It’s time for social media updates for libraries! We’ll highlight three headlines and talk a bit about their impact on library social media.
Kudos in this episode go to the Columbus Library for their help with Operation Backpack.
Special note
I'm hosting a live Twitter chat next Tuesday, August 31 at 12 p.m. ET. It's on changing public perception through storytelling. To join, follow #CMWorld on Twitter. We'll ask five questions during the chat. You can answer using the hashtag. I want to make sure libraries are represented in this chat. See you there, friends!
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.
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In this episode, I’ll answer a question I got from a library staffer: What are the biggest mistakes you see library staff making in their marketing and promotions?
I’ll talk about the three most common boo-boos and give you ideas for avoiding these pitfalls. Don’t worry… you can do it!
Watch to find out who gets kudos!
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know in the comments.
And subscribe to this series to get a new video tip for libraries each week.
Thanks for watching!
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email every time I post. To do that, click on the “Follow” button in the bottom left-hand corner of the page.
In this episode, I answer a question from Tovah Anderson about how to decide how much time and money should be spent on the three buckets of library marketing: programs, services, and the collection.
Kudos in this episode go to the Monroe County Public Library for their new testing kitchen.
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.
In this episode, I share two social media updates that are relevant for libraries. I’ll tell you about YouTube’s “New to You” feature and Facebook explained how its algorithm works!
Kudos in this episode go to the ten libraries in the UK who participated in the “Creating Space for Kindness” Project.
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know in the comments. And subscribe to this series to get a new video tip for libraries each week.
Thanks for watching!
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email every time I post. To do that, click on the “Follow” button in the bottom left-hand corner of the page.
In this episode, I share some tips for how to use your library’s FAQ’s into marketing opportunities. This idea can be a great way to establish your library as a place of answers.. And it can help you fill holes in your promotional schedule with valuable content.
Kudos in this episode go to Eileen Button of Genesee Public Library who wrote an open love letter to libraries that made me a little teary-eyed!
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know by clicking on the feedback tab.
And subscribe to this series to get a new video tip for libraries each week. Thanks for watching!
If you want your community members to do something, you must tell them what you want them to do. Explicitly.
That means you must add an amazing call to action for every promotional piece you create.
What Is a Call to Action?
A Call to Action, or a CTA, is a phrase that is used to tell the someone exactly what action to take and how to take it. It also implicitly provides the motivation for the recipient to take the action.
A CTA can be as simple as two words “Read Now.” It may be longer: “Want to take the next step in your career? Take a free career assessment test on our library’s website.”
It may be a link to your website, catalog, chat service, or email box. It may tell community members to call a special phone number to speak with a librarian or visit a certain desk at the library to talk with staff.
The call to action gives the person consuming the promotional material the instructions for taking the next step to use library resources. It must be strong, clear, and commanding.
For most of us, the CTA is the last thing we think about when creating a promotional piece. Staff put their time and energy into creating the layout, adding the right image, making sure all the text details are correct, and timing the promotion for the perfect release.
But I encourage you to spend some time thinking through your CTAs early in the process of creating any marketing piece. Here are seven tips to remember when you create a CTA for any piece. Practice going through this list every time you do a promotion.
Use positive, active language in your call to action.
Think of your CTA like a commandment. If you could order your community member to do something, what would you say?
Some examples of positive, active language which apply to libraries are:
Read
Watch
Download
Create
Join
Learn
Donate
Explore
Discover
Enter
You can also add a sense of urgency to your CTAs by adding the word “Now” as in “Read Now” or “Watch Now”.
Make your call to action as concise as possible.
For emails and digital signage try to keep your CTA between one and three words.
For flyers, bookmarks, posters, and videos, you can add a few more words like:
Register for this program
Place a hold on this book
Reserve your spot
Get the details
Sign up now
Read our step-by-step guide
For social media posts, a full sentence is good. But, on social media, put your sentence-long CTA into the text of your post, not as text inside the graphic or image you are attaching. If your CTA is in the image, use the one-to-three-word rule.
