Or: What Is My Message?
Marketing refers to activities your library plans and delivers to promote 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 your library’s collections, your library’s fundraising campaigns, and bonds or levies for constructing new library buildings or improving existing ones.
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.
A marketing plan outlines how you will promote and explain your library’s collections, services, and programs to the community. The goal is to attract library patrons and community supporters. Promotion methods can include library card drives, special programs, tours of the library, presentations 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
- Webinar from library supply company Demco
- Super Library Marketing
- Blog and video resources from Angela Hursh, manager of Engagement and Marketing for NoveList.
- Guerilla Marketing Tips
- From WebJunction
- Library Marketing Resources
- From Libraries Are Essential
- Resources broken down by topic
- Marketing 101 with Trenton Smiley
- From Public Libraries Online
- What Brands Can Learn From The New York Public Library’s Instagram Stories
- From Forbes
Templates
- Canva or Adobe Express
- Create designs for web or print: presentations, social media graphics, fliers, posters, invitations, and more.
- Libraries Transform Toolkit
- Create your own graphics using available templates.