Here’s an entry for the Louisville Free Public Library Blogathon, organized to help benefit the flooded Louisville Free Public Library in Kentucky.  Andy Woodworth organized this innovative activity to support donations to Steve Lawson’s Library Society of the World fundraiser where you can donate or directly to the LFPL Foundation. 

Here’s a perfect example of a grass-roots marketing effort that energizes people to use tools already at their fingertips.  If you’re already blogging… how hard is it to add another post to create a little awareness?  The trick with getting others involved with your marketing efforts is to make it easy for them by capitalizing on something they’re already doing.  And the added bonus is they already have instant credibility with their audience.  

So why do libraries rock?  There are SO many reasons… but the one that impresses me most today is the way folks in our community can creatively marshal the use of tools and colleagues to make a difference.

It’s a slow Friday, no meetings (yay!) and a stack of awaiting my attention.  It’s so interesting to see what clever things folks are doing around our world.  For instance, have you heard about…

- The New Jersey State Library (they always seem to be doing something cool marketing-wise) is piloting a program to use texting to get information about library programs out to teens and parents of children.  http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6671482.html

- I was stopped in my skimming tracks by the stunning photos of the Johnson County Library (KS) courier trucks in the MPLA newsletter (pg 12)http://www.mpla.us/documents/newsletter/august2009.pdf.  These courier trucks have library-themed adverts like “Captain Ahab’s Fine Seafood” and “Kafka’s Pest Control” along with the tagline “Available at Johnson County Library.”  How cool!

Talk about taking tragedy and making lemonade.  And in an interesting enough fashion to get picked up on NPR for some major free PR.

Anyone who listens to NPR’s Morning Edition knows that at :30ish they offer an offbeat quick bite of a story.  I will drive a few extra minutes out of my way to make sure I catch the :30ish story… they are so funny and intriguing, it’s one of my favorite parts of the show.  The other morning (July 30) the quick pick of the day was the women of TLA being featured in a 2010 calendar called The Tattooed Ladies of TLA.  Profits from sales of the calendar will benefit libraries damaged in Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Talk about your double-whammy of marketing.  A great idea… the novelty factor alone of a non-traditional view of librarians should cause great interest.  And then the added bonus of being off-the-wall enough to be picked up by mainstream media to take the message further than they ever could have expected.   

Hear the story on NPR here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111361343&ft=1&f=3

And see the calendar here: http://www.txla.org/temp/tattoo.html

I’ve been terribly remiss in my posting… but I’ve been working on one of the ultimate personal PR events this Spring, my wedding.   That’s all done, the honeymoon (that I spent in Chicago at ALA while my new husband rode motorcycles off-road in Moab) is over and I’m all hitched up and ready and raring to start talking about marketing again! 

I  know you won’t believe it (or may be you expected it and that’s even scarier) that even in the midst of the events this Spring/Summer, marketing was on my mind.  So, for your amusement, here are 3 marketing thoughts inspired by my life change…

1.  Brand morphing — So, a change has happened and you’re thinking it’s time to dress up the brand a little.  But you have to weigh the value of keeping the known against freshening up your look.  Sometimes the answer is a mixture… paying homage to the past while embracing the future.  How does this relate to my wedding?  Well… I’ve decide to take my maiden name as my middle and go by all 3.  Gillian Harrison Cain, that’s now me.  For your brand it could be keeping the same colors but a new design, using some of the same words in your tagline but with a new spin, or keeping the logo but develping a new tagline. 

2.  Getting buy-in to your vision — You’ve been working on this campaign for weeks… you’re at one with the concept, the words, the design and it is brilliant in your eyes.  And you talk to your manager, your co-workers, whoever and they just don’t get it.  Trying to get others to understand what you see so clearly can be really challenging.  Especially if they have pre-conceived notions that might be related to the words, images or approach you’ve chosen to use.  So you might have to put it in a different context for them.  A wedding is a classic situation of competing visions with the added bonus of heightened emotions.  It was hard to get our family and friends to understand the very understated backyard BBQ that we saw so clearly in our heads.   They heard the word “wedding” and it conjured up images in their heads that were in complete opposition to what we wanted.  So, we started talking to people about “the party” instead of “the wedding” and it really helped change the landscape.  Sometimes, it’s not as easy as changing a word to help folks get over the hump.  Sometimes the best thing on your side is time.  Remember, you’ve had weeks of working on this to get at home with it.  Your boss may need some time to get on board.  So when putting together your schedule, be sure to leave plenty of time to help others get into the groove.

