Real-Life Marketing and Promotion Strategies in College Libraries

Book excerpt: Practical advice on how to promote your library and how to better understand and serve library users Real-Life Marketing and Promotion Strategies in College Libraries is a “how-to” guide to marketing and promotional activities that will raise your library’s visibility in the face of increased competition from other information providers. Academic librarians draw on their own experiences with real-life examples of what works (and what doesn’t) when developing, implementing, and evaluating on-campus marketing initiatives. You’ll learn how to use surveys, focus groups, advertising, target audiences, community outreach, and public relations to learn more about the needs of your library’s users, how to make improvements to meet those needs, and how to communicate those improvements to students and faculty. Academic librarians just getting started or well into their careers will benefit from the book’s practical approach to using marketing and promotional techniques that are effective and affordable. Each article of Real-Life Marketing and Promotion Strategies in College Libraries includes tables, figures, and appendices that provide tangible examples of marketing and promotional activities that really work. The book also includes a bibliography of effective marketing resources that’s kept up-to-date through an accompanying Web site. Real-Life Marketing and Promotion Strategies in College Libraries shows you how to: incorporate the results of LibQUAL+ and student focus groups into your short- and long-range planning use posters, displays, brochures, newspaper ads, and giveaways in your public relations campaigns get the word out to the community about your library and its services use the right media to match your message with your audience increase awareness of your library’s virtual reference services use postcards to promote your services collaborate with students to develop an advertising campaign implement a marketing action plan stage large-scale special events and programs and a whole lot more! Real-Life Marketing and Promotion Strategies in College Libraries is an essential professional resource for practicing academic librarians and library directors at colleges and universities.