Tomorrow (Thursday, June 14th), I'll be hanging out in the Library Marketing Exchange chat room from 12-1pm EST to say hello, talk library marketing, and get to know what you're up to. To get the ball rolling, I'm making the theme of the chat Branding 101. If you have a different topic in mind (or no topic) that's fine, but I figured having a theme would help get the conversation moving.
In my recent branding talk, I distilled some of the lessons I'm learning into a few Branding 101 points, which are:
- Know your customers: Understand what makes your customers tick by finding out what's important to them and what they hope to achieve.
- Know yourself: Come to grips with who you are as an organization and who you aren't. By doing so, you'll see where you and your patrons meet, and where you may need to make some changes to better accommodate their needs. Remember, you can't be all things to all people, but you can do a better job of being yourself
- Find your inspiration: Great brands stand for something big. What gets you up in the morning? How can you get patrons excited too? If you don't care about something, you have nothing to build your brand on.
- Find your aspiration: What, ultimately, do you hope to become? Great brands connect their aspirations with those of their patrons. Think beyond today to the possibilities of tomorrow. Develop your vision with patrons and involve them in getting there.
- Write it down: Everyone inside and outside of your library should know what you stand for. Communicate it every chance you get.
- Live it: Here's where brand-building happens. Some ways you can live your brand include maximizing every point of contact you have with patrons and becoming their advocate in everything you do. Let's talk more tomorrow about how we can practice what we preach!
P.S. You don't have to stay in the chat room for the entire hour, of course. Drop in, drop out, stop by in the middle, it's all good! :-D
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.
4 comments:
Hey Jill...I've enjoyed your blog and have used it as an example for others just getting started. Keep up the good work. I've also noticed that your blog shows up very well in the blog search engines.
Thanks a lot, Cynthia!
I wish I could say the search engine results were the result of some savvy marketing on my part, but I can't. Just happened.
Thanks so much for reading! I appreciate it.
Could you please send me the transcript as well? I work odd hours and was not able to attend... y email address is eevidrine@randolph.edu . I would much appreciate it!
Sure!
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