Forget about being the third place. Be the first lab!

For reasons I won't bother to bore you with, today is the first day I've been able to post (or really, spend any extended amount of time on a computer) since returning from the ALA TechSource Gaming, Learning, and Libraries Symposium. This is unfortunate since the Symposium really pumped me up and gave me no shortage of library marketing inspiration. So much, in fact, that I anticipate discussing gaming and related marketing issues over a number of posts. To begin with, I'd like to share with you the over-arching message I took away from the event: Forget about being the third place. Be the first lab!

After listening to speakers like Eli Neiburger, Jim Gee, Greg Trefry, and many others, I learned that games, perhaps better than any other pursuit, build community and spark intellectual curiosity. Eli spoke about how gaming brought seniors out from their retirement homes to challenge teens to Dance Dance Revolution contests; Gee described how students who wouldn't crack open a textbook in school eagerly poured through tedious gaming guides teeming with sophisticated language for hours; Trefry told stories of how big games dramatically altered the ways in which people perceived their physical surroundings. Do you know of other media that are so transformative? I sure don't. Games and the application of gaming principles capture the essence of what libraries are all about. They engage patrons' imaginations, and allow them to play around with ideas in an interactive, risk-free format with wide cross sections of the community. In the process, gaming patrons actually construct a series of unique experiences, thereby turning the library into a laboratory of sorts.

This "community creativity lab" is where where I see libraries' future and competitive advantage. I can't think of any other free, publicly-accessible place (except perhaps for museums, which we should be partnering with), where people can come together for purposes of serious play and creative enterprise. Unlike other "third places" like Starbucks that attempt to be a home-away-from-home space, libraries are much more. They are where old and new knowledge are explored, created, and re-envisioned. Our duty is to recognize and facilitate the many varied creative pursuits of our patrons and give them the value-added spaces, resources, expertise, and community engagement to explore them in greater depth. Gaming represents one avenue for libraries to look into, but there are many others as well.

Some of you may be skeptical about the potential of gaming and libraries, which is fine. I wasn't entirely sold on it either until I understood it better. So, I will continue to analyze how gaming makes sense from a library marketing standpoint based on what I learned. My next post will address who makes up the gamer market segment and what value-added services draw them in.

Game on!

I'm excited to be in Chicago for a few days for the ALA TechSource Gaming, Learning, and Libraries Symposium. I have to admit that I know very little about how gaming and libraries work together, so I'm here with an open mind and a lot of note paper! I plan to transcribe my scribbles for you here on LM to explore how gaming could relate to library marketing efforts. Should be fun!

Learn to see what's not there for marketing success

I mentioned that I've been doing a bit of research and writing on the topic of differentiation. I also referenced advice from the book Zag that suggests looking for the "white spaces" or underserved/ignored markets. Now I want to share with you an outstanding article I read that identifies 6 ways in which marketers can find those "white spaces" by looking at familiar information in a new light. In doing so, organizations can find competitive advantages and new opportunities to apply their services.

The article is called "Creating New Market Space" by Kim and Mauborgne. The authors examined the marketing strategies of successful firms like Home Depot and Cisco Systems and found 6 common innovative tactics for finding what's not there. I highly recommend grabbing a copy of the article, but here is a brief outline of the main findings:

1. Look across substitute industries - Customers make trade-offs when selecting products and services. By looking across substitute industries and why customers choose option A over option B in certain circumstances, they can find new market space. The authors point to the example set by Home Depot, the company that noticed customers had 2 options for home improvement. They could either hire a contractor or buy the tools to do the job themselves. Home Depot blended these options by giving customers the knowledge, training, and sales expertise to improve their skills. As the authors put it,

"By delivering the decisive advantages of both substitute industries - and eliminating or reducing everything else - Home Depot has transformed enormous latent demand for home improvement into real demand."

2. Look across strategic groups within industries - Strategic groups in an industry as defined in the piece are groups of companies that act on a similar strategy. The authors state that these groups are usually based on price and performance. The idea here is to figure out why customers trade up or down across these groups and, like in the previous tactic, offer a unique mix of their advantages.

3. Look across the chain of buyers - This strategy involves challenging the notion of who the target customer is. To do so, it's important to know who actually uses the service versus who purchases it, and who influences these decisions. The authors state,

"By questioning conventional definitions of who can and should be the target customer, companies can often see fundamentally new ways to create value."

