1. Marketing @Your Library
Presented by:
Tiffany McClary
Director of Communications, Marketing & Outreach
New Jersey State Library
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2. Agenda Meet the NJSL Marketing Team The Marketing Mix
Setting SMART Marketing Goals
Your Marketing Plan
PR Tactics
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3. Meet the NJSL Office of Communications, Marketing & Outreach
Director of
Comm., Marketing & Outreach

Tiffany McClary 

x122 
Public Relations &
News Media Contact

Gary Cooper 

x108 

Graphic Designer, Webmaster &
Comm. Specialist
Anthony Schiavino 

x 132

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4. The Marketing Mix The 4 P’s of Marketing Product (or Service) Place
Price
Promotion
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5. Marketing Goals
Does your library have name recognition in your community?
Do people know what you offer?
Have you built trust and rapport within your community?
Do you have a plan to attract new prospects?
How are you telling your story?
Are your marketing goals SMART?
is your library a community hub?
Brand Awareness
build public support
Advocacy
Change perceptions
Add value to your community
Build relationships
Promote your events and services
Achieve your overall goals
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6. Key Components of a Marketing Plan
Market Research
Target Market
Product and/or Service
Competition
Mission Statement
Market Strategies
Positioning & Branding
Budget
Marketing Goals
Monitor Results
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7. PR Tactics Media Relations Content Development Promotion Events
Social Media
Strategic Partnerships & Influencer Relationships
Employee Communications
Issues Management and Crisis Communications
Your PR activities should be layered into your overall marketing plan.
Media Relations – press releases, interviews contributed articles, etc.
Content Development – blogs, videos, webinars, podcasts, news articles
Promotion - blasts, print materials, advertising, etc.
Events – create an opportunity to reach a more specific, narrow target audience; word of mouth opportunity
Social Media – direct engagement with your patrons; word of mouth opportunity
Strategic Partnerships & Influencer Relationships – opportunity to share resources and maximize reach through cross promotion; who are the movers and shakers in your communities? What community leaders and groups represent your various constituencies? These influencers will become your brand ambassadors
Employee Communications – employees are also your brand ambassadors; know who your spokes people are and have them trained, and make sure everyone else knows who to go to or what information to point to
Issues Management and Crisis Communications – need a plan
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8. That's exactly what well-placed contributed content can do!
Media Relations
Generate positive news coverage
Be a resource to your local reporters
Be proactive to identify opportunities
Give your library a voice through contributed content
What if there was a PR tool that costs nothing and could establish your reputation as an expert?
That's exactly what well-placed contributed content can do!
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9. Your Website Hub and Spoke Model
Is your website supporting or sabotaging your marketing strategy?
Your website should be the mothership – the hub
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10. Marketing Your Events
Tailor event promotions to your specific audiences
Develop a PR plan around the event
Drive conversation before and after events
Use hashtags when promoting via social media
PR Plan
Facebook, and Twitter are perfect outlets for posting daily teasers to get customers, friends, and followers interested in an event.
blasts are useful to reach a large audience for a “Save the Date” reminder, event specifics, and reasons to attend.
A media advisory could be used to generate broader interest and encourage press to attend, and including photos from similar previous events can also show the press what your event will be like.
Social media should be used to build followers and drive people to ‘like’ your company’s page by posting photos and video content after the event.
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11. Strategic Partnerships
Step outside of your library’s walls and become a part of the greater community
Find ways to partner to meet community needs
Join forces for resource sharing and leveraging
Look for natural fits
Target decision makers, thought leaders, politicians, “movers & shakers”
The best partnerships are mutually beneficial, with shared vision and goals.
The outreach part of the equation is where the marketing gets its legs—it is the actual deliverable and is the heart of real library service. Once you partner with someone outside of your organization, you begin to care about something outside of your library’s walls, and you become a part of the greater community.
Your library cannot remain relevant if it solely focuses on being a repository for books and resources. So much of what libraries do now has to do with programming for the public, anticipation of and provision for community needs, and involvement in the life of the community.
From a financial standpoint, partnerships offer an avenue for resource sharing and leveraging. By joining forces with fellow organizations you can accomplish more together than you could on your own and you are maximizing your reach into their constituencies as well as your own.
Look for natural fits for your outreach programs. What services do you currently offer that would get some great traction if you took them outside of the library?
Establishing relationships with the decision makers, thought leaders, politicians, “movers & shakers” etc. of your communities will maximize our reach throughout the community.
Legislative outreach – not limited only to budget season.
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12. Crisis Communication Planning
Identify Your Crisis Communications Team
Train Spokespeople
Establish Notification and Monitoring Systems
Develop Holding Statements
Finalize and Adapt Key Messages
Post-Crisis Analysis
In case of any accident or crisis, natural or human or technical, the public has the right to know what happened. A holding statement has to provide the media with an initial statement that sets forth the basic facts about the incident and lets people know that you are actively dealing with the situation.
Crisis: Any situation that is threatening or could threaten to harm people or property, seriously interrupt business, significantly damage reputation and/or negatively impact the bottom line.
Failure to address the many communications issues related to crisis/disaster response can lead to:
A break down of operational response.
Confused, angry, and negatively reactive stakeholders.
Your library could be perceived as inept, at best, and criminally negligent, at worst.
The length of time required to bring full resolution to the issue will be extended, often dramatically.
Crisis communication is a sub-specialty of the public relations profession that is designed to protect and defend an individual, company, or organization facing a public challenge to its reputation.
Adequate internal and external communications using the best-possible channels to reach each stakeholder group is a must. Communication is key.
Vulnerability Audits — A risk assessment to identify current and potential areas of operational weakness and system flaws that could lead to, or exacerbate, crises. Based on some level of vulnerability audit, creation of a response structure and written plan that will guide and optimize reaction to future crises. This includes ensuring there is close coordination between the teams involved in the operational and communications aspects of crisis response.
Select your senior level communications experts
Conduct Spokesperson Training in needed
State library uses text and alerting notification system called regroup, for monitoring traditional and social media, Google Alerts are the no-cost favorite.
Who are the internal and external stakeholders that matter to your organization? I consider employees to be your most important audience, because every employee is a PR representative and crisis manager for your organization whether you want them to be or not! But, ultimately, all stakeholders will be talking about you to others not on your contact list, so it’s up to you to ensure that they receive the messages you would like them to repeat elsewhere.
While full message development must await the outbreak of an actual crisis, “holding statements,” messages designed for use immediately after a crisis breaks, can be developed in advance to be used for a wide variety of scenarios to which the organization is perceived to be vulnerable, based on the assessment you conducted in Step 1 of this process.
“We have implemented our crisis response plan, which places the highest priority on the health and safety of our guests and staff.”
“Our hearts and minds are with those who are in harm’s way, and we hope that they are well.”
“We will be supplying additional information when it is available and posting it on our website.”
7. Keep it simple. Have no more than three main messages that go to all stakeholders and, as necessary, some audience-specific messages for individual groups of stakeholders.
8. A formal analysis of what was done right, what was done wrong, what could be done better next time and how to improve various elements of crisis preparedness is another must-do activity for any Crisis Communications Team.
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