STEP 4.a Marketing

Introduction

In recent years, librarians have come to appreciate the value of marketing. The professional literature offers a range of insights and guidance on the marketing of library products and services. According to Janet Ross, writing in Library Mosaics (1995, p. 16),

The keys to effective marketing are consistency, quality and quantity. Your efforts need to be both creative and professional. Your marketing objective is to keep your library in the public mind and eye, to be constantly visible in the most positive way.

But how to articulate the library's positive value in a way that resonates with the public? Targeted library marketing considers the perspective of the user. Whereas output measurement such as users served or revenue generated captures the scale of a library's contribution-an array of statistical operational data that the public may or may not comprehend-outcomes, on the other hand, allow stakeholders, including library staff and board members, funders, and citizens, to understand, in users' own words, "the powerful role of…libraries in our democratic society" (IMLS, 2002). With outcome evaluation, the library marketer no longer needs to craft messages based solely on evidence of what the library does (its outputs). Rather, via websites, annual reports, press releases, grant proposals, brochures, advertisements, and at library board meetings and conferences, he/she can broadcast to the world the unique value proposition that his/her library brings to the community - and, in doing so, enhance the library's community brand.

The library's community brand is a combination of the personality of the library or program, what it stands for, and what it represents to patrons. Often marketers think about brand as an equilateral triangle whose sides represent a product or program's (1) attributes, (2) benefits, and (3) character. The program's aggregate outcomes can help inform its benefits from the perspective of the user and help you to know which attributes are key to talk about.

Audiences

Library marketing, like outcomes, begins with the community. Public library audiences can take many shapes and sizes, from private philanthropists to collaborative partners and program attendees to millage voters, but all share a common interest in the growth of the library service. Says Judith Seiss (2003) in her book The Visible Librarian: Asserting Your Value with Marketing and Advocacy, "marketing is vital to [a library's] success and continued existence" and is "a strategic-and ongoing-effort to secure the support and participation of the community through effective communication of the library's value." Outcomes may supply the message, but successful library marketing also greatly depends on tailoring messages to target audiences.

Remember that outcomes will be of interest to diverse audiences, ranging from internal library stakeholders to external community organizations and local, state, and federal government offices. Internal audiences may include:

• Library staff who are involved in your service and its activities
• Library staff who are not directly involved in your service but are involved in other, especially closely related library services
• Library management, especially those making funding decisions
• Citizen advisory boards
• Funding agencies with ongoing interest in the service
• Library board members
• Community agencies who collaborate with the library and its services

Funding agencies, university and civic groups, local, state, and federal government offices, local media, schools and hospitals also constitute potential external audiences that may be interested to learn about the outcomes of local library services. For example, participants in the teen technology program of the Flint (Michigan) Public Library addressed the board of the William K. Kellogg Foundation, while in Queens, New York, ethnic media outlets routinely cover news of the immigrant services of the Queens Borough Public Library system.

Remember as well that people still do not understand the full range of the library's contributions to society. The following exercises can help librarians to target outcomes effectively to a range of internal and external audiences.

Exercise 3: Identifying your audiences will help to brainstorm a comprehensive list of internal and external audiences to ensure that as many people as possible learn about the impact(s) that the library makes on the community:

Internal Audiences -

A) List the library stakeholders identified early in the "Getting Started" phase of the evaluation.

External Audiences -

B) Revisit the data and brainstorm audiences.
Read through the data collected throughout your evaluation in search of potential external audiences such as partnering organizations and groups, potential users, government offices, etc. For example, in our evaluation of library services for immigrants, we gathered data about the library's involvement with government employment agencies, local schools, hospitals, and businesses, the ethnic media, and more. Each of these organizations represents a potential audience to which to market findings of the evaluation.

C) Expand on the above.
For each audience identified above, brainstorm related offices, agencies, organizations, and constituencies who may be interested in the findings.

At this point in the process librarians must consider what specific audiences need to know about their findings, and for what purpose. Some outcomes are, after all, more relevant to some audiences than to others. Outcomes of the Community Information Program (CIP) of the Peninsula Library System in San Mateo County, California, for example, can appeal both to social services practitioners who need and use up-to-date CIP information to match clients with services and to human services agency management whose priorities may encompass increased coordination, collaboration, and capacity building.

Exercise 4: Match audiences and outcomes is designed to assist you in targeting outcome messages to appropriate audiences.

A) Match internal audiences and outcomes
In the first column, list the internal library stakeholders identified in Exercise 3. In the second column, using the outcomes set, list all the outcomes that each internal audience needs to know (and for what purpose). Outcomes will overlap across audiences. This step allows librarians to bundle outcome messages together by audience, which will be helpful in the development of dissemination strategies.

B) Match external audiences and outcomes
As above, in the first column, list the external audience(s) identified during Exercise #3. In the second column, using your outcomes set, list all the outcomes that each external audience needs to know (and for what purpose). Outcomes will overlap
across audiences.

Having matched audiences and outcomes, you can now brainstorm ways to inform target audience(s) of the outcomes they need to know and when. Possible marketing vehicles may include:

• newsletters
• press releases
• web site story
• published reports
• flyers and brochures
• news articles
• radio spots
• presentations to community groups and the library board
• listserv notices

The resources that you have at their disposal undoubtedly will influence what strategies can be employed, but a broad approach can help to ensure that you communicate your findings widely. Exercise 5: Determine dissemination strategies (anchor link to Exercise 5 below) will help you create a marketing plan for your outcomes.

Building on Exercise 4, use the table below to determine dates of promotion and what kinds of marketing vehicles to use to broadcast outcome messages to target audiences.

Developing Graphical Representations of Outcomes

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and one way to think about getting your message out is to consider a graphic representation of your outcomes. Using a graphic allows you to sum up your program's impact in a way that is comprehensive and visually powerful. In order to develop a graphic, you need to think about what your outcomes say-what story do they tell?

Some things helpful to consider in creating a graphic include:

• How can outcomes be grouped together?
• Are there patterns to your outcomes? Are they progressive over time? Do some seem to build on others?
• How would you categorize your outcomes most generally-are they internal or external, short-term or long-term, expected or unexpected?

When you've figured out what your story is and what you want to express using your graphic, then you need to figure out how to tell it:

• Is there an analogy you can use-some shape or figure that can represent your outcome patterns?
• What graphics are appropriate to your audience? Is your choice within their frame of reference?
• What tone, mood and color choices are suitable to represent your program or institution? To appeal to your audience?

The graphic below drawn from the Community Information Program (CA) case study furnishes a useful example of outcomes graphics. Notice how each tells a story by illustrating the nature of the program impact and incorporating concepts such as internal versus external outcomes, outcome categories, and outcome progression.

Once you've developed a graphic representation, be sure to run it by a few people to make sure it's clear and says what you want it to say. Be sure to use a test audience that is similar in perspective to your intended audience, e.g., get your graphic in front of an internal staff before sending to board, or organization outsiders before sending out a community mailing.