Marketing Libraries

 

One of the most popular ways to promote a library’s fiction collection within the building is through a 

series of themed displays, changing to fit with current events, holidays, and trends. This is a great way to

 show off what books you have in your collections, especially if you’re housing books that are popular or 

recognizable. A display can even be a terrific way to highlight those books that can often get looked over 

in the general fiction collection, like graphic novels, diverse books, and niche sub-genres. 

 

These book displays are perfect to target folks once they’ve crossed the threshold into the library, but

 part of marketing is attracting new patrons as well. You cannot expect to build a great display and

 have people flock to it if they don’t know about it in the first place. Facebook can be a great way to

 reach out to the public, especially those who might not be regular users. It’s not necessarily easy to

 build and maintain a big Facebook policy, but it’s certainly attainable with the right strategies and 

personalities. Facebook shouldn’t just be a tack-on task given to the youngest hire, but a thought-out

 and dedicated job duty if one is really seeking to market the library. 

 

Another marketing effort, and one that can be free of cause, is for libraries to make friends with their

 local news distribution service, whether that be radio stations, newspapers, television news studios,

 or any other organization that has a voice in the community. So many of these organizations are

 willing to run PSAs or announce little blurbs about your library’s upcoming events. I'm the promotions

 manager at a radio station and if someone from the library called and asked us to promote their event,

 we'd do it in a heartbeat. We'd probably interview them about it as well (and try to sell a sponsorship

 while we're doing it). Libraries may not be “businesses” but they need to advertise all the same.