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Reflection Two: What I Would I Do to Market to Nonusers and Convince My Team of the Value of Marketing Brian Whitmer – 805xs

Based on the scenario, my stakeholders have approved my strategic vision of increasing the number of nonusers coming to my library and now I have to develop a marketing plan to craft a successful series of interventions that will increase traffic into the library from this broadly defined group. I also have a secondary objective to promote the value of marketing to my staff to increase the likelihood of success in the primary objective as well as guiding my staff culture to be receptive to the need for marketing. Before starting to work on a marketing plan, I would begin by first exploring my own state of mind and my motives for wanting to increase the number of nonusers using my library. I would do this even before segmenting the currently amorphous definition of library nonusers into the various segments that make up the nonuser population. I would take a few days to think through my personal motives for making this my current marketing objective.

What is my motive in waiting to get nonusers into my library? Am I motivated by a feeling of condescension that there could be people who don’t use the library and are too ignorant to realize how great libraries and my library in particular is? Do I want to save people from wasting their money buying books or renting DVDs when they could save money by using my library instead? Do I believe many nonusers are people who want to use my library but can’t due to constraints in resources, time, or culture? Do I have an exalted role of my library as a social institution that can right the wrongs of society and raise up people who need my help to become successful? Or do I just feel the need to get my circulation statistics up to increase funding and stave off criticism? And how will I feel if don’t see more visits from nonusers? Of if I do?

I should be clear in my motives before asking others to follow my lead.

After gaining clarity in my motives, I then have three tasks: 1) Research who the nonusers are in my library district, 2) convince my staff of that the value of marketing our library is productive and necessary, and 3) develop a plan to attract my selected group of nonusers to the library. I would conduct a survey of my local library population to determine 1) why people don’t use the library and 2) what segments of the population are fall in the various nonuser segments. Before I can effectively plan a marketing intervention I need to know who I need to address and what keeps them from being library users. Beginning a marketing plan with preconceived notions of who needs to be targeted is a typical source of marketing failure. Based on the information that is gathered, I will be in a better position to determine which segment(s) of the nonuser population can most successfully be targeted with an intervention. I would also want to think about what resources my library may be lacking that are important for nonusers to consider using my library and can we address these issues.

I need to think about what problem(s) need to addressed and solved before planning a marketing strategy. Because I need to change the culture of my management staff to be more open to marketing, I would involve them in the crafting of the marketing plan. Because many people have a hostile perception of marketing based on their negative bias toward business, I will need to craft an intervention to change begin shifting their attitudes to be more open to the value of marketing and make clear that I don’t see the public library as the same thing as a corporation.

I would forego the use of the word marketing and replace it with the word storytelling.

Storytelling At its heart, marketing is a form of storytelling and is best conceptualized as storytelling and partakes in all the aspects of rhetoric as defined many centuries ago by Aristotle. It is persuasive speech designed to change behavior in those who hear it. It can be used for good or ill. And this is why it is important to know our motives before employing it. We choose well if we’ve chosen good motives for choosing why we want nonusers to come to our library.

I would start my intervention with the staff by reading a few paragraphs from John Cotton Dana’s 1906 book, A Library Primer to demonstrate that promoting the library has been a part of library practice since the beginning. As Dana notes in section chapter two: Having decided to have a library, keep the movement well before the public. The necessity of the library, its great value to the community, should be urged by the local press, from the platform, and in personal talk. Include in your canvass all citizens, irrespective of creed, business, or politics; whether educated or illiterate. Enlist the support of teachers, and through them interest children and parents. Literary, art, social, and scientific societies, Chautauqua circles, local clubs of all kinds should be champions of the movement. In getting notices of the library's work in the newspapers, or in securing mention of it from the lecture platform, or in clubs, and literary, artistic, and musical societies, it is better to refrain from figures and to deal chiefly in general statements about what the library aims to do and what it has done (Dana, Kindle locations 182-188).

This is storytelling plain and simple. Our story is our identity. Our story is a guideline for our behavior and a comparison to judge it against. And…our story is not ours alone to shape. What story are we going to be telling people about the library and what story do we want people to tell it?

From the determination of who we are wanting to tell stories too, we can then more productively brainstorm by empathizing with the nonuser group we have chosen. What story do they need to hear to motivate them to change their behavior enough to think of the library and its services? We only communicate deeply when we begin to see the world through the conscious and unconscious “eyes” of the person we wish to communicate with. Our rhetoric – persuasive storytelling – must come from the place that it will not meet resistance and will be heard, remembered, and, hopefully, activated by other triggers we put into place. Crafting a slogan, brochure or website is very secondary in the process of our storytelling. We must identify their pain and their aspirational picture of themselves to activate their imagination through shared involvement in their own storytelling. The library has to find its place in their story or it will not be a successful intervention.

What path of betterment are we seeking this intervention? The intervention should be a group effort with clear goals and a clear shared story of who we as a team are pursuing it. Brainstorming can then be a good way to think up possible situations of empathy and story points that go along with those points. The first deliverable for our team is a set of stories about our targeted nonusers and ourselves. From there we can begin to think of ways to trigger changes in behaviors among nonusers and ourselves.

We can then more efficiently choose intervention points that will maximize the reach of the story we want to convey. We can then decide if the channels of publicity, public relations, promotion, advertising, service changes, or other points of contact can be effectively used with our selected group of nonusers. We may need to broaden our story to include other persons’ like school teachers, government agencies, neighborhood groups, landlords, bus companies, churches etc.

From this point, I would introduce the various techniques and opportunities that can be realized using advertising, word of mouth, public relations, social media, publicity, direct “selling”, and other tools in the toolkit of rhetorical communication. We can examine each channel in relation to our targeted segment(s) of nonusers and consider how effective they might be in changing behavior.

Some examples of brainstorming prompts we can use: Who are the nonusers in our library district? What prevents someone from using our library? I need to know this before we can craft a story that will speak to their need(s) or issue(s). Is the issue lack of transportation? Maybe a bookmobile or delivery by mail service is needed. Is it the hours? Can they be changed? Is it lack of interest in library services? Are they happy with other sources or don’t know about library services? What is our library potentially lacking that they need? Daycare? Foreign language materials and services? Enough computer terminals? Training? Better collection? Any they too young or too old to make the trip easily? Do we have the right mix of print and online resources? Do schools recommend my library? Business people?

Changing hearts and minds cannot be achieved overnight, but I think approaching marketing through storytelling is a more effective framework for nonprofit public entities than the increasingly common grafting of business models without taking into account the special roles and culture of nonprofit organizations. Efficiency, continuous improvement, and excellent customer service are not the exclusive pursuits of for-profit business. They are central to any human organization that aims to make the world a better place and has a primary motive of improving the lives of those it serves.