WHILE SOCIAL MEDIA are a cost-effective marketing tool, libraries should still market in traditional mediums as well. Though there has been a huge shift to online content, people still drive cars, go to restaurants, watch television, and listen to the radio. Social media supplements marketing in physical spaces but are not intended to replace real-world marketing altogether.
The first part of this chapter will discuss some of the traditional mediums, such as newspapers, radio, and television, which remain fairly steady, even as we move to digital sources for information. In the other sections, we’ll discuss techniques many libraries aren’t using to their fullest potential, if at all.
We’ll discuss approaches such as annual campaigns, strategies for creating effective marketing materials, and ways to distribute that material for the greatest success in reaching the community. Successful promotion of anything, whether it’s hamburgers or library services, is based on the quality of the creative content, needed in order to capture the attention of the target audience, and the appropriate distribution of that content so it is seen by the target audience.
Unfortunately, many libraries choose not to budget for marketing at all. Libraries are often willing to pay upwards of 95 percent of their annual budgets for staffing and materials, yet allocate no funds whatsoever to make the community aware of the materials available for their use or the events and services the library’s staff provides. McDonald’s might make the best hamburger in the world, but without a successful marketing campaign, no one is going to know about that hamburger. Your library might provide the very best services of any organization in your community, but it makes no difference if you don’t make the community aware of those services. A library having a $4 million budget shouldn’t only allocate $5,000 to making the community aware of all the wonderful events and services that $4 million was spent to provide. Consider the number of costly books in your library that never get borrowed or the number of duplications in resources in digital and hard-copy format that are underused. Some of those moneys could be shifted to a promotional budget to help the community become more aware of the value their library has for them.
This chapter challenges libraries to allocate funding and make a concerted effort to engage their communities and promote their offerings.
NEWSPAPERS, RADIO, TV
Newspapers have lost readership in the last decade or so, with many readers moving to online sources for news, especially national news. Radio and television stations are fighting for an increasingly fragmented audience. However, newspapers, radio, and television stations are all still good partners for libraries. All three mediums are quite effective, especially in their local markets. In working with these mediums, a library’s goal is to provide news stories, not purchase advertising space.
Libraries should cultivate strong, mutually beneficial relationships with each of these organizations. Libraries enjoy a unique status with these mediums because we are not-for-profit organizations that aid our communities. Newspapers, radio stations, and television stations are often also very supportive of their communities and want to be viewed as community helpers. Considering this, the library can provide free, ready-to-use content to these mediums and invite each to events for coverage of positive community news.
Whenever working with the media or writing a press release, be sure to include the who, what, why, when, where, and how of the event or service and contact information for the person in charge. Make it easy for the person receiving the information to immediately understand its importance and where it fits in with the rest of their news coverage. Make your message complete enough to publish or read on the air as it is and enticing enough to attract a reporter or photographer if possible.
Newspapers. Library events can often appear on newspaper front pages, especially smaller papers, on slow news days. They’ll be buried inside if there is any other news for the front page, however. And there is no way to anticipate what will be a slow news day. Always keep your local paper informed about your events or new services. Provide them a calendar in advance, and give the lifestyles editor a call or e-mail if you know a good photo opportunity is coming. For-profit organizations must buy ads for promotion and hope to attract a reporter or editor to write an article for greater coverage. They can’t write or buy an article. Libraries, on the other hand, can write their own articles and shoot their own photos to give to newspapers for publication. Newspapers often welcome well-written articles as local features or filler. Library news fills space the newspaper won’t have to pay a reporter to fill. Provide good photos with articles to increase the likelihood of publication and better placement. Make the photos candid shots of patrons when possible. Newspapers often avoid photos of posed people looking at cameras and holding trophies or checks. Ask your local editor how he or she would like to receive news from the library and provide it in that format, and in advance, so your material is ready any time there is a news lull.
