Episode 606: Marketing the Library - Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange

Episode 606 Marketing in Libraries graphic

Welcome back to Season Six of Linking Our Libraries!

We are the Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange. Our members are libraries of all sorts: public, schools, academics, special libraries, archives, and history centers. Join us in talking thorough skills library staffers can use to be more successful in their work!

This week we look at a skill every library needs to be using: marketing. Fundamentally, our jobs in libraries are all about connecting our materials, programs, and services with our community members. Marketing tools can give you a good strategy for making that happen.

We have two Guest Hosts this week: Kate Wallace and Matt Klimkhammer, from the St Cloud Technical and Community College. Welcome!

The Basics:

Libraries are amazing.

We all know this. We all know there are tons of wonderful resources we have to share, programs we offer, and services our community can not find anywhere else. There is no question about this.

You might know that the Return on Investment made in libraries is wonderful! When you assign numbers to the resources we bring in (money) and to the resources we produce with that (materials, programs, services, other benefits associated with being in/near the library) – our ROI is fantastic! A variety of studies show that giving one dollar to a public library will return between $4 and $12 in value to the community.

We are amazing.

But too many people do not know this! How many times have you talked to a teacher in your school who didn’t know you had just exactly the books they needed, or that you could make videos for them, or that kids were coding robots while they were in the library? How many times have you talked to someone who was surprised your library had book groups? Or coffee shops? Or that you could help them learn to use their tablets? Too many times.

As a profession, we need to work on our marketing skills. We need to share the value we are providing! Nothing is as annoying as hearing a library person enthusiastically talk about all the great things they have in their library, then when you ask what their principal or provost or City Council thinks about it, they shut down and mumble “Well, they don’t know.” Nobody wanted to bother the person who could have been a strong library supporter by telling them about the wonderful value the library is providing. You see the problem there, right?

And the nice thing is that this is so easy!!! Everyone wants to hear about the library. Everyone wants to hear nice, positive, happy things. We promise you that the work you are already doing to market to your community members and to your stakeholders is helping them. And by making marketing all the stuff your library provides, you can not only improve the lives of your community members (at least a little bit!), but you can also do some good work in helping to preserve your job and your library the next time budget cuts come around!

There is no need to over-complicate this topic – you can get started doing some marketing work with just a little time and effort. And of course if you want to have a larger plan, you can spend a pretty endless amount of time and money too!

CMLE members: if you want to start on a very small marketing program, or if you want to create a larger plan – call us! We can come over, chat about your needs and your ideas, and help you to work through a plan that can help your library.

Resources for you to consult:

We’ve started this topic, but let’s talk with some experts today!

Books Read

And now we have one of our favorite parts of each episode: sharing books! Each of us will share a book we are reading. Links to each book will be on our show notes page, with a link to Amazon.com. If you buy a nice book – or anything else – Amazon will give us a small percent of their profits. Thanks in advance!!