48

STAYING IN THE GAME: PUBLIC RELATIONS ON A SHOESTRING

Lynn Hawkins

We librarians buy books, pay our staff, and keep the buildings running. Often the last things for which we are able to budget are advertising and public relations. We want to be that third destination, but it is a challenge: people forget that we are here in the crush of advertising they encounter daily. As expenditures in shrinking budgets are carefully weighed, media money is harder to find. The good news is that there are inexpensive ways to raise our profiles both individually and collectively.

GREAT PRESS RELEASES

A properly drafted press release, built on a standard template, is your first tool for free media coverage. Be sure to send it two to four weeks ahead of the event date for editorial planning purposes. Guidelines for composing and submitting a low-maintenance press release include the following:

• Write a compelling headline.
• Text should include who, what, where, when, and why—two to three paragraphs, under 500 words.
• Report in the third-person.
• Use the Inverted Pyramid Model: important info at the top and least important info at the bottom; this is easier for an editor to edit.
• Provide accurate contact information.
• Include a quotation and Internet links, if appropriate.
• Send it to multiple editors: the community editor, the editor in chief.
• Call to check for receipt and offer to answer questions.
• Maintain a list of current media outlets and contact information for each.

THE MEDIA INTERVIEW: Be Ready

The second rule for getting good free publicity is to be ready to answer questions. Consider working with a preinterview checklist for both scheduled and unscheduled media interviews. At any given time there are predictable details about which you could be asked. Your preinterview checklist should include the following:

• your talking points (this is the interview you want to give)
• possible questions and your response in a sound bite
• worst possible question (this is the dreaded question you want to be ready for) and your response in a sound bite

NEWS FLASH: It Was News Only After It Happened

Many staffers involved in programming activities share a sense of entitlement regarding free print media publicity. It is worthwhile to remember that the media are not there to be your publicity agents; rather, they are there to report the news. The upcoming children’s program on the library lawn, even if it will include live unicorns as entertainment, is not news. When the story and photos show up after the event, don’t ask why the newspaper did not run the story before the event to publicize it. It was news only after it happened. That story may not have garnered free event publicity, but it is now free public relations. Accept it gratefully and leverage it whenever possible.

BEYOND FLYERS, BROCHURES, AND POSTERS: Blast It

Consider investing in software or assistance to create an e-mail list from your patron database. This is an inexpensive way to blast your newsletter, a link to an online survey you have posted, or a call-to-action for letters to state legislators. Your newsletter is your best public relations tool on a month-to-month basis, but postage for snail mail can be prohibitive. Once you have established an e-mail list service, you are good to go for virtually no cost. Remember that it is good practice to add an opt-out option for recipients who prefer not to receive such e-mail.

Does your local chamber of commerce do monthly e-mail blasts to members? What a great opportunity to highlight a standout program or new service to a different group. Ask the chamber if you can include one program a month in its e-mail blast.

BORROW OR RENT SPACE

Local hospitals, community centers, schools, businesses, city hall, the courts, and doctors’ offices are all promising sites for library services, even if those services amount to just providing gently used books for borrowing or keeping. These are potential partnerships that should not be overlooked. Many of these potential partners also distribute their own newsletters. Ask for a column or paragraph to attract new patrons.

Another high-yield prime retail space worth considering is the local mall or grocery chain store. Look into the cost of placing a three- or four-sided pamphlet kiosk at either venue. Dedicate one side to library programming, one side to seasonal topics like tax forms or travel information, and one side to Friends of the Library news—and then ask the Friends to fund the kiosk. Your local mall is likely to provide a nonprofit rate, and you should negotiate down from that rate. The grocery chain may provide this space at no cost to the library. These are outstanding high-traffic venues for the library and worth every penny invested.

PARTNER, PARTNER, PARTNER

Every time you partner with another community organization or local business, you increase your advertising and public relations reach exponentially. If you partner with a local restaurant for an event or fundraiser, ask whether you can routinely make program information available in the form of mini-tabletop fliers. Your partnerships qualify as news, and they stand a great chance of free media coverage. When Mentor Public Library (Ohio) partners with Yours Truly Restaurants for “Dinner with the Presidents,” it is front page above the fold, even though it is an annual event. When the library partners with the city’s Parks and Recreation Department for “Storytime @ the Pools,” the upcoming event descriptions make it into the city’s program brochure that is distributed to every household in the city.

IT’S A TEAM THING

The best publicity of all is community involvement. Encourage every member of your staff to be involved with community service organizations and committee work. Provide for release time for this purpose whenever you are able. Management team members should be the long arms into the library district for that important community connection. Each member of the staff should appreciate that it is critical that they promote library services within the community. They are essential members of the marketing team for your library.

Friends of the Library are also important members of the marketing team. They can provide you with access to no-cost publicity through their newsletter, and the library can make a splash at every Friends book sale with a booth, table, and materials.

HOW’S THAT WORKING FOR YOU?

Maximize your public relations efforts by measuring success and continuing only those efforts that yield a positive return on investment. Consider maintaining a spreadsheet on your server’s share drive or your library wiki. Each staff member responsible for press releases should track the following on the spreadsheet:

• potential publicity opportunities, including programs, new services, changes in hours, staff accomplishments, awards and honors, and anything that is news
• individual media outlets notified and notification dates for each
• dates of the successful publicity products

You may want to consider tracking these for an extended period to determine trends and successful outcomes of public relations efforts. Then you can arrange a meeting with your local media outlets to ask their advice on how best to arrange for news coverage. You will be armed with data that you should not use for diplomacy’s sake, but you will also be armed with data that you can and should use internally to increase your success rate.