Planning Programs That Won't Tank

It was a great idea, so why didn’t they come?

There is no shortage of creative, fun, educational, unique and amazing programs that happen at our libraries. Yet, we have all had that moment of plummeting disappointment when all of our dreaming, scheming, planning, promoting and preparation resonates in an empty or sparsely attended programming room. So what happened? In a journal article featured in Information Today’s Marketing Library Services, editor Kathy Dempsey explains why programs tank even after we have told the moms, sent the press releases, posted the tweets and hung the fliers.

“Studying your audience, understanding what they do and do not want, and knowing exactly how to reach them with an effective message is the key to getting people to use your programs and services…If you plan a program based on evidence (surveys and data told you that people want it), and you know exactly how and where to publicize it (where do members of the target audience get their info?), then you are much more apt to succeed,” she writes.

Dempsey has identified The Cycle of True Marketing to show how the tasks that go into planning, creating, promoting, offering and informing our customers of our programs and service go together. Key elements include learning about our service populations (our individual library communities as well as our diverse county) and finding out what they want and need. Library staff has their finger on the pulse of what their communities want and need and we are great at meeting those needs with programs and services. The best way to plan a program that will have you full to capacity? Ask them what they want, find out when they can come, and go for it.

Read more about The Cycle of True Marketing in Dempsey’s book, The Accidental Library Marketer.