You Can’t See It! – It’s Electr-onic! A Fictional Marketing Plan for a Public Library’s Unseen Resource

Abstract

ABSTRACT When encouraging the use of a particular library service or product, public librarians can often become entrenched in sending out self-serving promotional messages rather than developing a marketing plan that prioritizes and fulfils the needs of their patrons. A worthwhile marketing plan will educate not only current users but also potential users about the benefits of what the library has to offer their community. By defining the need of a target audience through the use of a needs assessment, articulating goals and objectives based on that information, and gaining a comprehensive understanding of the promoted product, a librarian can more successfully showcase a resource with the user population in mind. Further, through analyzing challenges and opportunities and identifying and describing opportunities and threats associated with the plan, the library can make the decided strategies and tactics more effective. After developing and implementing a meaningful marketing plan, the results should be evaluated against short- and long-term benchmarks and adjusted as needed. This paper showcases the use of such steps in the explanation of a fictional marketing plan highlighting EBSCO’s LearningExpress Recursos Para Hispanohablantes for the Fort Worth Public Library in Fort Worth, Texas.