Marketing: Getting your goods or services to your customer (or patrons).
The YA “library market” is actually made up of a great many segments that can be divided by age, gender, reading or recreational interests, attitudes toward library, etc. and the goal of marketing is to know as much about your market as possible. This can be accomplished in a number of ways:
Once you have a basic idea of your market, you need to develop a plan to reach them. Then all your services and programs should be designed and implemented with this in mind. Every library should have an overall marketing plan that serves as an umbrella to each department’s more specific plan.
Publicity or promotion of programs or services is separate area that follows an overall marketing study and plan. When creating promotional or publicity materials avoid using the words “Teen” or “Young Adult”. Make them splashy and hip, not over the top or corny.
Programs can be promoted in house, in the classroom, on bulletin boards at favorite hangouts or at collaborating businesses. The most effective methods are:
The most effective promotion, and is one sought by corporations around the world but uncontrolled via marketing and promotion, is (peer) word of mouth. This is YAs telling other YAs how great your library is, how cool the staff is, how fun that last program was, and so on. This is what you seek.
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