One of the lessons straight out of Promotion 101 is to showcase your services in light of their benefits to patrons. Makes sense. It's not enough to tell people that your Interlibrary Loan service exists, but you also have to tell them why they should care that it exists ("It will help you get a better grade on your paper," etc.).
So what's considered a benefit to patrons? If you agree with this post from Marketing Genius, there are five benefits (only five) that people seek: money, looks, popularity, health and sex.
Ugh! Do you agree with that assessment?! Can you really boil down human ambition to 5 desires? Although, I think of the benefits of the library that I try to get across to students, like better grades (money/success) and saving time (more time with family and friends translates to popularity), and then there's that saying, "knowledge is power" (money), and I wonder if library benefits could be lumped into one of these broad categories. It's something I'll have to think about it some more, but if it helps your promotional campaigns to focus on those 5, have at it!
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
What's in it for me?
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Libraries are more than just collections of books and other materials. Libraries are dynamic forces in their communities with the power to improve lives. Modern marketing demands that librarians look beyond their traditional roles ("outside the book") to find new ways to connect with people and further their success.
2 comments:
Well ... I do promote services to undergraduates all the time with the benefit of saving them time and money. If I could figure out how to tie in some other basic desires/ambitions I would.
What about entertainment/recreation/leisure value? For example--reading for pleasure certainly does't save time or make you more productive--it is, in fact, time-consuming for avid readers. Nor is reading often associated with attractiveness/popularity (though many of us could argue otherwise) But isn't pleasure reading one reason many people use libraries?
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