Developing Strategic Marketing Plans that Really Work

Book excerpt: Public libraries are increasingly aware of the need for good marketing. Underlying this is a need for competence in marketing planning. Many government and other reports stress the need to get public libraries back into the lives of their users and potential users and this requires significant marketing effort. However, it quickly becomes apparent to public librarians that marketing is far more than simply creating a set of leaflets for their marketing communications. What they need is a simple, practical guide to the whole marketing planning process from goals to implementation of marketing strategies and communications. And along the way they need to troubleshoot the barriers that such activities meet. This highly practical and down-to-earth book, with free downloadable templates and forms on the web, will de-mystify the marketing planning process and set it in the context of modern public library services. Through a series of easy to implement process steps and ideas the reader will see not just what is possible but what is likely to work quickly, and deliver real impact on performance indicators, in a public library context. The book is structured as follows: strategic marketing planning for public libraries: an introduction ambition as the basis for marketing planning making sense of the market for your public library services creating segment-specific value propositions for users and non-users priorities: making sound choices clear objectives and winning strategies attention-grabbing marketing communications implementation and quick progress. Readership: The text is fully international in scope and is written for all those practitioners who recognize the importance of marketing in shaping and positively influencing the direction of public library services.