This point reminds me of a recent brainstorming session I led for a regional meeting of my local chapter of ACRL. One savvy participant came up with the idea of reaching out to university staff as an overlooked patron base. I admit I usually forget about this important audience, but it could be a new niche just waiting to be carved out.

4. Look across complementary product and service offerings - This is one area where I think librarians could find a lot of missed opportunities! With this strategy, marketers identify the total solution customers seek by consuming a service. The authors point to a couple of illustrative examples. For instance, they state that finding a babysitter is a hindrance to attending movies in a theater, and so theaters should concern themselves with addressing this need as it affects demand for their service. Similarly, they point to Borders and Barnes & Noble - companies that realized customers want more than just to purchase books. They want a complete book-buying experience.

5. Look across functional or emotional appeal to buyers - In this approach, marketers attempt to turn functional products into emotional ones and vice versa. The authors point to Starbucks as an example of a company that turned a functional product, coffee, into an emotional experience, which in turn stimulated much more demand. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the Body Shop stripped away the emotional aspects of its cosmetics such as packaging and advertising, leaving only its functional, all-natural products behind.

6. Looking across time - Fortunately, this tactic doesn't require a crystal ball or any special foresight. It only requires the ability to hone in on significant, clear (observable) trends that are irreversible. Moreover, marketers must be able to envision how the trend in question will change how they will deliver value to their customers tomorrow.

Seeing what's invisible and how you might fill in those gaps is a talent librarians can benefit from as they define and differentiate themselves from the many alternatives patrons have at their disposal. While challenging, this is not an impossible task. As this article demonstrated, there are concrete strategies for finding your unique niche in the marketplace, which will sustain libraries and create real value for patrons as no one else can.

Beyond "telling and selling"

If you want an insightful summary of what modern marketing is about and where it's headed, you have to read this Forbes article about Proctor & Gamble's marketing chief, Jim Stengel, and his approach to marketing, which is all about building relationships with customers. Stengel summarizes the P&G approach this way:

'"We need to think beyond consuming ... and to really directly understand the role and the meaning the brand has in their lives," Stengel told The Associated Press in an interview. "If you're always asking that question, 'How can I be more relevant, how can I have a deeper meaning, how can I build this relationship between brand and consumer to a higher level' your marketing gets better, you innovate.'

In its effort to be more relevant, P&G marketers are immersing themselves in customers' day-to-day lives to find out where they fit and what people really need. Their on-the-ground investigations yielded amazing insights into women's lives, for example, and inspired innovations like decorative tissue boxes, Tide "To Go" stain removal sticks, and cleaning wipes that dispense like tissues. They even found that bunco's renewed popularity among women offered some unique sponsorship opportunities.

In modern marketing, the name of the game is dialogue, and to engage in conversations with customers, you have to be able to speak their language by understanding who they are beyond the surface level - a lesson P&G learned and that librarians should act on as well.

Thanks for the chat! Here's the summary...

Thanks to everyone who turned out for the chat last Tuesday. I thought there was some good discussion and some promising ideas came out of the talk. However, I do understand that the chat room format can get a little unwieldy, and we lost a person or two I really wanted to follow-up with ("Kate:" If you're out there, feel free to get in touch with me to follow-up on the question you had!). I want to summarize what we talked about and point out the major issues we identified when marketing to internal staff.

A major point of discussion was the observation that many staff are reluctant to try new technologies because doing so is seen as waste of time, a source of stress, and a distraction from serving patrons. Participants offered up a number of ideas to get staff into a "play" mode where they can experiment and make some discoveries that may ultimately help patrons. Some of the librarians in the chat room mentioned that they have no funds to pay for incentives, so our ideas focused on other means of motivation. Here are some of the highlights:

• Have a bragging wall
• Sponsor competitions with other libraries
• Get people together to talk about what they learn
• Put people in teams
• Let managers and staff know what the ROI is (Return On Investment) for their time (it's not a waste of time to try new things!)
• Partner with patrons who are familiar with social technologies so that they can teach staff (someone suggested that this could count as volunteer hours)
• Have an "open mic night" where patrons can share their tech knowledge with staff
• Integrate "play" into daily routines

