Coping with Change: Reaching Your Librarys Users.

Coping with Change:

Reaching Your Library’s Users

Purpose: provide marketing overview for health information librarians in academic hospital and research institutions

Desired outcomes:• Become familiar with the process

and materials• Develop ideas for marketing

campaigns

“Marketing is the human activity directed at satisfying human needs and wants through an exchange process”

Philip Kotler, Ph.D. S.C. Johnson & Son Distinguished Professor of International Marketing, Northwestern University Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Chicago

Concerns

• Libraries are becoming marginalized

• Competition increasingly powerful• Accessibility of information to all

Why market your library?

• Greater use by your customers• Better decisions about what to

provide at your library• Better partnerships with faculty

and administrators

Why market your library?

• Maintenance of central position of library in the institution

• Adequate funding• Better informed and more

supportive legislators• Others?

Countdown to Your Marketing Plan

6……• Product• Place• Price• Promotion• Positioning• Politics

5……Positioning

• Five words or less • Use consumer language• Customer point of view• Branding

4……The 4-Way Stop

• desirable by customers• distinctive from competition• deliverable by your library• durable over time

3……• Customers

(physicians, faculty, students, community)

• Influencers(administrators, boards, government)

• Catalysts(allies, donors, media)

2……Current Needs Future Needs

Known Needs

Does current P/S meet “P’s”?Do customers know P/S?

Future P/S match known needs?

Implied Needs

Complaints or compliments?Who is not there?

Environmental shift changes- politics!

1……

Take the First Step!

Your customer is your starting point

Ways to Learn About Your Customers

Formal• focus groups• yearly surveys for customer

groups• quick satisfaction questionnaires• presentations with Q&A session

Ways to Learn About Your Customers

Informal• spot interviews• chat room discussions• suggestion boxes (incentive)

Ways to Reach Your Customers

Advertising(paid for by the library and communicated through mass media)

• TV or radio spots• campus or community paper ads• Web sites

Ways to Reach Your Customers

Personal Selling(person to person communication in which receiver provides immediate feedback )

• hosts for new students• lounges, carrels, other busy spots • department and/or classroom

presentations

Ways to Reach Your Customers

Sales Promotions(activities to stimulate consumer purchasing such as contests, rebates and discounts)

• demonstration of new features• recognition event • loyalty program

Ways to Reach Your CustomersPublic Relations/Publicity(favorable messages conveyed through

mass media)

• news releases/media alerts• pitch e-mails• “expert” bios• letter to the editor

** First consult with communications contact in your institution

Media interviews

What if a reporter calls?!• Know audience/tailor remarks• Establish 2-3 main message points

and keep to these• Anticipate questions• It’s okay not to know! (“Let me get

back to you”)

Excellence Occurs

When you…• Know your customers (their current and

future needs)• Have a detailed vision and mission

statement for your library• Promote your library• Serve your customers as you have

promised