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The Divide and Conquer Method of Library Marketing: How to Realistically Reach Your Library Promotional Goals Without Losing Your Ever-Loving Mind [ARTICLE]

Photo courtesy Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library

Have you been in the grocery store cereal aisle lately?

Recently I had a craving for yogurt topped with cereal as a snack. So, I went to the store with the simple plan of buying a box of cereal.

Did you know the average grocery store carries nearly 300 types of cereal? The cereal in my store takes up the length of an ENTIRE AISLE.

Holy Cheerios, Batman.

There is such a thing as too many choices.

When you’re faced with a wide range of selections, you can end up feeling paralyzed and unable to decide. Or, worse yet, you make a decision that turns out to be the wrong one because there were too many factors to take into consideration.

I sometimes feel the same way about working in library marketing.

Many of us have too much work to do. We have multiple goals we are trying to reach. And all that work makes it impossible to do anything well. It’s no wonder our promotions fail. We need to focus on focusing.

Now that’s you’ve created a promotional strategy and you’ve set up a promotional calendar, you may be tempted to try a whole bunch of new promotional ideas all at once.

But for true library promotional success, you’ll need to pace yourself. You want to be deliberate, intentional, and thoughtful about the library promotions you put out into the world.

Easier said than done, right?

So how do you create your promotions, track the results, and not lose your mind?

By using something I like to call “the divide and conquer approach.”

I’ve put together a three-step process to help you manage your workflow. This simple plan will help make sure your time is spent wisely. It will ensure you have the time to create your promotions and check the results so you can ensure that you’re reaching your promotional goals.

This method will make your marketing goals feel more manageable to you. You won’t get overwhelmed. And you’ll be able to spend time creating and tracking promotions to make sure the work you’re doing is effective.

Tackle one goal at a time.

People often sing the praises of multitasking, but any time management expert will tell you it kills productivity and leads to burnout.

Instead, you’ll want to prioritize your library marketing goals. Decide which is the most important by asking yourself one simple question:  Which goal will have the most positive impact on your library? That’s the one you should focus on.

This laser focus will actually allow you to reach ALL of your library promotional goals faster. When you focus fully on one goal, you can learn valuable lessons about your community and how they respond to your promotions on your available channels. And those lessons will make it easier for you to reach your future goals.

As you work towards your goal, you’ll learn along the way which work, which don’t, and how to carry them out effectively. You can use this valuable knowledge for future goals.

Create an action plan with list of tasks you need to complete to reach your goal.

In this step, you’ll very specifically lay out what needs to be done to reach your goal. This will make the final goal seem less overwhelming. It will also help you to gauge how much time you need to set aside each day to work on your promotions.

Let’s say that your priority goal is to increase the number of people who come to visit a physical library space. Your initial task list might look something like this.

  • Create a weekly email to promote a service that’s only available inside a library branch.
  • Create one Instagram and Facebook story per week to highlight a service that’s only available inside a library branch.
  • Create two social media posts per week on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to promote one in-person event.
  • Create a video that shows people coming into a library branch, focused on the physical space as a place of community and social interaction.

Now that you have your initial list of tasks, you can divide each task further into two or three smaller action items.

For example, your initial task of creating two social media posts per week on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to promote one in-person event can be accomplished by making a smaller action item list like this:

  • Choose events (consult with programming department)
  • Write post text
  • Create images
  • Schedule posts

Set a firm timeline for reaching your overall goal. Assign deadlines for each item on the task lists.

For our example, we may decide that we are going to work for the next two months on increasing in-person visits to the library.

Now, we can take our lists of tasks and set deadlines for when each of these tasks needs to be completed and released out into the world. Those deadlines will help you reach your target efficiently by assigning a timeframe—a start and end date—to every step in the process.

This “divide and conquer” approach gives you and your co-workers a chance to merge this new way of thinking and the new workload into your schedule without stress. It will make it easier to measure results.

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The Magic Secret To Create Effective Library Marketing: How To Set Up Your Library’s Promotional Calendar!

Photo courtesy Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library

Now that you’ve created a library promotional strategy, it’s time to take the next step. And that is to create a calendar for all your library promotions.

Three main reasons a library promotional calendar is important

A promotional calendar is vital to success. This is especially true in an organization with many contributors and stakeholders, like a library.

Here’s why you’ll want to have a promotional calendar, even if your team of content creators or contributors is small.

  • It helps you stay organized and focused on the goals you set as part of your promotional strategy.
  • It helps you to keep track of holidays, seasonal library and literary events, and major annual promotions like summer reading.
  • It keeps everyone at your library up to date on your promotional plans.

