Library Marketing Basics

Book excerpt: Here is an accessible, step-by-step, easy to understand, and hands-on resource for any librarian who is interested in learning basic marketing tips to raise the profile of their library. While other books on library marketing are dense and assume that the library has a full-time marketing staff person, a publicist, a graphic designer, and a big fat budget., this book offers tips and tricks (often free) that any librarian can do to market the library. It will focus on the small changes to the services a library provides to raise its profile. Library Marketing Basics is designed for beginners who are new to library marketing. Any librarian can market their library, but they must understand what true marketing is all about, and how to do it right. In this guide, you'll: Learn what true library marketing is, and what it’s not Plan a large scale marketing campaign / awareness campaign on a shoestring budget Learn how to market yourselves as librarians! Develop your own professional identity and brand Learn tips and tricks on obtaining buy-in from your colleagues and the entire organization, even if they are resistant! Learn how to develop relationships with stakeholders in order to raise the profile of your library You'll also find practical examples from the non-library /corporate sector on how to use currently existing marketing tools and apply them to your library. The book focuses on developing a “library” brand, in addition to creating an effective marketing plan, social media guidelines, identifying assessment tools, and providing best practices when developing signage, writing website vocabulary, and designing promotional materials. Library Marketing Basics will show that you don’t need a big budget to market the library. You just need a small team of like-minded colleagues to brainstorm creative ways to raise awareness with your audience. Marketing is all about the valuable intangible and tangible aspects (of your library) and how you connect them with your users.