate my community?
If you want to get to the heart of the emotions that motivate your community, use psychographics.
Psychographics is the study and classification of people according to their attitudes, aspirations, and other psychological criteria, especially in market research (Oxford Dictionary). They 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 identifies 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?
Once you identify the emotions that motivate your community, create messages that help, rather than promote. Here’s an easy thought process to use as you sit down to create promotions. Ask yourself:
How does my community see this problem? What do they do about it right now?
What are their fears?
What are their hopes?
What do they really need from my library, and why do they need it?
Psychographics lead to compelling marketing messages because they focus on your community’s unarticulated needs and motivations. Learn how to identify your community’s psychographic makeup here.
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I have a tiny favor to ask of my library marketing friends. 😌
I need you to do something different when it comes to email marketing. It is an effortless, quick thing to change! I’ll make my case to you in this episode.
Plus we’ll give kudos to someone doing great work in library marketing.
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know here.
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email whenever I post. To do that, enter youremail address and click on the “Follow” button in the lower left-hand corner of the page. You can also follow me on the following social media platforms:
In college at the Catholic University of America, she interned for then-Senator Hilary Rodham Clinton while also working at the campus library.
“I was interning for her during a summer when the Democratic National Convention was held,” explained Meghan. “It was organized chaos. That summer taught me that I MUCH preferred library work over politics,”
Library work runs in the family. Meghan’s father was the librarian at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, where the family eventually settled.
“I can’t ever remember not loving or being aware of the power of libraries,” said Meghan. “When we lived in Florida, the branch library for our area was a few streets away from our neighborhood. It was the one place outside our neighborhood I was allowed to bike to by myself. I would go, peruse the shelves (usually for a new Laurelene McDaniel book), and come home with my reads for the week.”
Meghan now works as the Outreach and Reference librarian for The University of the District of Columbia. She loves connecting people to the information they are interested in or need. And she loves what she learns from the students and faculty during her interactions.
When Meghan started her job four years ago, her position was brand new. So, she conducted a SWOT analysis to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that her library faces. During the process, she uncovered an amazing angle for library promotion.
“I used a series of formal and informal interviews, space assessment, and document review to get a handle on what people thought about the library,” explained Meghan. “From there, I realized that we had a great brand image as being ‘The Helpful Place.’ Time after time, I learned that people went to the library for help because they knew someone would always be there.”
“Even if the library couldn’t help (for example, with a financial aid problem) at least we tried or would direct them to someone who could assist. I leaned into that to reinforce our already positive customer service experience while slowly building our platforms.”
Meghan also set about getting her fellow staff and faculty trained to provide great customer service to their students.
“During my first summer here, I created a customer service commitment document and general training workshop,” said Meghan. “This gets reinforced twice a year during our required departmental events. I’ve covered everything from customer service basics to remote customer service to accessible service to how to deal with students who already have too much going on.”
Meghan’s university is an HBCU (Historically black college or university) and a commuter campus. Their students are non-traditional. Those facts about her target audience inform everything Meghan does to promote her library.
“They have so much going on already,” said Meghan. “I don’t want ‘dealing with the library’ to be another hurdle they have to jump. So, we work on equity and consistency in our service. We are going to focus on the individual in front of us and work with them in a manner that best suits them as a person.”
“In the end, all the outreach I do comes down to one simple message – we are the place you can come to get help. It doesn’t matter if I’m sending an email, tabling at an event, teaching a class, or just chatting with someone – I want them to walk away remembering that the library is where they can come for help.”
Meghan’s focus on reinforcing the library’s reputation as a place where students can get good customer service was well-received and supported by staff and faculty.
“I approached this from a fait accompli standpoint,” explained Meghan. “It’s integrated into something we ALL do. I reinforce it by sharing positive feedback whenever we get it. I also framed it from the beginning as ‘This is something you are already doing.’ My work is just reinforcing that positive attitude and training on the nuances.”
Meghan admits that it is hard to measure the impact of good customer service. Reviews, polls, and occasional surveys of the library are all positive. The library also sees a lot of repeat customers.
“If I focused too much on basic metrics, I might cry,” declared Meghan. “Instead, I see our outreach as relationship building. If you make a student happy, they will talk about you with your friends.”
“That is why customer service is so important. You can help someone, but if you do it in an off-putting way, that person will never come back. You can also be unsuccessful in solving someone’s issue but, if you are friendly about it, that person comes back because they liked the experience and at least you tried.”
“It’s basically designed to juice your creative side to find content ideas when your brain is tired,” explained Meghan. “We don’t have to work alone! The one great thing about librarians is that we are all so willing to share.”
Meghan has one great trick for catching those fleeting moments of inspiration.
“I keep a note in my phone where I can brain dump things whenever the inspiration strikes,” explained Meghan. “Once a week, I sit down with that note and process things out to make sure I can actually do something with them.”
