Dempsey, Kathy. "The Key to Marketing Success." Information Outlook 14.8 (2010): 6-9. Library Lit & Inf Full Text. Web. 13 Feb. 2011. (Web source here)
It would seem to me that in almost all cases of promoting libraries, it’s necessary to present the library as a product with value, and consider library-goers less as “patrons” and more as “consumers.” In this report, Kathy Dempsey lays out what seems like a model advertising campaign for a large corporation, but actually can have real application in “advertising” libraries. It is a model based on conversation and feedback; know what the customer wants, and you will be able to deliver. It is a model by which businesses and corporations live by.
Even though a library’s end goal is not profit (not currency-wise, that is), that should not impede it from following the same advertising model as any profit venture. Businesses and corporations spend millions of dollars a year researching their target demographics, and so should a library spend the time getting to know how to cater to their patrons. Dempsey posits that the better one knows one’s demographic and how to “segment” them, the better served they are.
After reading this article for a while, I forgot that I was reading anything relating to a library and got the impression I was reading aimed at an entirely different group. But why should it be any different, really, between for-profit and non-profit organizations? The only problem I could see the non-profit encountering is in securing the initial funds for research into demographics of patrons and their needs and then being able to supply the tools needed by the patrons. But I suppose this is where initiatives for library awareness come in, don’t they?
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