"Kate" and I were the only two academic librarians in the bunch (I think), and she brought up a really good point but left the room before we could get into it more (darn!). She said that in her library, time and the learning curve do hinder experimentation with social technologies, but more of an impediment is the desire to move slowly because no one is sure how to proceed with these trials. There is no policy in place and people are a bit nervous to enter uncharted waters. Kate's observation stands out to me because in the past couple of weeks I've been hearing similar comments in a number of different contexts, which makes me think we have a pervasive problem on our hands when it comes to marketing: a culture of fear. I want to think on this some more and get Sybil's take on this before I write more (I'm being cautious - ha!), but essentially I hear from librarians that they are afraid to move ahead with ideas because they stop themselves by thinking of all the ways things won't work instead of considering their potential and reserving judgment. In part, I think the lack of clear policies or at least parameters can increase uncertainty and therefore fear. This problem is definitely not unique to libraries, but that doesn't make it any less problematic. For internal marketing to work, people need to feel free to fulfill their brand promises and confident that they'll be backed up by higher-ups.

Finally, our conversation didn't stop at tech talk. Some participants talked about branding projects their libraries are working on. The general consensus was that it's important to involve staff during the planning process, and that it could be more difficult to rally staff support when they are simply offered a finished logo they had no say in. One person mentioned that in a former position, the library redesigned its Web page, involving staff in the prototype stages. To top it off, staff were given nifty t-shirts with the Web address, which they donned enthusiastically. I know that having too many cooks in the kitchen has the potential to stall projects, but involvement could be structured so that it's productive. Today, I was just thinking that even something as simple as letting staff vote on one of a few prototype logo designs could give them an investment in the project that would pay off during implementation.

Feel free to read the full transcript of the talk and contact me with questions or other ideas. Also, I'm going to contact my internal marketing guru, Sybil, to get her take on our exchange.

Thanks again for showing up! I'll post a new chat time and topic soon.

Free library marketing class

I thought I would pass this along after seeing it on a discussion forum. It's free; it's a marketing class; it's led by Pat Wagner who knows her stuff. Wish I could go...

Let's chat

How does today 7-8pm EST sound?

Tonight's Library Marketing Exchange chat is all about internal marketing, or, marketing to your most important audience (staff). For some background, see my previous post.

As a special added bonus, Sybil Stershic, THE expert in internal marketing as far as I'm concerned, has graciously offered to respond to any issues and/or questions that come up as a result of the chat, which I'll communicate with her and share her answers in a special post.

Hope you'll be there! (It would just be sad if I were talking to myself...).

And how are you any different?

Whether consciously or not, patrons are always comparing you to your competitors and asking themselves how you're different from them. They're also asking how you're better than them regarding what they care about most. Have you taken steps to stand out from the crowd? If not, you may need to give some attention to your differentiation strategy. Being different (in a good way) can give you a competitive advantage. If you don't have a competitive advantage, then you probably don't have any business being in business!

Because differentiation is so important, I chose to write a chapter on what it is and how to do it in a forthcoming ACRL publication, The Desk and Beyond:
Next-Generation Reference Services, which is due out sometime next year. In the process of working on the chapter, I learned a lot of important stuff about being competitive and I want to share what I discovered with you all (without giving away the chapter, of course!). So, you'll be seeing a number of posts on this topic in the coming weeks.

To kick off this theme, let's first consider why librarians should worry about competing. Being competitive is not a sneaky or underhanded tactic of any kind, but simply a means finding ways to fulfill needs that have been neglected or that no one has ever noticed before, and doing so better than anyone else. While addressing these needs in the best way possible, service providers like us challenge themselves to think hard about what they do, who they're doing it for, what they excel at, and how they can creatively satisfy their target market. Being competitive then, makes service providers more useful to their customers and also more innovative. It's a healthy thing to do, which is why I encourage every librarian look at the marketplace as a game of chess where you have to think a few steps ahead of the other player and execute moves that catch him off-guard. The best competitors not only do things differently, they do things differently for the benefit of their customers. There's no point in being different for the sake of being different. Patrons have to care about those things you stand for.