“Also, never discount the phrase, ‘I don’t know. Let’s find out together.’ For our students that shows that research is a process, and we are all working on it. It can also model that failure is okay. Resilience in research is a key skill. When our students see that even librarians have to keep trying, it helps.”
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email whenever I post. To do that, enter your email address and click on the “Follow” button in the lower left-hand corner of the page. You can also follow me on the following social media platforms:
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email whenever I post. To do that, enter youremail address and click on the “Follow” button in the lower left-hand corner of the page. You can also follow me on the following social media platforms:
Photo courtesy Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library
My co-worker Yaika recently returned from StokerCon with an amazing library marketing story.
Yaika was on a panel. The organizers of the panel brought about 700 Advanced Reader copies, or ARCs, to the session. An ARC is a version of a book that is made available before the official publication date.
The ARCs were set on tables before the presentation. The panelists then talked about the various ARCs during the session, naming them by title and author and discussing the most intriguing things about each book.
Of course, they gave a quick summary of the plot. But, every time they talked about a book, they mentioned the appealing factors that make people want to read a book: the characters, the tone, the setting, the pacing, and the themes.
And once the audience heard the appealing factors, a bunch of people would jump out of their seats and run to the ARC table to see if the book was available.
Why did attendees, who seemed hesitant to pick up a book before the session, feel compelled to grab books during the session?
It’s because the panelists were book-talking.
A book talk is a short presentation about a book to convince other people to read it. Book talking is not a formal book report or review. It’s more of a mini-commercial.
And book talking is one of the most effective ways to promote your collection, especially when you describe the book using those intriguing story elements.
Whether you are a degreed librarian who works on library promotions or a communications professional who works in a library, everyone… and I mean everyone… can talk about books in this way.
Your passion for the collection, not your degree or expertise, is what makes this type of marketing so special. And promoting your collection is incredibly important to the success of your library.
Your collection is the reason most people get a library card. Books are your brand. You should promote your collection all year long.
If you are a front desk worker, you can book talk with patrons during every interaction! But how do you book talk if you aren’t working at the front desk?
Here are 5 promotional tactics that you can use to book talk with readers when you aren’t working directly with the public.
Email
Every month, I get an email from the Jacksonville Public Library that drives me to the catalog EVERY SINGLE TIME I get it. Do you know why? The email is a book talk in digital form!
I don’t even live in Jacksonville. I don’t live in Florida! But this email makes me want to read books.
The email contains a list of books, usually fewer than 10. Next to each book is a summary of the plot, plus a little extra something: a review, or a hint at something appealing about the theme, genre, or characters. It’s intriguing! And it makes me add to my TBR (to-be-read) pile.
I also love this example from Jefferson Public Library. Scroll to the bottom of the email to find a promotion that includes those appealing elements which can be more helpful in describing a book than the plot.
Print
The folks at LibraryReads offer a downloadable PDF flyer each month that is a book talk in print. Each of their selected titles is listed, along with a description of the book that includes not only the plot, but words that describe the book’s genre, intriguing factors, and the author’s style.
On your website
I must confess that every time I visit my library’s website, I am on the hunt for books. Your readers are too. Your job is to make those books sound enticing enough to compel them to place a hold.
Create a page on your website, like Naperville Public Library. They have their book recommendations divided by genre and age group.
And they describe more than the plot. The annotations next to each title help readers decide which of the titles to check out.
Bookmarks
Your library can “upsell” books using bookmarks. Upselling is a sales term in which customers are encouraged to buy a more expensive version of a product than they originally intended.
For libraries, upselling is any action that compels your cardholders to check out more items than they originally intended. And bookmarks are the easiest way to do this.
Start small and manageable. Pick 3 categories to focus on, like cookbooks, horror, and Westerns. You can also choose age-based categories like adults, teens, and early readers.
Once you’ve decided on your categories, make one bookmark for each of your categories. Each bookmark should feature 3-6 books (3 if your bookmarks are one-sided, 6 books if your bookmark is two-sided).
For each book on your bookmark, add a photo of the cover (because book covers can also be enticing!) and the title. Then, write one line about the plot. Write a second line about the characters. Write a third line that describes the book using intriguing language like “quirky,” “thought-provoking,” and “funny.”
Challenge yourself and your staff to hand out a bookmark during every patron interaction. Make it a game to match the bookmark with the patron’s interest using context clues.
For example, if you saw the person browsing your new arrivals display and they’re an adult, you can hand them your adult fiction bookmark.
If someone comes to the drive-through to pick up their holds and you notice they’re checking out a whole stack of picture books, give them one of the early readers’ bookmarks. Heck, give them an adult bookmark too!
If someone checks out a cake pan from your Library of Things, give them a cookbook bookmark. And so on.
Videos
Ask a fellow staff member or patron to talk on camera about a book they read and loved. Challenge them to do it in under 60 seconds, like Thayer Public Library does!
Then, post the video natively to all the social media platforms your library uses with a direct link to the book in the catalog. You know how social media platforms LOVE videos!