Radio. Radio marketing is most effectively done through on-air interviews or stories provided by library staff, rather than through the purchase of relatively expensive on-air spots. Much like with the newspaper, the library should keep radio stations informed about events or services in order to provide them with community news. Our library sends staff for live, on-the-air interviews with the morning show hosts of two local radio stations twice monthly, to discuss events and services at the library. Again, we get this opportunity because we are not-for-profit and are sharing community news on the community’s radio stations. Another opportunity to promote the library is to coordinate a live remote with the radio station for one or two major library events a year. Radio stations have production costs associated with live feeds, such as hauling equipment and paying their on-air personalities. Because of the costs, the library can offer to promote the radio’s participation as a sponsor of the events through other marketing channels the library uses, such as its website, Facebook page, and printed promotional materials. This benefits the station in that it projects an image of community service and goodwill on their part by donating their resources to help the library, and therefore, the community.
TV. Television ads are extremely expensive relative to most library budgets and generally not an option. But all local news stations offer community coverage that includes library events. Libraries should pitch news stories and make staff available for interviews. Our library has scheduled monthly appearances on our local television station’s morning news program to discuss our events and services. This is a good way to promote events in advance. We also make staff available for interviews whenever the station wants, and invite the station to major events to capture footage and produce stories for the evening news, which is akin to making it to the newspaper’s front page. While viewers normally see this footage after the event, when it’s too late to participate in that particular event, it shows what’s happening at the library and increases community awareness of the library in general and the many things we have to offer. Get to know your local news teams and learn what will attract them to the library and what opportunities you might provide that best suit their medium. These relationships have reciprocal value for the library and the news media, as well as community value in the exposure they provide.
OVERARCHING THEME
One key to successful marketing for any organization is to make your promotional material memorable. It must be unique so it doesn’t get lost in the clutter of all the other advertising that inundates people on a daily basis. Libraries can accomplish this without having to come up with completely original material to promote every library event. We at CCJPL select an annual overarching theme for all the marketing we’ll do in a given year.
An overarching theme can basically be any promotional style a library determines will stand out among other advertising in the community. Examples of effective themes include:
▪ Typography, in which the words are also the art
▪ Vintage, reminiscent of 1950s and 1960s artwork, or the old Route 66 advertisements
▪ Retro, reflective of the advertising style of a generation currently popular as a throwback, such as 1970s, 1980s, or 1990s styles
▪ Street art, which must be done tastefully but is quite powerful in catching people’s attention
▪ Internet memes, which are popular ideas, images, or trends that circulate on the Internet quickly and become something of pop cultural phenomena
Our 2012 marketing campaign took advantage of the popularity of Internet eCards. We used this overarching theme for our print and digital marketing content throughout the year. ECards have simple compositions with sketches accompanied by brief, usually humorous, text. Part of their effectiveness in print material is achieved as a result of people’s expectation of only seeing eCards in digital format. Thus they capture the audience’s attention when seen outside their expected medium. Capturing the audience’s attention is one of the biggest challenges faced in a world where people are constantly bombarded with advertising and information. (See figure 5.1.)
Selecting an overarching theme every year has two significant advantages over developing completely unique marketing material each time there’s a service or event to promote.
FIGURE 5.1
2012 eCard poster for the religion section in our stacks
▪ It simplifies the process of marketing individual events or services by providing a predetermined conceptual foundation from which to work. For example, when we promoted our concert series in 2012, we knew at the outset that our posters should look like eCards in order to adhere to the year’s theme. This allowed us to focus on what artwork and phrases would best promote the concerts, as we already knew what style we were going to use. We settled on three ideas: a drawing of a woman singing paired with the text, “Concerts on the lawn, because the chairs kept falling off the roof”; a drawing of an old man playing a guitar with the text, “Concerts on the lawn, because what else have you got to do on a Tuesday night”; and a rock ‘n’ roller with the phrase, “Concerts on the lawn, the closest you’ll ever get to being a groupie.” We used this approach for all of our marketing material, thereby eliminating the burden of starting completely from scratch every time we had to create promotional material.
▪ Using an overarching theme also benefits the library by keeping your message consistent and recognizable throughout the year. The theme builds branding. Use eye-catching art and messaging, and as you produce more materials from the theme, your audience is more likely to pay attention because they liked what you did before. They will come to immediately recognize other materials you produce throughout the year.