In his book, Zag, author Marty Neumeier explained competitive strategy/differentiation in a very illustrative way. He noted that talented artists have the uncanny ability to see not only the space an object fills, but also the negative space it creates, which he calls "white spaces." He says that our marketplace is full of white spaces that have yet to be discovered by marketers. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to hunt down those white spaces and stake that territory for libraries. Librarians have so much that is unique and worthwhile to offer, but we just need to make what we do connect with patrons so that we can stand out in their minds from all of the alternatives they have at their disposal. Easy, huh? ;-)

Since I go into a lot of detail in the book about how to find your competitive advantage, I won't repeat all that here, but I will share some of the terrific stuff I've read that you can benefit from taking a look at. Stay tuned.

Chat room date changed due to reality check

After digging out from two big projects that were due today, I poked my head out and checked in with reality. What did I discover? I realized that I scheduled our LM Exchange chat for tomorrow at 7pm. While this may work for some of you die-hards in the crowd, I figure most of you will be getting ready to enjoy the July 4th holiday. So, I'm moving the chat to next Tuesday 7/10, 7-8pm EST.

The topic this time is going to be internal marketing. Many people forget that getting your marketing plan down on paper is only half the battle. The other half is getting buy-in from the people who matter most: your staff. Doing so is not always an easy feat, to say the least. While the value of library marketing may be self-evident to us, it can be viewed by others as a (gasp!) waste of time. I'd like to discuss ways in which we can do better at making marketing a total organization effort. Here are some ideas I have about possible talking points (please do bring your own):

• Staff recognition programs and other incentives.
• Creating an open, collaborative marketing planning process.
• Innovative approaches to staff training (Sybil Stershic had a terrific post on this topic recently).
  
• Improving communications and information sharing
• Writing internal marketing plans

To get you thinking, take a look at these two short pieces and just imagine different wordings and examples to fit the library environment: The Power of Internal Marketing and Making Internal Marketing Work.

Hope to "see" you next Tuesday in the chat room!

Reduce risk; Increase usage

To librarians, it may not seem like using our services is risky in the least, but to time-starved patrons, that's not always the case. Like other services, library services are intangible and it can be difficult for patrons to understand the benefits we have to offer. Why, then, should they spend their time participating in a research consultation, for example, if what they're "paying" for?

One way to persuade patrons to spend their time with us instead of alternatives is to clearly spell out what they can expect if they take a chance on our services. As an example, I'll share with you a project I've been working on for new instructors in our University College.

I've been creating a Blackboard site just for new University College instructors that, among other things, describes the services we provide them. One service is our individual consultations, which can be very valuable for instructors working on developing their teaching skills, keeping up with their fields, and doing research. To reduce the perceived risk of taking me up on my offer, I've outlined all of the expectations and outcomes from the service encounter. Here's a list of the items I describe:

• Reasons for scheduling a consultation. Not everyone realizes when they have a need to see us, so I tried to spell out situations where our services will come in handy.
• What to expect before, during, and after your research consultation. Here, I tell instructors that they can expect a prompt response from me in setting up a time to meet and that they should tell me as much about their research question as they can prior to the meeting so I can be adequately prepared. During the meeting, patrons can expect that we will meet for about an hour and they may be exposed to a lot of information, but that follow-up sessions or questions are welcomed. Finally, I tell patrons that they can expect an e-mail from me one week after their session to determine if they have any other questions or needs.
• Patron responsibilities. While I'm here to serve patrons' needs, I want to establish the notion that service interactions require that both parties are active participants. Therefore, I ask the patrons schedule their sessions about a week in advance (if possible), that they bring documentation and/or objectives for the session with them, and that they inform me as soon as possible if they're unable to attend. The goal here isn't to give patrons a laundry list of things to do, but to encourage them to be prepared so that the session is rewarding for them.
  

In doing this, I hope that instructors won't be intimidated meeting with me one-on-one because they know how the process works and what they'll get out of it. Also, I want them to know that sessions may feel a little overwhelming at times because they're absorbing a lot of new information, but that this is normal and that it's not a one-shot deal. Hopefully, this will make them feel comfortable and confident seeking assistance.

