Marketing

Or, What Is My Message?

Marketing refers to activities your library plans and delivers to promote the buying of a product, a service, or a good. In your case:

• The product is Your Library.
• The service is Your Library’s Programs and Services.
• The goods are making use of Your Library’s Collections, Convincing Voters to Fund Bonds for Constructing New Library Buildings or Improving Existing Ones, and Your Library’s Fundraising Campaigns.

Marketing is one of the primary components of business management and commerce. Your library may be doing everything right. You may even end up on the front page of Library Journal or American Libraries. The question is: Does your community know how great your library is? Is your funding source aware? You can’t expect anyone to know if you don’t get the word out. This is where marketing comes in.

The marketing mix outlines the specifics of your library’s collections, services, and programs and how they are to be promoted and explained to the community. The goal here is to attract customers, or in your case, library patrons. After assembling the necessary information, it’s time to decide what methods to use in promoting the library, amnesty days/weeks/months, library card drives, special programs, tours of the library, speaking at social service clubs, or whatever methods best suit your community.

Marketing is about attracting patrons by identifying, anticipating, and satisfying the community’s needs and wants. The programs and services developed by the library using this information are known as service responses.

Resources

• 4 Simple Ways to Beef Up Your Library Marketing
  • From Demco, the library supply company
  • Every day, library marketers are engaged in a competitive battle to convince people to come to programs, check out items and cement the image of the library as a vital community center. But with decreasing budgets and increasing pressure on our time, the job is getting harder and library marketing feels less effective. Angela Hursh, Content Team Leader for the Marketing Department of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, knows how you feel! She’ll show you four easy, mostly free ways to support your library’s strategic goals, reach current cardholders and new audiences, increase circulation and improve brand awareness.
• Super Library Marketing
  • From the 5-Minute Librarian
  • Let’s talk about library marketing. It is an important part of libraries. It is how we get the word out about our collections, boost attendance to our programs, share with the public the good we do for our communities, and how we bring in new cardholders.
• Guerilla Marketing Tips
  • From WebJunction
  • Many marketers feel there are limitless possibilities and great value for marketing in creative ways using unconventional methods. This type of marketing that focuses on creativity and effort vs. spending a great deal of money is called guerrilla marketing. But how does guerrilla marketing translate to your local awareness campaign?
• Library Marketing Resources
  • From Libraries Are Essential
  • Here are more things you can read to learn about various aspects of marketing & promotion. I’ve broken them down by topic instead of creating a straight alphabetical list. I’ll be adding to this list as I get time to write up more citations.
• Marketing 101 with Trenton Smiley
  • From Public Libraries Online
  • While public libraries are constantly transforming themselves to meet the changing informational and entertainment needs of the community, many people still have an old fashioned-view idea of what libraries have to offer. Why is this? Libraries are so much more than books. Today’s libraries have cutting-edge technology, dynamic programming, and knowledgeable staff, yet so many people seem to be unaware of how libraries have changed over the years.
• What Brands Can Learn From The New York Public Library’s Instagram Stories
  • From Forbes
  • With the rise of social media in the past decade, attention spans have decreased and the addiction to technology has taken away from consuming off-line content. By embracing social channels like Instagram, the New York Public Library found a way to inspire this new generation of readers through creating digital content that expands their knowledge-base of the classics.

Templates

• Canva
  • Canva makes design simple for everyone. Create designs for web or print: blog graphics, presentations, Facebook covers, flyers, posters, invitations, and more.
• Libraries Transform Toolkit
  • Download posters, postcards, bookmarks and other materials, get tips for using the Libraries Transform campaign locally, and receive updates about the campaign from the American Library Association.