Changing the theme annually is probably necessary. Things don’t necessarily retain their popularity long-term and we don’t want new content to become dated because a style is no longer interesting. Changing themes also allows the library to come up with new and creative ways to increase community awareness, and continue to appear fresh and innovative.
BILLBOARDS
Many libraries consider billboards to be too expensive for consideration as a marketing tool. However, depending on the market, they can be very cost-effective, given the level of exposure they provide for the library. Billboard vendors will provide a list of all available billboard locations and statistics on traffic patterns for their billboards throughout the community. Traffic volume and location determine the cost of leasing billboards. Price also fluctuates with the market. Vendors are likely to negotiate price if they have a number of billboards not currently in use, because a billboard with advertising on it at any price is far more preferable to vendors than a blank one. It’s at least worth finding out what billboards are available in the library’s community and asking what kinds of deals might be negotiated.
In 2012 our library advertised on four billboards around the outskirts of the city. We negotiated a deal with the billboard company for a six-month contract. In return for the six-month contract, the vendor agreed to keep our advertising up beyond the contract until someone else rented the space. Each of these billboards remained up for eight to ten months, as a result.
In 2013 we changed our strategy a bit, opting for higher-traffic areas, but maintaining the cost by dropping from four to three billboards while keeping the same six-month contract. But we also negotiated that if someone else leased the space at the end of our contract, we’d have our boards moved to another available location for an additional six months at no additional cost, essentially getting three billboards for one year at half price. This was mutually beneficial, as the billboard company could keep material on its boards while we received the additional marketing exposure, in addition to having the opportunity to promote the library in a new location.
Consider this example in evaluating the cost of billboards. At CCJPL, the average drive-by traffic for one of our billboard locations is 25,000 people a day. Over the course of a year, that billboard will have been seen approximately 9,125,000 times. Each of our billboards costs $3,000 for 12 months. That’s $8.22 a day. At that rate, the library is spending .0003 cents per exposure opportunity.
The contrarian argument is that the vast majority of this traffic will be the same people every day. However, this is actually a good thing for the library. It’s a yearlong reinforcement to people that they should visit the library. Compared to the cost of direct mailing at about 30 cents per address, for instance, billboards might be considered an excellent marketing investment. The level of exposure is worth it, whether a library can buy one billboard or a dozen.
Most billboard advertising is unfortunately nothing more than roadside visual pollution. People are anesthetized to seeing 99-cent hamburger ads and offers for $49 motel rooms. They see big numbers all along the roadside and pay no attention to them. A library billboard must be something different to be successful. The drawings and funny quips from our 2012 eCard campaign were unexpected on billboards and drew lots of attention. It was the sort of thing someone would see and mention to their coworkers once they got to work. We received a tremendous amount of positive feedback, as they were something completely unique and entertaining.
Our library’s overarching theme for 2013 was art typography. We called it “WORDS,” and the promotional messages were delivered as part of the art itself. Having chosen a funny marketing approach the previous year, we opted for something elegant and artistic that would catch the community’s imagination in a different way. People will look at art, and billboards can be art, not just advertising. The billboards for WORDS were “Choose Your Adventure,” “Tell Your Story,” and “Find Your Rhythm,” all in stylish typography. The phrases were evocative and intended to elicit a feeling of connectedness with the library, not as a static place, but as a facilitator of fun and activity for the community. We want the community to see the library as something to do, not just a place to be. (See figure 5.2.)
Because of the cost of each billboard, we don’t promote specific library events or services. Instead, we try to instill curiosity and sell the library as an idea, as something they should check out. Billboards should have a big emotional impact. Regardless of a library’s overarching theme, it’s important to ensure the billboards look nothing like the others along the roadside. We’ve found that simple text and images, sort of maximizing minimalism, tend to cut through the clutter and can have a greater emotional impact on the viewer.