I'll let you know the response to this once the Blackboard site goes live. I encourage you to think of ways to make your own services more transparent. Perhaps a video of a scripted, representational reference transactions can ease new students' hesitance to ask for help at the reference desk, for example. You could post it online so that before coming in, students know the drill. It will help to ease anxiety and make the interaction more fulfilling for both parties.

More on Meebo chat

As a newbie to Meebo, I didn't realize that chats are saved in handy logs. This is a great (new?) feature, and one worth knowing about if you plan on using it for your own library marketing purposes. This also means that I didn't have to copy/paste/e-mail the (incomplete) transcript for those of you who participated in the Library Marketing Exchange branding chat (sorry!). Here's a complete and much more attractive transcript of the branding chat that took place on June 14th: http://chatlogs.meebo.com/room/librarymarketingexchange/logs/2007/06/14/

See you in the next chat!

The relationship's the thing

Hello, readers! I'm glad to be back blogging with you, though vacation was quite nice...

I wrote up a post for KnowThis that I wanted to discuss here to add a librarian perspective. The post is about what we're really selling to customers as we promote our services to them. There's the obvious stuff like resources, information literacy, and so on, as well as benefits like "write better papers" and "make informed decisions." But I think we provide patrons with more than that. As librarian-marketers invite patrons to co-create their services with them (a modern marketing phenomenon), and as patrons take it upon themselves to define the library brand and promote the library through word-of-mouth, they actually become a part of services we provide. Therefore, when we "sell" library services to patrons we're actually selling a part of our patrons' creativity, ambitions, and accomplishments. In effect, we're selling a relationship. Why not highlight how both patrons and libraries benefit from that relationship and showcase our relationship-building skills as a selling point for our libraries?

Need some examples? A recent one that comes to mind occurred as I was doing some freshmen orientation outreach earlier this week. I overheard one girl say that the library is her favorite part of campus. I immediately approached her and asked if she would be interested in joining my undergraduate advisory group, which is in need of some freshmen representation. She eagerly applied. From a marketing standpoint, I was glad I was able to offer an enthusiastic patron a relationship that allowed her to increase her involvement with our services, thereby keeping her engaged. The selling point, in my mind, is the fact that I have a relationship, in this case a formal one, in place to attract users.

Other ways to highlight relationships with patrons are to keep the promotional focus on the customers themselves and how you allow for interaction/involvement with them. At least, that's how I'm seeing things today. Am I striking a chord? Or just singing to my own tune? :-)

On vacation

In case anyone should miss me ;-) , I'm on vacation starting today and I'll be back on Monday, June 25th. Blogging may be light or non-existent during that time. I'll catch you when I get back!

Meet me at the library

In the latest of my all-too-frequent travels to Starbucks, I picked up one of their publications called, Let's Meet at Starbucks. The publication refers to a Web site where you can find out about SBUX events, learn about the latest drinks, and, my favorite part, send a customized e-mail invitation to your friends that asks them to meet you at a selected SBUX. Perhaps I find too many good ideas at Starbucks, but this particular one seemed like it was custom made for libraries. In public libraries, I could see this functionality being an easy way for patrons to identify library events and nearby branches for groups to gather. In an academic setting, it could help facilitate study group meetings and perhaps be linked to an online room booking system. I don't know about all of the technicalities involved, but isn't this a great concept?!

The SBUX publication also mentioned the Web site Meetup.com, where people can identify groups by interests and location. There's a group for just about everyone, including for those interested in books, education topics, languages, and music to name just a few. Wouldn't it be nice to reach out to these interest groups and offer library space and services to them? It's possible to advertise in Meetup, sponsor a group, or create your own group. There are also some MeetUp tools you can feature on your Web site including a widget that lists all of the Meetups in your area. At first glance, this service appears to be somewhat similar to Facebook and MySpace, but the major difference is that Meetup aims to get people together in person.

Whether or not you use these tools, it's worth considering how the libraries can do a better job of connecting the virtual and the physical while supporting the interests of their communities. Something to think about!

[Ooh - I just found numerous examples of people using Meetup to arrange meetings in the library: here, here, here, and here.]

Thanks for the talk! Mark your calendars

Thanks to all of you who showed up for yesterday's Branding 101 chat! I had a great time getting to know those of you who stopped by! As an experiment, I thought it went fairly well. A number of participants are working on branding projects, so we had a good deal to talk about. Much of the transcript is still available in the Library Marketing Exchange chat room, so feel free to peruse.

