At the moment I am reading the excellent Bite-sized marketing: realistic solutions for the overworked librarian by Nancy Dowd, Mary Evangeliste and Jonathan Silberman. The book’s focus is on word-of-mouth-marketing and it is perfect for dipping in and out of.
Do you know anyone who needs to move on from the idea that marketing is some sort of grubby commercial activity? Ask them to consider this:
Marketing traditionally has been thought of a deceitful or overly corporate, but in actuality it is about communicating your values to your customers. Marketing for libraries is a powerful way for libraries to accomplish our goals and stay relevant. In her phenomenal book Robin Hood Marketing: How to steal corporate savvy to sell just causes, Katya Andersen says: “There is no nobility in preaching to an audience of one. Those of us working for the public good have an ethical responsibility to be effective and efficient in reaching as many people as possible.” As Andersen points out so eloquently, we have to see marketing as an ethical responsibility. If we know that the services and resources that we provide for people make their lives better, we can step away from our commercialized view of marketing and move on to creating marketing programs that we can be proud of and fully invest ourselves in.
I think there’s a difference between marketing services and marketing products. It’s the marketing of products which is seen by many as deceitful and overly corporate.