For blog posts, your CTA can be a longform sentence. Consider using bold text to draw the eye to that sentence. Or you can use a button (see the section on buttons below).
Try using the first person.
The marketing agency Unbounce did a fascinating study on CTAs and found that changing the text from the second person (“Register your child today”) to the first person (“Register my child today”) resulted in a 90 percent increase in clicks.
Your library can experiment using CTAs that say, “Reserve my spot” or “Get my personalized reading recommendations.” You may find that the change makes a difference in the number of people who take an action after seeing your promotional message.
Putyour call to action in a brightly colored box or circle.
There is something psychological about the look of a button that will compel your recipients to click on it.
The color of the button matters. You want something that’s eye-catching. You may be limited in your color choices depending on your library’s brand standards.
But, if you have room to experiment, read this fascinating post from marketing expert Neil Patel on color psychology. Then decide what kind of emotion or energy you want your CTA button to convey and choose the corresponding color.
CTA buttons work best in emails and newsletters. But try them also in promotions where you can’t click on a button, like bookmarks, flyers, posters, and digital sign promotions. The button will still serve the purpose of setting your CTA apart from the rest of the piece.
Put your call to action in the top one-third of whatever piece you are creating.
Moving your CTA “above the fold” as it’s called in the newspaper and magazine business, calls attention to the action you wish for your recipient to take.
Add white space to the area around your call to action.
The extra white space helps create a visual break and draws the reader’s attention right where you want it. Extra white space is also good for anyone reading your digital library promotional piece on a mobile device. It creates a clear area for fingers to click.
Try to use as few calls to action as possible.
You’ll want to focus the energy of your reader on the next action you wish for them to take. If you offer them too many potential actions, they’ll be overwhelmed and less likely to do anything!
For most promotional pieces, you’ll want only one CTA. This rule includes CTAs for email, digital signage, flyers, posters, bookmarks, social media posts, and videos.
The exceptions are blog posts and newsletters. For blog posts, my personal experience is that two or three CTAs work best. For newsletters, try to offer no more than five CTAs.
Did you notice where I took my own advice in this blog post?
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In this episode, I answer a viewer question from Natasha Buran of Thousand Oaks Library. She asked, “I was curious if you’ve seen other libraries use ‘Revue’ – Twitter’s newsletter tool for writers and publishers. I thought it would be interesting to add monthly programs or resources and pin it to our profile. I haven’t seen libraries use this feature before and thought I’d ask.”
I gave my answer in the video. This is just my opinion of course!
Kudos in this episode go to the Topeka-Shawnee County Public Library. They recently opened a resource center for community members without a computer or internet access.
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know by clicking on the feedback button. And subscribe to this series to get a new video tip for libraries each week.
Use the feedback button to share your most pressing email marketing question. I’ll answer these in a future blog post!
I love opening the “reports” tab on an email platform. There is a second or two of anticipation as the page loads that brings me a thrill.
What will the numbers say? Will they be better or worse than last month? Will they reveal a new trend that I can use to better serve my target audience?
I realize I sound a little nuts. But honestly, I love metrics.
They are clear and concise. They show you what’s working and what’s not working. They give you permission to stop doing promotions that don’t help your library at all. If you try something new, they’ll tell you whether your idea worked or not.
Tracked over time, email metrics will help you to take the 30,000-foot view of your library marketing. You can see if your emails are doing what they are supposed to do… moving your library toward its overall strategic goals.
There is a lot we could measure in terms of email marketing. It would be easy to get lost in the quagmire of numbers and analysis.
So, I want you to focus on four data points that really matter to library email marketing. Use these metrics to determine whether your messages are connecting with your audience and promoting your library’s overall strategic goals. And don’t miss the bonus tip at the end of this list!
“Email is the only place where people, not algorithms, are in control.”