Based on yesterday's talk, I've decided to keep doing thematic chats once or twice a month, while dropping by and posting questions, comments, ideas, neat examples, etc. whenever I have a chance. I'm usually logged into Meebo, so odds are you can usually catch me hanging out there. (My Meebo ID is jsstover, so you can tell if I'm logged in and in the room). I'll also try chats at different times of the day so those of you in time zones other than EST aren't left out.

One participant remarked that the chat room is a little clunky for in-depth discussions, but great for community-building, and I agree! So expect to see a pretty casual exchange of ideas, chitchat, and some meeting-and-greeting going on. Here's the scoop for the next chat:

You're invited to talk library marketing!

What: The theme will be internal marketing (a.k.a. getting staff buy-in). Plus, anything else you'd like to discuss.
Where: The Library Marketing Exchange
When: Tuesday, July 3rd, 7pm-8pm EST
Who: Me, you, other library-marketing enthusiasts!
Why: To share ideas and get to know colleagues
Directions: Click on this link and type. You can also access the chat room directly from LM.

Hope to see you there!

Chat prep: Branding 101

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:

1. Know your customers: Understand what makes your customers tick by finding out what's important to them and what they hope to achieve.
2. 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
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. Write it down: Everyone inside and outside of your library should know what you stand for. Communicate it every chance you get.
6. 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!

How can you participate in tomorrow's chat? Very easily! Just go to this address: http://www.meebo.com/room/librarymarketingexchange/ or the Library Marketing - Thinking Outside the Book homepage (you'll see the chat box in the sidebar) and type away! If you can't make it this time around, leave a message anytime about questions or comments you have, projects you'd like to get feedback on, or other topics you'd like to see addressed in future chats. Your message will be available in the chat room for a while, so don't hesitate to leave a note!

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

Can marketing make better researchers?

I'm glad to share with you a marketing research project I've been working on with Dr. Deborah Cowles of the VCU Marketing Department. The project evolved from a research paper I wrote for a Buyer Behavior class I took with Dr. Cowles. The topic of my paper was self-efficacy. Self-efficacy, as defined by Albert Bandura, is

the certainty one possesses that he can successfully execute a behavior that will result in a desired outcome.

Unlike self-confidence which is a more general feeling of mastery, self-efficacy is task-specific. Moreover, the more self-efficacy one possesses, the more likely a person is to persist in the task and be more successful at it. Therefore, high self-efficacy is linked to improved performance.

Many academics and practitioners are interested in self-efficacy. Marketers are interested in it as a means of encouraging people to use self-service options. Librarians and teachers have studied self-efficacy as a factor in achieving improved learning outcomes.

Why did I choose to write about this topic? And what does it have to do with libraries? There's been a lot of talk in library circles about the need to promote electronic resources (i.e. databases). I thought, perhaps, that boosting students' self-efficacy as it relates to electronic library resources would encourage them to utilize them more often and more effectively. According to Bandura, there are 4 main ways of fostering self-efficacy: (In order of effectiveness) past performance, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and physiological states. The problem is that it's difficult to give students the benefit of past performance because, at least at my library, it's impossible to reach every student through library instruction. However, it's possible to use promotional methods to model behavior (vicarious experience) and persuade students that they are up to the challenge of using e-resources (verbal persuasion). Our study will test our hypothesis that promotional treatments can be used to beef up students' library e-resource self-efficacy, which in turn will encourage them to use those resources more frequently and effectively.

Our initial study, in a nutshell, found that library e-resource self-efficacy is positively related to students' intention to use those resources, their attitude toward them, and the amount of time they spend using them. Also, we found that instructors' encouragement and expectations played a significant role in shaping students' self-efficacy.

So far, this research has been well-received. Our first report of the findings won the O.C. Ferrell Marketing Award/best paper on the track for the 2007 Association of Collegiate Marketing Educators Conference. To top it off, we received a grant from the VCU School of Business to continue work this summer on testing our promotional treatments that could foster self-efficacy among students. I'm grateful to Dr. Cowles for introducing me to marketing research design and analysis. It's been quite a learning experience!