POSTERS
Library posters are extremely common. There are posters available for any number of annually celebrated library events, like Summer Reading Club, Banned Books Week, and National Library Card Signup Month. Many libraries buy preprinted posters from vendors to hang in the libraries, such as the “READ” posters that have been around for some time, or the “@YourLibrary” posters. These posters do look nice inside the building. However, they do little to brand or market the specific library, and their reach extends only to those who already come to the library, your regular patrons.
Some libraries make posters in-house to market events. Unfortunately, these posters often consist of little more than clip art and facts about the event being promoted. In many cases they are posted only in the library as well. Again, these posters will inform your current patrons, but they do nothing to draw in the larger community.
For successful community marketing, posters should be distributed outside the library and must be just as eye-catching and engaging as billboards, and for the same reasons, to attract crowds to your events. The concert posters mentioned earlier in this chapter are examples of an approach that elicits a good response. The library should have a strategy for getting them out into the community and in front of potential new patrons. There are a good number of businesses and organizations in every community that will welcome the library to hang posters in their windows if you’ll only ask. Places libraries should ask to hang posters include restaurants, bars, convenience stores, malls, bowling alleys, skating rinks, community centers, recreation centers, laundromats, and the list goes on. An eye-catching poster placed in the window of a popular restaurant has the potential to reach thousands of people a week, people who aren’t necessarily library patrons and who wouldn’t have otherwise known about the event being promoted. Even if someone isn’t interested in a particular event, a poster that catches their eye is still a great promotion for the library. It’s branding, and keeps the library in the front of people’s minds. If people see library posters all over town, they see that the library is active, engaged in the community, and interested in attracting more patrons. (See figure 5.3.)
FIGURE 5.3
2013 summer movie series poster
Marketing posters are an inexpensive way to boost attendance at events. The more you distribute, the greater opportunity for success of library programs. Over the course of three years, CCJPL went from having very light programming attendance to having to require registration to ensure we had room and staff available to manage the number of people wanting to participate. We accomplished this by providing quality programming, quality marketing content, and broad distribution throughout the community.
When returning to take down posters after an event, try to have another one ready to hang in its place. This eliminates having to return to seek permission for the next one later and reduces the chances that you’ll be told no or that someone else’s poster will replace yours in the window. Even if you don’t have a new upcoming event to promote, take the opportunity to create a poster that promotes a new service that the community might not be aware of, like e-books or free music. Given the number of programs and events offered at the library, posters will make up a significant portion of the materials produced by the library. Make sure they are attractive and enticing.
POSTCARDS
Postcards are, in essence, simply miniature versions of your posters. One of the advantages of printing and distributing postcards is they can have the creative work on the front and all the event information on the back. This allows for the artwork and marketing to be showcased while still delivering all of the pertinent facts about the program or event.
Postcards should be placed at every customer service point in the library. They should also be placed in every bag or given to every patron at checkout. Staff needs to be aware of what event is currently being promoted and actively engage patrons about attending, using the postcard as a take-home reminder for the patron. Current library events or programs are also a great time to inform patrons about upcoming events. For instance, if the library is hosting a concert this month and has an author visiting next month, go ahead and have the postcards made up for the author visit and hand them out during the concert.
Staff should distribute postcards in the community as well. Most businesses aren’t as likely to be as ok with having a stack of postcards next to their cash register as they would be about hanging a poster in the window. However, most libraries have some sort of outreach program or other community engagement outside the building. These are opportunities to hand out postcards and promote upcoming events. Does your library do storytimes at day care centers? If so, staff should take advantage of the opportunity to hand out postcards to all the children as well as leave some for the day care center to give to parents. Does your library participate in any civic clubs such as Rotary or Kiwanis? This is an opportunity to hand out postcards that club members can take back to their respective businesses and give to other employees. Other opportunities include business expos, back-to-school events, or other places the library is likely to set up a booth. In these situations, don’t just sit at the booth and allow passersby to pick up postcards. Take advantage of the chance to visit other booths and market the library to the vendors as well. At worst, most communities have areas that are busy during lunchtime and the library can schedule staff to go out a couple of times a week prior to an event and hand out postcards to people on the street during their lunch hour.
