INFO 283-10: Marketing of Information Products [Fall 2015]

Learning outcomes:

1. Describe the significance and value of having a marketing philosophy.
2. Build a comprehensive and practical process for solving problems through systematic application of marketing principles to library and information organizations.
3. Identify and discuss the marketing components that are relied upon to make effective marketing decisions (marketing research, segmentation, marketing mix strategy, and marketing evaluation).
4. Analyze aspects of nonprofit marketing management in detail, outside the classroom.

Overview:

As the Outreach Librarian at my institution, I have primary responsibility for marketing our services. Even though I was familiar with some marketing concepts prior to taking this class, I was impressed with additional strategies introduced by Professor Alman and the opportunity to expand on my repertoire of marketing tools.

Venn Diagram of online mkt plan for social media, newsletters and blogs making up the 3 circles
3 elements to an online marketing plan by Karen Gunton retrieved from the Pinterest board

More importantly, the class helped me to understand the importance of having an updated marketing and communication plan to focus on current and potential patrons.

Soon the college where I am employed will begin planning a marketing campaign to seek support for a general obligation bond on the November 2018 county ballot to specifically renovate the library and another outdated building on campus.  I think it will be a difficult sell to the community because the college has had two bond measures passed since 2008 to upgrade buildings on campus. In each of those bonds, the library was named as one of the buildings to be modernized; however, due to cost overruns and other circumstances, the library renovation was put on hold.  Now more than ever, it is important to have a robust library communication plan aimed at building support for this bond.  We will have to focus both on our internal (staff, faculty) and external (students, community) customers and craft marketing messages to specific audiences.

In the class module on “Communication Plan and Branding”, I was one of three students who led the VoiceThread discussion.  Through this exercise, I identified important communication strategies to help market our library during the bond campaign. You can hear my comments on the importance of knowing your audience and targeting marketing messages at the 11:26 mark:

https://youtu.be/ZQBDqf36sI8

Favorite assignments:
      • Personal Marketing: Hone that elevator speech

One of our assignments was to create two elevator speeches: one to a person that may be a potential employer and another to a library board member.  This exercise was a great reminder on the importance of being ready at all times to market yourself or your library.  Here is my elevator pitch to a board member:

      • How to Write a Press Release

While there is someone at my organization who is responsible for writing press releases, he first needs the right content. This exercise gave me the opportunity to see what it takes to fashion a one-page release filled with all the most relevant information: “Local campus brings discussion of race to the forefront“.

Technologies used in class:

VoiceThread and Pinterest were two applications that were used heavily in this class and both were new to me. I was able to fine-tune my VoiceThread video submissions over the length of the course utilizing Screen-Cast-o-Matic and my newly purchased audio-technica external microphone.

      • This is a VoiceThread submission I made utilizing this new software and hardware:

https://youtu.be/CBilkKjl7mk

      • Using Pinterest as a collaborative sharing space was a brilliant idea. Each week students posted their two favorite graphics or websites relevant to the topic we were studying that week.
screen capture of Pinterest board
My Pinterest Marketing Board
Final Team Project:

As part of a fictitious marketing consulting group, I and five of my peers developed recommendations for introducing a therapy dog program to veteran students at a local community college. We met weekly via Collaborate for approximately seven weeks and came up with the following presentation. I was responsible for researching and writing the environmental scan and the SWOT analysis ( Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. The environmental scan was an exercise that gave me a deep appreciation of knowing the demographics of your community before embarking on a major marketing campaign.

      • Full 20 minute multi-media presentation ( my section on the Environmental Scan begins at 2:27):