Ann Handley, writer, digital marketing pioneer, and Wall Street Journal best-selling author
1. Increase of raw circulation numbers.
Record the number of checkouts and holds before you send the message and then again after the message is sent. You can generally wait about three days to check those numbers. Cardholders who want to act on an email will do so within a three-day period of receiving it.
What this metric will tell you: Raw circulation numbers will likely be of interest to anyone in collection development at your library. They are also the basis for the next two metrics, which will help you compare the effectiveness of your emails.
2. Percentage increase in circulation.
Once you start collecting data on raw holds and checkout increases, you will want to calculate the percentage increase in circulation.
Let’s say on Monday, you send an email promoting one specific eBook. Before you send the email, you note that there are currently three holds or checkouts of this eBook. When you check on Tuesday, there are four new holds or checkouts placed on the eBook. In total, there are now seven holds or checkouts on this item.
Use percentagecalculator.net to calculate the percentage increase in circulation. For this example, we use the third calculation tool on the page:
That’s a 133 percent increase in circulation.
Now, the next week, you decide to send another email promoting a different eBook. But this time, the eBook you choose to promote has 15 holds or copies before the email is sent. When you check 24 hours after sending the email, there are 10 new holds or checkouts. In total, there are now 25 holds or checkouts on the eBook.
The raw numbers for the second email are bigger (an increase of 4 holds/checkouts vs. an increase of 10 holds/checkouts). But the percentage increase for the second email is actually smaller, at 66%! That means email #1 was more effective.
What this metric will tell you: Percentage increase in circulation lets you compare your promotions more accurately. If you are short on time, this kind of comparison will help you determine which promotions will give you the most success with your limited resources.
3. Conversion rate.
This is the percentage of people who took an action after receiving your email.
Let’s pretend that you’ve sent an email to 1000 people. The email promotes a streaming video on your library website that hasn’t had any views in the past couple of weeks.
When you check the streaming statistics for that video, you see that 25 people watched the video in the days immediately after you sent the email.
Using the second tool on our percentage calculator website, you can calculate the percentage of people who “converted” or took an action after your email.
What this metric will tell you: If you start tracking conversion rates on your emails, over time you’ll have a clear picture of the types of emails your audience responds to. You’ll be able to establish a good base percentage for your audience. This number will be different for every library.
If you are short on time, this metric will help you determine which promotions will give you the most success with your limited resources. When you find a certain type of email promotion works based on conversion rate, you should do it more often.
4. Amount of traffic driven to your website.
Track how much traffic is funneled to your public website by your emails. You can use Google Analytics to analyze how efforts on those platform translates into action by your cardholders. If you’ve never worked with Google Analytics, here is an easy guide to get you started.
What this metric will tell you: This is an important metric to share with administration, because it clearly demonstrates the value of the time and energy you have invested in email marketing.
Special bonus tip!
If you promote the same collection item or booklist on social media, email, and your website, put some space between those three promotions. A week is a good amount of time. That allows you to really pinpoint whether your increase in circulation is coming from email, your placement of the item on your website, or social media.
In fact, that’s a fun experiment to run. Can you drive higher circulation numbers by promoting your collection on your website, email, or social media?
You can even get more granular: which social media platform is best for collection promotion? Which page on your website is best for placing collection promotions? Which email list responds best? See, this is fun!
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This is the 100th episode of the Library Marketing Show. It’s a celebration of YOU… the person who does marketing and promotions at your library.
I think you are amazing and awesome, and I’m sharing the five reasons why library marketing is the best job at the library.
And Kudos in this episode go to… you! Thank you for your comments, feedback, ideas, and support. The library marketing community is gracious and warm and wonderful, and I’m proud to be a part of it.
Do you have a suggestion for a topic for a future episode? Want to nominate someone for kudos? Let me know in the comments. And subscribe to this series to get a new video tip for libraries each week.
Thanks for watching!
Subscribe to this blog and you’ll receive an email every time I post. To do that, click on the “Follow” button in the bottom left-hand corner of the page.
Super Library Marketing: Practical Tips and Ideas for Library Promotion 