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CILIP PPRG Marketing Excellence Event:Targeted marketing strategies that work

Bases Loaded: setting up for success

Jo Cornish

Stock & Reader Development Librarian

www.hertsdirect.org

Baseball basics:

• A player moving around all 4 bases scores a run. 1 run = 1 point

• You can work round the 4 bases gradually in a series of plays to score

• You can hit the ball hard and sprint round the 4 bases in one go – Home run

• It is really hard to score a run

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Oakland Athletics’ Coliseum ballpark – Home of the Moneyball theory:

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Youth Consultants Projects

Developed to address several challenges:

• Bridge the gap between teenage and adult collections

• Create a specific collection to be promoted to the hard to reach group of 16-25 year olds

• Allow the library to engage with volunteer and community led stock selection

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Hertfordshire Youth Consultants Projects:

• 2009/2010 pilots at Hemel Hempstead and St Albans

• 2011/2012 Berkhamsted

• 2012/2013 Oxhey, Watford and Bishops Stortford

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Two targeted marketing elements associated with the project:

• Promoting the volunteering opportunity to young people aged 16-25

• Promoting the resulting collection and any associated launch event to young people in the library and in the community

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Oxhey Project November 2012:• 5 volunteers

• Aged 16 - 23

• 1 male 4 female

• 200 books. 80% adult, 20% teenage titles

• Predominantly fiction

• Launch author event

• 330 issues in the first 8 weeks

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Oxhey Project launch event May 2013:• Booker nominated author

Stephen Kelman

• Delivered by 4 of the volunteers

• Volunteers conducted a panel interview

• 27 attendees

• Books recommended from the collection and borrowed by the audience

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Covering all the bases

Four key elements of the marketing strategy:

• Materials, professional resources and time planning

• Partnership working

• Social media and online promotion

• Role of the ambassador

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Materials, professional resources and time planning:• Find your target audience

• Time allowed to utilise available professional resources

• Create a marketing database as a shared resource with colleagues

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Partnership working:

• Direct, targeted referral is powerful

• Enthuse your partners to promote your event

• Prioritise key partners

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Key partners for targeted promotion of the Oxhey Project:• Volunteer Centre

• School librarians

• Local library staff

• Youth Connexions

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Social media and online promotion:

• Free

• Accessible

• Need to make your promotion stand out

• Personal endorsement

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Role of the ambassador:

• Sustained professional relationships

• Find where your organisational objectives match

• Make partners aware of what libraries are “for”

• If they understand your project and enthusiasm they can promote it to the target group on your behalf

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Bringing in the runs to score

Contribution of the “big hitters”, the young volunteers:

• Distribution of promotional materials to targeted venues

• Direct promotion using personal email and social media

• Use of “VIP” invites

• Invitation to councillors and senior managers

• Outstanding delivery of the event

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Capturing the success

How the volunteers see the library:

• [libraries] are extremely important because they encourage free information and they offer everyone a chance to learn, no matter their financial background”

• I love using libraries, they are an amazing resource that benefit the community

• Libraries are so important for a variety of reasons. It’s: free the hub of the community, welcoming, informative, fun, educational

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Capturing the success

Feedback from the event audience:

• Very inspiring and gave encouragement to people feeling proud and positive about the youth of today

• I would like to see a similar event in my local library and I would like to be a youth consultant

• Really impressed with the Youth Consultants, their enthusiasm and dedication. Would love to see this in every library. Great to see people browsing the books

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Capturing the success

Feedback from other customers about the collection:

• What good use of library resources!

• What a surprising and erudite collection

• Nice to know young people are being involved in library choices

• I love it as there is a great selection to choose from

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Capturing the success:

• Remember to ask for feedback and record it

• Sound bites for future marketing

• Valuable data for future bids

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In conclusion

Our approach to targeted promotion relies upon careful preparation, time planning and utilising all available resources.

We work hard to set up for success, we load the bases. This careful preparation maximises the impact of the “hit” of the campaign, despite our limited budget

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Thank you very much

Jo Cornish

Stock & Reader Development Librarian

Hertfordshire Libraries

Based at Hemel Hempstead Library

jo.cornish@hertfordshire.gov.uk