Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by James Lenze on June 24, 2007 at 11:16am

As I read your posting, the main omission I saw was community groups (and you probably do include them, but just did not mention it). When you plan a program, think about groups within your community whose activities are even tangentially related to your topic. Contact them to get the word out to their members. They may also want to come to build awareness of their group and activities. Also get word out to the larger groups who have ties throughout the community (VFW, Masons, Rotary, PTAs ...). Even groups which work with children and young adults are good to remember -- their adult volunteers often have a wide range of interests, and are often involved with other groups.

Permalink Reply by Ann Coppola on June 25, 2007 at 2:17pm

Hi James, we do have outreach to local community groups. I agree with you that is a good way to reach people. Our Children's Librarian sends out emails to the school librarians who pass the word around. She recommended I contact the community college and spread the word there. I think that is a novel approach. Thanks for your comments!

Permalink Reply by Karen Demers on July 10, 2007 at 3:09pm

Hi Ann -
25-30 people sounds really good from my perspective. My community is approximately 14, 000 in population. Our community room comfortably fits 60 people - but I tend to expect anywhere between 10 to 40 people at a program. I also struggle with publicity and do everything that you mentioned. I think that our audience of adult users is just so busy - and it is hard to compete with all the other activities out there. I hate to say that I have "lowered my expectations", but now instead of focusing on the number of people in the audience, I try to get a feel for how "meaningful" the program was for those who attended.
Another outlet that we have used to market our programs has been through a local realtor. This agency puts together a monthly listing of activities in the community and gives it to their clients purchasing a home in town. Even if those folks are pre-occupied with their move, it introduces them to the fact that do sponsor adult events for later on.

Permalink Reply by Ann Coppola on July 18, 2007 at 6:48am

Hi Karen,
Thanks for joining the discussion! You make a GREAT point about it really being about quality and not necessarilyy quantity. There are a lot of other things out there for people to do, particularly if you live in a city. I guess what frustrates me is that we are almost rural. Meaning there aren't a lot of other cultural events going on in the immediate area and even I curtail my trips down to Tampa because of the cost of gas. So...I am forced to think that part of the problem is that people aren't hearing about what's going on at the library. Perhaps they aren't expecting anything all that interesting to be happening. I do get comments from patrons like that pretty often.

I know that if I had time in my schedule and went out to distribute flyers that would help too. The negative there is the cost of producing hundreds of fliers per program and than driving all over to distribute them. I do give fliers to colleagues attending local chamber meetings etc but that is hardly connecting with the majority of the community.

You made another good point about people being busy. I get more retired folks than working folks. Which I Don't mind but I would love to bring in the 20-50 age blocks to the different programs. My age early 30's block just doesn't go to the library. They will if they have kids but not for themselves typically. Perhaps they think it is just for people who can't afford their own books and computers? I think about this age gap quite a bit.

By the way, the local realtor marketing idea is very smart. I would never have come up with that on my own! Thanks again for writing in!

Ann

Permalink Reply by Gail Lancaster on May 29, 2008 at 1:36pm

We are in a similar situation, one newspaper in town that may or may not publish event information and may or may not get the time, date and place correct, plus the usual posters, flyers and monthly newsletter that are all in house and online. There are several radio and TV stations but do they do psas anymore and those are random at best. We do have a NPR radio station, Valley Public Radio, and their website will post event info for free. We do not have a staff dedicated to to PR, I wish we did.

People are talking about web presence, what do you think about advertising via Facebook, Twitter, RSS feed, has anyone used these and noticed an increase in attendance? I see this was posted 2007, any changes in your attendance in the past year? Besides involving your local realtor, have you tried your local hotels/motels?

Permalink Reply by Sheryl Eldridge on July 4, 2008 at 6:42pm

We add our programs to community calendars, announce events at the weekly Chamber of Commerce meeting, write press releases, send psas, distribute posters, advertise on our web page...sometimes we have good (for us over 30) attendance, sometimes just a handful. Some of our monthly programs (reading circle and movie nights) seem to ebb and flow, but those who come regularly are passionate about it, and they look forward to coming every month.

We just added a google calendar to our website, and write a quarterly newsletter that has a calendar of upcoming events.

I also volunteer with a community theater group, and sometimes for a play (or a major library event) we put 1/3 cut flyers in the city water bill and a full size poster in the Chamber's monthly newsletter. Sometimes the electric company will let us put flyers in their bills. Those all incur a large printing cost, however.

Permalink Reply by Vanessa Soleil on March 23, 2011 at 2:33pm

Our library lost funding for all of our adult programs, which included book clubs. When I got news of this in July 2010 I contacted a local independent bookstore and inquired about hosting a book club there. Of course, no funding means that I do this on my own time/volunteer basis. However, the bookstore gives me a free copy of each book that we read as a group and offers 20% off the title for members. We meet in the bookstore once a month. Having the partnership with a popular bookstore that does its own advertising for our group has certainly helped to get the word out. However, perhaps the greatest resource for marketing has been launching a page on meetup.com. This seems to be well-used in our area, so we have over 70 members signed up through meetup. We have 15-20 present at each discussion. craigslist is also a great venue for getting the word out...and of course word of mouth. i talk it up in my community.