As with other marketing materials, appealing artwork and a good tagline will motivate people to read the card and thus be more likely to remember what the library is promoting. Like posters hung in store windows around town, thorough postcard distribution outside the library is sure to increase program attendance and expose new patrons to the library.
I’ve been questioned about sending postcards as direct mail. I disagree with this approach for a couple of reasons. First, it’s relatively costly to do direct mailings to a significant number of people throughout the community. Second, the problem with bulk mailing is that it likely winds up being delivered on the same day as most of the “junk” mail and is likely to wind up getting tossed into the trash with it as well. The distribution methods mentioned above are more effective in getting the information in front of as many eyes as possible. Parents are more likely to look at something sent home from a day care center. Civic group members are more likely to read something given to them at a meeting. And people attending business expos or back-to-school events are there to learn more about what is available in the community. These sorts of interactions also allow for a human element in the hand-to-hand exchange and an opportunity to answer questions or provide additional information about the library.
BOOKMARKS
Bookmarks are the oldest and most common promotional items that libraries give to patrons. This is understandable, given that libraries lend books, and readers likely need something to mark their page while reading. However, bookmarks come with the same challenges as in-house posters and postcards. They’re only reaching people already coming into the library.
That’s not to say libraries should stop providing bookmarks, because patrons still need to mark their places in books, and they appreciate it if the library is providing attractive bookmarks. However, we also need to be taking advantage of the marketing space available.
Libraries often order preprinted bookmarks in bulk from any number of sources. These bookmarks may promote reading in general, but they do little to promote the individual library and fail to provide any specific information the library wants to share with patrons. These preprinted bookmarks cause libraries to miss a valuable marketing opportunity. A bookmark without any of the library’s information may as well be a sticky note, a receipt, a napkin, or anything else a patron would use to mark their place.
At CCJPL, we design many of our bookmarks to reflect the year’s overarching marketing theme. In 2013 we simply took our billboard designs, modified the layout a bit, and used that artwork for our bookmarks. As with postcards, we put library information on the back. Since we don’t necessarily use bookmarks to promote specific events, but rather the library as a whole, we include general library information on the back, such as the address, phone number, hours of operation, website address, and Facebook page. Our goal is to provide patrons with information that will expose them to the wide range of offerings the library provides, and the bookmark serves as a pretty handy reminder to patrons that we’re a lot more than just the book they’re currently reading.
While custom bookmarks can be slightly more expensive than bulk-ordered, unbranded bookmarks, the opportunity to provide patrons with information specific to the individual library far outweighs any cost difference between the two. As with postcards, bookmarks should be made available and handed out whenever possible in the community.
DRINK COASTERS
One of the most unique means by which we’ve started promoting the library has been the creation of a set of drink coasters. As is often the case, inspiration came from necessity. Several of us were at Skinny J’s, a local restaurant in town, on a Wednesday night, trivia night. I picked up my beer to take a drink, and the water on the outside of the glass dripped down my arm. My initial reaction was one of frustration, thinking these people really need some drink coasters.
Then I realized what a great promotional tool coasters could be if the restaurant would let us provide them. I spoke with the manager and she said she’d love for the library to provide the restaurant with drink coasters. (See figure 5.4.)
FIGURE 5.4
Coasters
The logic behind the promotion was pretty simple. With a good “hook” that would get people’s attention, and our website at the bottom of the coaster, we would basically have a captive audience from the time a customer placed their drink order until the time they got their food. Most people often spend this time looking at their smartphones. This seemed to create an ideal promotional ecosystem. Given that we had a very well-designed mobile website, the idea was that the funny coasters would entice the diners to check it out, and we could go from promotion to delivery in real-time.
GIVEAWAY ITEMS
Libraries frequently give a variety of inexpensive items to people in the community, at business expos, community festivals, back-to-school programs, basically anywhere the library has an opportunity to set up a booth. Unfortunately, we are frequently challenged in our decisions on what items to buy because we are forced to keep the cost per item low. This can result in our giving away things recipients are not likely to use. Think carefully before ordering the cheapest thing you can find. Often, for a few pennies more or with just a little thought, you can extend the life and increase the impact of your gift.