Bonus idea
I have to share this infographic created by Lester Public Library. They gathered stats on book talks they provided to local students. It’s such a great way to prove the value of the library to the community, parents, and stakeholders like local legislators and funders!
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This is a very special episode of The Library Marketing Show.
That’s because you are going to get marketing advice from not one… not two… not three… but four of the top professionals in the library marketing industry.
And I’m bringing it to you as my gift because this, my friends is… the 200th episode of The Library Marketing Show!
Plus we’ll give kudos to someone doing great work in library marketing. Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos?
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email whenever I post. To do that, enter youremail address and click on the “Follow” button in the lower left-hand corner of the page. You can also follow me on the following social media platforms:
Photo courtesy Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library
I must be honest. I’ve never seen survey results like this one.
My library marketing friends are ALWAYS trying to figure out which social media platform will give them the best results for their goals.
And if your library is trying to drive circulation, it turns out there is a definitive answer.
TikTok.
The platform now boosts a million posts every two months JUST ABOUT BOOKS. And those posts are having a measurable impact on reading habits.
In May of 2023, Casino.org surveyed 10,000 TikTok users between the ages of 18 and 45 (the Gen Z and Millennial generations) who live in the United States and Canada.
Yes, an organization dedicated to gaming did a survey on reading. 🤷
They asked three reading-related questions.
Are you reading more because of the BookTok community?
If the answer is yes, how much more?
Have you ever read a book as a direct result of a BookTok recommendation?
Hang on to your hat, my friends.
48 percent of the survey respondentsin the United States and 53 percent of Canadian respondents said they are actively reading more books because of their exposure to BookTok.
Americans said the platform resulted in a 60 percent increase in their reading activity, with Canadians reporting an increase of 58 percent.
That means that a member of Gen Z or the Millennial generation who previously read 10 books a year is now reading as many as 16 books a year because they watch #BookTok videos.
Holy Kansas.
Casino.org also collected location data and used that to compare the impact that BookTok had on reading by location.
Here’s another stunning result: every state or province reported an uplift in reading among TikTok users.
In the United States, the impact on reading was the most profound in Maine, Nebraska, Idaho, Utah, and Kentucky. Other states where readers reported reading more because of BookTok were California, Nevada, Texas, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Illinois.
In Canada, Saskatchewan saw the biggest increase in reading due to BookTok. But 57 percent of TikTok users in Ontario, Quebec, and Alberta also stated they are reading more because of BookTok.
If your library is posting on TikTok, you should 100 percent be creating videos that promote books. Here are five tips on how to drive circulation and promote your collection using this specific social media platform.
Ask a question of your staff.
Troy Public Library asked staff members to name a BookTok book that they think is overrated. The video is short, and it’s shot in a way that builds suspense. That’s the perfect way to get people to watch the entire video.
Use trending audio.
Scranton Public Library used this very popular piece of audio from a popular #BookTokker in this video. Chambers County Library System used audio from the Creepy Book Club account on TikTok to share reading recommendations from two of its library staff.
Using popular audio will boost the organic reach of the video by increasing the chances it will show up on a reader’s For You page. And if you’re running low on ideas about what to post on TikTok, just check out the trending pieces of audio as a place to start.
Use humor.
Vaughn Public Libraries used a short snippet of a popular movie soundtrack to create this hilarious clip. At just under 10 seconds, it perfectly introduces the library to a trigger-happy TikTok scroller.
It also subtly promotes the fact that the library’s BookTok recommendations are popular and nudges readers to follow the library account for great book recommendations.
Do something unexpected.
Most people think a library would only promote books with great reviews. But McHenry Public Library turns that notion on its head to highlight a one-star review of a book that most people would consider a classic. And they used a Taylor Swift song, capitalizing on her popularity to boost their organic reach.
Take advantage of staff creativity.
Perhaps it’s no surprise that the script for this hilarious and creative TikTok came from staff at the Los Angeles Public Library. We’d expect nothing less from a city just seven miles from Hollywood.
I bet there is someone at your library who is brimming over with creative ideas for BookTok videos. Put out a call for the best script or concept from staff and fill your content calendar while getting buy-in for the impact of BookTok from your co-workers. They’ll be more likely to share your videos on their personal accounts when they’re personally invested in the process.
For more tips on how to market your library using BookTok, here’s a great article by my co-worker Yaika Sabat. I must give her credit: she called out the impact of BookTok long before Casino.org did!
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Your library’s website is more than a website. It’s actually a digital branch. And it’s an incredibly important way to drive people to your library and to help them find out about your services and items.
I have three big tips for you that you can implement to make your website more discoverable out there on the fast internet. And you do not have to be a fancy website developer to put these tips into practice!
Plus we’ll give kudos to someone doing great work in library marketing.
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know here.
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email whenever I post. To do that, enter youremail address and click on the “Follow” button in the lower left-hand corner of the page. You can also follow me on the following social media platforms:
Super Library Marketing: Practical Tips and Ideas for Library Promotion 