How to set up your library’s promotional calendar

Scroll down to the bottom of this post for my recommendations of three free calendar templates that you can use to create your library’s promotional calendar.

No matter which template you choose, the calendar should be shareable. This will ensure the contributors at your library can see all future promotional plans. It will also make it easy for contributors to add comments and ideas.

Once you choose a template and a location where it will “live,” set up the columns to track the important pieces for library marketing. Your calendar should include spaces to track these things:

  • The name of the event or service you wish to promote
  • The date of the event or service launch if the service is new. If it’s an existing service, you can leave this space blank.
  • The start and end date of the promotion
  • The type of content. For example, blog post, video, etc.
  • The channel(s) in which the promotional content will be published. For example: email, social media platform, digital signs, etc.
  • The topic. For example: you may have two promotions for summer reading. One could be planned for two weeks before summer reading begins with the purpose of promoting registration. Later in the summer, you may launch a second promotion marking the halfway point and encouraging readers to log their reading hours. The “topics” for these two promotions could be “Registration Push” and “Halfway Check-in.”
  • Due dates
  • The date and time for publishing the content
  • The person in charge of each promotion
  • Follow-through. This column is where you will note if the content was published according to schedule or if there were delays. Tracking follow-through will help you spot hurdles in the process of creating and approving promotions, which will lead to more efficient planning of promotions in the future.
  • Links to promotions after they are published. This will be helpful for those times when you’ll need to find and analyze a promotion after it’s out in the world.
  • Success measurements. List the data you gather after the promotion is published to measure engagement and effectiveness. Tracking your promotional success will help you spot the topics, formats, and publishing platforms that yield the best results for your library.

How your promotional calendar will improve your library marketing

The Marketing Rule of 7 states that a prospect needs to hear or see the advertiser’s message at least seven times before they’ll buy that product or service.

For your library, the Marketing Rule of 7 means it’s important to publish content on various platforms and in multiple formats. This will allow your library to reach your entire target audience.

Your promotional calendar will help you make those decisions by having a list of your channels all in one spot. Your calendar will also help you to spot effective ways to re-purpose your content.

For example, let’s say you created an infographic demonstrating the value of summer reading in preventing the loss of literary skills. Initially, you planned to post the infographic to Instagram.

Using your promotional calendar, it may occur to you that the infographic would be a great starter for a blog post on the dangers of the “summer slide.” Then, you realize you can promote that blog post and infographic in your next library e-newsletter.

The library promotional calendar helps you to see all your promotions and create a holistic campaign. It can help you decide if you have enough resources to focus on the platforms where your target audience is most likely to see your content.

Use your calendar to prioritize your most important channels. Focus on creating high-quality content instead of aimlessly posting on all available platforms.

Your calendar can also help you set deadlines. You’ll quickly learn how often you can realistically create and release new promotions.

Finally, your library promotional calendar will help you spot the busiest times for your library before they sneak up on you. It will help you plan for those busy times. You’ll be able to ensure that the promotional creation process is finished well before the publishing date!

What to include in your library promotional calendar

  • Holidays, especially ones that affect your library’s service hours like Independence Day and Veterans Day.
  • Local holidays. For example, where I live in Cincinnati, Ohio, opening day for the Cincinnati Reds is a holiday.
  • Literary holidays such as Library Lovers Day or Audiobook Appreciation Month.
  • Seasons, like back to school or graduation.
  • Promotions tied to popular culture, like the Superbowl and the Olympics.
  • Building openings/renovations
  • New service releases
  • Summer Reading
  • Author events
  • Fundraising opportunities, like Giving Tuesday and National Library Week.
  • Patron stories
  • Interesting or funny details about your library.
  • Evergreen content, like collection promotion.

Three free promotional calendar templates

Some of these websites make you an offer to try their product, but you can still get these calendars without making a purchase.

  • Smartsheet: I recommend the Marketing Campaign Calendar Template.
  • Aha: I recommend the Integrated Calendar
  • Search Engine Journal: This is a template set up in Google Docs, with instructions on how to copy it for your library’s use.

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Three Transformative Tips to Improve Focus and Re-Energize You When Working in the Library Doesn’t Feel Fun Anymore

Blue Ash - Sycamore Branch staff: Mrs. Sonia Bibbs (left) Library Assistant, Douglas Robinson, Corinne Hand (right) Children’s Librarian. Courtesy Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County.

I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted.

The pandemic is exhausting.

Worrying about the health and safety of family and coworkers is exhausting.

Natural disasters, a nation coming to terms with centuries of racial disparity, and a Presidential campaign here in the United States are exhausting.