Take pens for instance. Sure, patrons will take the cheap pen with the library logo, but they’re likely to just bury it in a utility drawer when they get home. On the other hand, if the library invested a little more money in quality pens, people are far more likely to use the pen, because people tend to treasure good pens. A small increase in spending can have a huge impact on the success of a giveaway item. Instead of a pen that gets relegated to a drawer already full of pens, you now have individuals actually using the pen the library provided, giving them a constant, in-hand reminder of where they got it. People appreciate the company that was willing to spend a little more to give them a good pen to use. Those pens stay in the cup on top of the desk when not in use, not in the back of a junk drawer.
Notepads are another example of where a small increase in spending can have a significant impact on the marketing success of the giveaway. Rather than regular notepads, libraries might give away sticky notepads, making sure to include the library’s name, logo, and website on them. For better or worse, many of us are guilty of having too many reminder sticky notes posted in our homes or offices. If the library gives away a notepad people will use and includes the library’s website address across the top or bottom, that helps serve as a reminder to check out the library, thus exposing them to library services. Another notepad idea is notepads with magnets on the back. These can be hung on refrigerators and be used for grocery lists, for instance, and remind people about the library every time they make a note.
Buttons are also popular and are another opportunity to market the library. Like posters and bookmarks, though, avoid bulk-order buttons with generic text, such as “I love my library,” in favor of customized buttons with a cool image, catchy phrase, and your website along the bottom. Patrons are more likely to appreciate, wear, and display cool custom buttons.
Our patrons often need ear buds for use on our public computers, and the quantity we need to provide for patrons makes customization cost prohibitive. For in-house use, we buy the least expensive ear buds available. However, as marketing tools, we order ear buds that come in small nylon bags attached to a key-ring holder. This gives us an opportunity to market on the bag with our logo and web address, and even if the patron doesn’t continue to use the relatively inexpensive ear buds that come with it, they still might store their new ear buds in our branded bag, which can help keep the library at the front of their consciousness every time they use their ear buds.
There are many, many other examples of good giveaway items. The thing to keep in mind is whether or not you’re giving away something with a chance people will use it, or you’re giving away something that people are willing to take because it’s free, but are likely to wind up throwing in the trash or some drawer when they get home. The idea isn’t to give things away just for the sake of gift giving. There is no return on the library’s investment on items that are thrown in the trash or stashed in drawers, never to be seen again.
Use a strategic approach to selecting giveaways. Determine their cost-effectiveness by the work they’ll do for you, not just their purchase price.
Spending slightly more on a far superior product and ordering items people are likely to value and use mean we are likely to achieve the desired result of continued library exposure. This is far more effective than spending less money for inferior products that are immediately cast aside and for which the return on the library’s investment is essentially zero. We want our marketing giveaways to be things that will provide a constant reminder to check out the library. In order to accomplish this, we have to give away things that people actually want.
Yard signs are effective for broad promotion of the library and can cause a lot of talk around town. They are a relatively expensive marketing tool on a per-item basis, so distribution should be handled carefully to avoid waste. Yard signs should be distributed in ways that will likely result in the most possible exposure, such as to staff, friends of the library, and patrons that are strong supporters of the library.
Yard signs should be viewed as mini-billboards, adhering to the concept of promoting the library in a general way, as an idea, rather than promoting specific services or events. Our first experience at CCJPL with library yard signs came during the 2012 presidential election. Seeing all of the candidate yard signs cluttering the corners of busy intersections, I decided it would be funny to come up with a library sign with a catchy phrase to place among them. It seemed that if we could find a way to poke fun at something the public generally didn’t like, political signs, we’d get the attention of people stopped at those intersections and give them a chuckle. In a guerrilla marketing-like move, we had signs printed up with “Public Library: We don’t need to run for office” and placed them among the political signs. Our signs were a huge hit and a number of patrons wanted them for their yards. (See figure 5.5.)
