Library Marketing Ideas (sort of)
February 6th, 2007 Brian HerzogMarketing. There’s always workshops concerning how to market libraries and services at conferences, and they are always well-attended. This past weekend seemed to be a perfect storm of marketing-related events, so I thought I’d convert-to-library a few ideas I witnessed recently.
- Guerilla Marketing: If you live in the Boston area (like I do), you couldn’t help but hear (endlessly) about the “terror scare” that gripped the city last week. If a library wrapped up books in duct tape envelopes and left them on busses and trains, they might be able to get $800,000 worth of advertising. And up to five years in prison.
- Movie Theaters: I went to a movie this weekend, got there a bit early, and ended up sitting through a good ten minutes of advertisements. Personally, I dislike these commercials, but doesn’t it make sense for a library to sponsor some kind of trivia game for all those captive teens to play while waiting for the movie to start?
- Logo Recognition: One of the ads at the movies was for some show on the NBC network. At the end of it, they displayed this image:
What impressed me was that they consider their logo so recognizable that they don’t even need to spell out what their web address is - just their logo+.com is enough. My library has a logo, too, but I don’t think patrons would be able to make that same leap:
Direct Marketing: I got this “Important!” water survey kit in the mail. Survey questions regarded water use/quality and home ownership, including space for me to fill out my name, address, phone number, etc. They also asked I fill the little bottle with tap water and return everything back to them. I did not like that this company barely identified themselves (I needed the internet to find out this is just a marketing campaign of a company that sells water systems), but could libraries do a similar direct mail campaign to find out what patrons want from libraries? It could be a good way to reach those people who don’t come into the libraries, what their reading habits/tastes are, and what the quality of water around town is like.
So much to do, and so little time.
