Word-of-Mouth Marketing
March 9th, 2005 by Barbara MacikasStarbucks, ebay, Celestial Seasonings and Build-a-Bear are disparate companies with one thing in common—all grew their small companies through word-of-mouth marketing into the business giants they are today. Peggy Barber and Linda Wallace, Library Communications Strategies ,led a full-to-capacity session, “Read My Lips: How to Develop and Deliver a Powerful Message for Your Library” to help librarians harness the power of this free marketing tool. Barber and Wallace cited George Silverman’s, Secrets of Word of Mouth Marketing, as good way to learn more and urged librarians to remember that the very best way to get the word out is to tell people about the incredible resource that is their public library. The four key elements to a successful word-of-mouth marketing campaign are: a clean, memorable and consistent message; a good product/GREAT customer relations; a prepared and committed sales force, people who are willing to testify and a plan.
Barber and Wallace worked with the group on sample messages, citing Chicago Public Library’s statement “Read. Learn. Discover.” for its brevity, clarity and the consistency with which it is used. The group went on to develop sample messages including one, “Sick Sex: Pick Up a Book at the Library and Take It to Bed,” that likely won’t see the light of day. Other suggestions with the potential for use in a library were: “Start here, Learn here, Change your life here,” “Join us for life!” and “The library brings people and information together.”
New York Public Library’s message is “The People’s University” and their use of library stories on the web is a great example of word-of-mouth marketing.
Kathleen Reif, Director, St. Mary’s County Memorial Library and chair of PLA’s Smartest Card Campaign Task Force described PLA campaign goals and plans and explained how she used the campaign theme to develop her library’s message,“Do you have your card yet?,” which featured photos of local citizens with their cards stating “I have my card, do you?” Reif explained that the PLA campaign focused on the library card because focus groups and marketing experts proved that the library card is still a very powerful and well-recognized symbol.
Reif and Barber emphasized that the PLA Smartest Card Campaign is a multi-year commitment from PLA and strongly encouraged librarians to use materials and the Smartest Card art not to replace their own logos and card but to complement them. PLA is rewarding best-uses of the card through a contest where your use of the campaign materials can make you a cash winner.
Reif stressed that the campaign’s first and most important audience is you-—library staff. PLA will continue to provide staff training at the ALA Annual Conference this summer.
Barber and Wallace will continue marketing training Tuesday afternoon at “Building a Marketing Communication Plan.”
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