3.  Things always happen in 3’s – Sometimes we get bogged down into thinking we’re the only one doing x, y or z and we forget there is a huge (or not so huge) community around us tackling some of the same issues and tasks.  And by collaborating, sharing or simply borrowing everyone can accomplish their goals.  Me, my best friend and one of our good buddies all got married this summer.  Because we were in all in the same boat around the same time but staggered, we were able to recognize some economies of scale,  take advantage of research others had done and (possibly the most valuable thing of all) help each other stay sane through the whole process.  It takes a lot of work to put together all the materials (flyers, posters, bookmarks, press releases, newsletter announcements, etc.) to support a program.  If you collaborate with others to develop the templates for those materials and share the big promotional pieces (banners, large posters, etc.) it can help everyone save time and money.  And don’t underestimate the value of having someone else around to help you keep from flying off onto flights of creative fancy/fantasy!

How many of you caught the reference in Obama’s speech to Congress last week when he talked about Ty’Sheoma Bethea writing Congress about the state of her school… on a public library computer.  “She had been told that her school is hopeless, but the other day after class she went to the public library and typed up a letter to the people sitting in this chamber.”

Talk about your perfect free PR opportunity.  A public library computer transformed the life of this little girl and took her all the way to DC to sit next to the First Lady.  Remember this the next time you go to your board, your city council, your voters… this is a great story to tell that many folks will remember and relate to.  And it was all brought to you by your public library.

Good news – a National Endowment for the Arts study has determined that more adults are reading fiction than in previous years.  The New York Times ran an article on the research on January 11 (“Fiction Reading Increases for Adults” by Motoko Rich).  Basically, the report shows that the proportion of adults reading at least one work of fiction yearly has increased for the first time since 1982.  Perhaps most interesting is that the increase seems to be consistent across age, ethnic and demographic categories.  Also interesting is a quote from Jim Rettig at the bottom of the article.

The article poses many possible reasons for the upswing in fiction readership – including internet resources and high profile programs like Oprah’s Book Club.  Regardless of the reasons, this report may be useful to libraries as you go to your governing bodies and boards in the next year to present budget proposals.  Given declining sales by publishing houses, these demonstrable increases in readership mean that your services are even more important (as if you didn’t know that already…)

We hope this is another tool for you to extol your own virtures when you are advocating for budget dollars in these tight times.  The NEA report is titled “Reading on the Rise:  A New Chapter in American Literacy”, and uses US Census Bureau data from a 2008 study.

The New York Times article can be accessed at the following url:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/12/books/12reading.html?_r=2&8bu&emc=bub2

You’ve gotta love it when primetime shows some love to libraries.

Law & Order:  Criminal Intent

Detective Goran to Detective Eames:  “I’m going to use my best investigative tool…my library card.”

I have actually noticed that the detectives on Law & Order spend a fair amount of time in libraries – could be worthwhile to explore for a true crime display sometime.

We are a couple of really chatty people, so we are going to try our best to organize our little piece of blog-land in a way that will work for you.  We know you don’t have a lot of time, and we are grateful you are using some of that time to read our musings.  With that in mind, we are planning to organize this blog into general categories that will help you decide what’s most helpful to you, and what you simply don’t have time for.  If we’ve missed something you think would be helpful – let us know (we’re not only big talkers, we’re good listeners too).

Marketing 101 – tactics, strategies and theories that might help the non-professional marketer

Pop Culture Opps. – references about libraries, museums and academia in popular culture that could be opportunities for further marketing

Caught in the Act – examples from libraries and cultural heritage institutions of strong marketing efforts

From the Field – thoughts and notes from travels to conferences, field work, face-to-face conversations and site visits

Get Used - Marketing ideas specifically targeted to libraries and cultural heritage institutions

Outside Inspiration – private-sector or non library/cultural heritage institution examples of good marketing

Marketing Buzz – marketing-specific trends and developments

Yadda Yadda – our random musings

Here we are, two marketing gals who usually have a lot to say. Our hope is that our long-windedness will help you find new ways to market your services and, as the name implies, Get Used. One of us is a library insider and one is a library newbie, but we both have extensive experience in marketing and we hope our varied backgrounds will provide insight and inspiration for you to jazz up your library and cultural heritage institution marketing efforts.

The bottom line is that we both agree that what you have to offer is one of the best products on the market today. What you do is offer great service, a virtually unlimited inventory, convenient locations, a great environment and all for no charge. In the marketing world, this is a slam-dunk. However, we also know that you sometimes have limited time and resources to get the word out about your fabulous organization. That’s where we come in. We hope to generate ideas, tactics and strategies to help you toot your own horn in your community. We would also love to hear from you about your ideas, successes, challenges and plans. Drop us a line at info@bcr.org, or post your comments to this blog anytime. We can’t wait to hear your thoughts.