I hope this project demonstrates that marketing can be used to achieve positive ends, like more sophisticated researchers. Granted, there is some self-interest at work here (I'd like for students to use our stuff), but the ultimate aim is to equip students to participate in the research taking place on campus in an informed way. Ultimately, by being knowledgeable about the possibilities available to them through online databases, students will become savvy about how the find, use, and evaluate information - a skill that will help them further their goals throughout life.

Library Marketing has a chat room!

After seeing mentions of the new Meebo chat rooms on Walking Paper and BWL I just had to give them a try. So, I bring you the Library Marketing Exchange. It's also embedded in my blog, so you can chat with me and/or amongst yourselves directly from LM.

It's a highly experimental feature right now. My intent is for the Library Marketing Exchange to be a mechanism for librarians and marketers to get together and generate marketing ideas. Also, you can always use it to get in touch with me, though I doubt that's the biggest appeal! If it seems to be working well for fostering ideas, I'll keep it around.

To kick off the new room, I'll be donating my lunch hour this Thursday, June 14th at 12pm EST to get a conversation going. The topic du jour will be branding. This week, I plan to expand on the ideas from my recent branding presentation through a series of posts, and so I think we'll have some good food for thought prior to the chat on Thurs. (and if not, we'll just make something up!).

Hope to "see" you there!

Update: Please let me know if you have ideas for chat topics you'd like to participate in. I'll see about hosting some additional thematic chats if there's enough interest. You can leave your ideas in a comment or via the chat room.

Everybody lies

I mentioned earlier that marketing can be weilded to accomplish social good. I was reminded of this while I was (what else) watching T.V. I saw an American Express ad that asked card members to submit their ideas for worthwhile, socially significant projects. ClickZ News has a good write-up of this promotion, called The Members Project. Eventually, the top 50 projects will be put up for a vote, and AmEx will fund the winner. As ClickZ reports,

"When it first announced The Members Project last month, AmEx said the idea will allow its Cardmembers to "come together as a community by submitting and sharing their project ideas for making a positive impact in the world." That idea fits in with the Are You a Cardmember? campaign's goal of illustrating the values inherent in carrying AmEx."

There are already over 3,700 really creative ideas out there that you can review and rate. What I absolutely love is that it taps into the creativity and aspirations of customers. (Remember that I said good brands should be aspirational?).

What a great idea for libraries to steal (in a completely well-intentioned way, of course)! For those of you who do community work, why not let patrons help pick your projects. It's a terrific way to build your brand while getting people involved.

Oh, and if you're wondering about the title of this post, "Everybody lies" is a quote from my favorite T.V. character, House. The quote is a reference to the fact that I have yet to talk about my do-gooder-marketing research project even though I promised a week ago it would be my "next" post. I will write about it, but it's going to be a long-ish post, which is why it's been getting pushed to the backburner in the midst of a lot projects I'm working on, but it's coming! I just (unintentionally) lied about when. ;-)

Make every touch point count

As may of you librarian-marketers know, any time a patron comes in contact with your library in any form, be it signage, newsletters, or advertisements, is an opportunity to build your brand. A few blog posts remind us of this and give some tips on maximizing points of contact:

Market Genius asks why voicemail has to be boring. Instead, author Emily Bennington suggests using voicemail to differentiate yourself. I argue it's also an excellent way to live your brand by showcasing your personality. I guess I have another project waiting for me when I get back to the office!

Marketing Profs asserts,

Brands that deliver general interest newsletters filled with tips, tools, and advice—but not unique brand-differentiating content—should rethink their approach.

I'd say this accounts for a lot of newsletters I've seen. Fortunately, the author provides 6 ways in which you can make your newsletters do more heavy-lifting as a brand builder. My two favorite tips are:
Tell about-the-brand stories:

"Next-generation relationship marketing will tell more "about-the-brand" stories—always in the interest of the reader. Unbranded content has its role, but it must be balanced with more brand-specific stories."

and Inspire!:

"Guide your team to inspire the lives of your readers and strive to generate positive, hopeful feelings by promoting the benefits of using your product."

In addition to making touch points count, it's also a good idea to add more of them! Marketing Genius describes how one YMCA achieved marketing success by using a strategy that utilized numerous different tactics. Each of these points of contact worked together to achieve a "synergistic result."