FIGURE 5.5
CCJPL 2012 yard sign
The signs we ordered were the corrugated plastic kind, which I’d recommend. These will last a lot longer and look a lot better than the less expensive cardboard signs. While individually expensive, printing 25–50 yard signs that are likely to remain in people’s yards for several months can be an effective tool for promoting the library. Much like billboards, yard signs will be seen on a regular basis by the people driving by them and will provide a consistent reminder to check out the library.
CONCLUSION
Most of the traditional mediums discussed in this chapter aren’t new to libraries. We’ve been using them to promote events and services for years. In many ways, the strategies and techniques covered aren’t so much revolutionary as they are evolutionary. However, an evolution in practices can lead to a revolution in results.
As we’ve mentioned previously, CCJPL hosts four concerts at the library every summer. We’ve always promoted them through traditional means, but without much strategy. In 2011, we averaged 300 attendees per concert. In 2012 we created posters that we put up around town to help promote the events. Our average that year was 300 attendees. In 2013 we again hung posters around town, but we also passed out over a thousand postcards, posted several times about the concerts on Facebook, and made sure to mention it on radio and TV multiple times leading up to the events. Our average attendance per concert that year was just over 500. That’s a 400 percent increase in the number of people coming to a library event in the course of two years. The only difference was our approach to increasing community awareness. We didn’t just disseminate information about an upcoming event. We created engaging marketing material that presented the library as fun and the concerts as something people wouldn’t want to miss.
These sorts of results are attainable by any library willing to reach out in an effective way and make the community aware of the library’s programs and services. It isn’t as much about doing something radically different than the things we’ve done in the past. It’s more about being better at doing the things we’re already doing. The goal is to keep the community continuously aware of the library and to do so in a way that will entice them to engage, attend, and participate.
▪ The library should partner with newspapers, radio, and TV to provide news stories to them.
▪ Libraries enjoy a unique status with these mediums because we are not-for-profit organizations that aid our communities. These outlets also want to be viewed as community helpers.
▪ For the best placement or air times, tailor your press releases to the recipient. Make them complete, easy to use, and inviting for reporters to cover.
▪ Ask your local editors and newscasters how they would like to receive news from the library and provide it in that format in advance, so your material is ready any time there is a news lull.
▪ Radio marketing is most effectively done through on-air interviews or stories provided by library staff. Make staff available.
▪ All news stations offer community coverage that includes library events. Pitch news stories and make staff available for interviews.
▪ Select an annual overarching theme for all the marketing in a given year to simplify the process of promoting individual programs.
▪ Billboards can be surprisingly cost-effective, depending on the local market, and prices and terms can be negotiated.
▪ A library billboard must be something unique to compete with roadside visual clutter and have an emotional impact.
▪ Use billboards to instill curiosity and sell the library as an idea.
▪ Instead of ordering mass-produced posters, bookmarks, and postcards, create your own to promote your library.
▪ Distribute posters throughout the community and hang in the library.
▪ Give bookmarks and postcards to patrons at checkout as take-home reminders about services and upcoming programs.
▪ Ask staff to distribute bookmarks and postcards at community events to reach new patrons or those who haven’t visited the library recently.
▪ Provide promotional material for children’s programming to day care mangers to send home to parents.
▪ Appealing artwork and a good headline are essential to get patrons to read the materials.
▪ While custom bookmarks can be slightly more expensive than bulk-ordered, unbranded bookmarks, the opportunity to provide patrons with information specific to the individual library far outweighs any cost difference.
▪ Drink coasters are a great way to promote the library to a captive audience.
▪ Think carefully before ordering the cheapest giveaway items you can find. Often, for a few pennies more, you can extend the life and increase the impact of your gift.
▪ Determine the value of giveaways by the work they’ll do for you, not just their purchase price.
▪ Yard signs are effective for broad promotion of the library and can cause a lot of talk around town.
▪ View yard signs as mini-billboards, adhering to your overarching theme to promote the library in a general way.
▪ Corrugated plastic signs last longer and look better than less expensive cardboard signs, and will pay for themselves if strategically placed.