And yet the library world continues to provide service during this crazy year. Your library probably still did a summer reading program. You’re providing virtual programs. You support students and teachers as they navigate distance learning. You’re promoting books and offering reading recommendations.

The world throws hurdles at you, and your library responds.

Is it any wonder if you feel like you need a nap and a hot bath nearly every day?

Library marketers are expected to be energetic and enthusiastic. More than any other library staffer, you’re expected to have exciting and innovative ideas to promote all these major developments and service changes as well as the smaller services that everyday cardholders rely on.

And you’re expected to produce results, driving people to watch virtual programs, use your curbside pickup service, and follow all the rules for social distancing.

It’s only natural to feel burned out by the speed at which everything happens at your library. And when you get stressed, work stops being fun. The quality of your work suffers.

But your library and your community depend on you. So here are some tips to help you manage your work and avoid burnout.

Prioritize, stay completely focused on your goals, and say “no” to EVERYTHING else.  Humans are all weirdly programmed to say yes, to take on more, to squeeze as much out of life as we possibly can.

Busyness feels wonderful. We’re doing something! Stuff is happening! Progress is being made!

But without space for creative thought, mistakes are going to happen. Your work won’t be what it could or should be. And that means your marketing will be less effective.

So, just like you weed your collection, you need to weed your promotions. This is especially true now, when your audience is suffering from content burnout because of the pandemic.

In my first year at a library, I said “yes” to everything. And nothing I did was any good.

When I realized I was doing too much, I set some ground rules for the goals I wanted my staff to focus on. I aligned these goals with my library’s strategic goals. They were:

  • A promotional tactic (like emails) had to produce a ten percent bump in circulation, program attendance, or usage. If it didn’t, we stopped doing it.
  • A service had to be easy for the cardholder to use to get promotion. Databases are a good example. If a cardholder was required to sign into the library website with their card to get to the database landing page, and then had to create a separate account tied to their email to use the database, we didn’t promote that database.
  • We only did full marketing campaigns for paid presenters. Free presentations got a poster or flyer and a social media mention.
  • All promotional requests had to tie directly to the library’s overall strategy. If the branch or library staffer requesting promotion couldn’t demonstrate how the program or service moved the library’s overall goals forward, we didn’t promote it.

I know that sounds harsh. And some of those rules might not work for a smaller library or a different set of library leaders. That’s okay. Set your boundaries to work within your own system.

Weeding your marketing content will allow you to do a better job and be more creative with the promotions you have left. Evaluate your promotions twice a year to keep your marketing lean and reduce the stress on yourself and your co-workers.

The word “no”, while it may be very small, is liberating. It’s good for you and for your marketing strategy.

Define your workflow and make it the law of your marketing landscape. A defined workflow sounds like the opposite of a creative endeavor. But it ensures that a quality product is created in a timely and efficient manner. It creates space for you to think. And that’s incredibly important for anyone working in a library, especially right now.

There are two options: outward-facing workflow and team workflow. Choose the one that works best for you and your library.

Outward facing workflow means that you approach each job given to you by a senior leader or another library department or partner in the same way.

  • All marketing requests go through one person on your team, who acts as project manager.
  • That person is responsible for looking at the request and determining if it fits into the library’s overall strategic goals.
  • That person sets clear expectations and goals for each project and communicates a plan of action based on realistic timelines and due dates.

This is not to say that your team has no say in the work you do. But the ultimate decision rests with the project manager.

Team workflow is more collaborative.

  • All marketing requests are considered by the team.
  • The team looks at each request and decides what tactics will work, and whether they have the time to complete those tactics.
  • The team sets the goals and determines who will communicate due dates and expectations.

It may take some time to get a smooth workflow in place. Be patient with yourself and with others. Keep reinforcing your expectations. Eventually, your coworkers and supervisors will understand and appreciate your workflow, especially when they start to see results.

Be generous with positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is one of the easiest and quickest ways to improve happiness and effectiveness on the job. It bolsters self-confidence and inspires people to do their best work.

If you see a co-worker doing something well, say so, even if the job is small. A kind word can go a long way to boosting morale and creating energy. Don’t just say, “Well done.” Write out a note or an email praising specific actions or portions of work.

And, if you have a staff, give your employees unexpected breaks. When I was a library manager, I took my staff to lunch off-site. We had field trips to libraries outside of our system. Sometimes we had “reading time” where I would read them one chapter a day from a book we all chose together.

It might sound silly, but these little activities are energizing. They create bonds between co-workers. Staff return to work after these little breaks with enthusiasm for their work. And enthusiastic people do a better job… on the job.

You might also want to read these

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