Mike Paulus had a career path like many library marketers I know.
The Eau Claire, Wisconsin native earned a degree in creative and technical writing. He planned and wrote educational video games for the speech-language pathology field. Then he worked at an arts and culture magazine.
But just before the pandemic, Mike saw an opening for a new position at the L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library in marketing and digital systems.
“My wife had already worked here for a few years in Youth Services,” explains Mike. “So, I jumped at the chance. I’m still downtown, working a block away from that magazine, trying to have a direct impact on this community. Pretty lucky!”
Mike and his four co-workers in the Programming and Communications Services department oversee all digital and print promotions. They also do a good chunk of the library’s event programming, managing all adult events that use outside presenters. (Sound familiar to anyone?!)
Last year, Mike was given the task of coordinating cross-departmental, library-wide events. The most successful of those events was a Card Crawl.
“Our building recently underwent an $18.5M renovation,” remembers Mike. “We’d just moved back in and reopened the doors in October of 2022. So, the library had a lot of new rooms and amenities, including all these cool outdoor spaces.”
“In spring 2023, we held our ‘Outdoor Open House’ to showcase the new patios, the terrace, the plaza, and whatnot. Just a few hours one afternoon, with free ice cream, free fresh-cut flowers (my wife’s idea), and light activities. We had 750 people show up. This became the model for the Card Crawl.”
As Mike explains it, the Card Crawl is a more robust version of past cardholder appreciation days, held in September during Library Card Sign-Up Month. The library previously had a prize drawing and offered patrons free candy if they showed their library card.
But last year, they expanded with a full-day event on a Saturday in late September.
“We decided to upgrade the cardholder appreciation day using the Outdoor Open House’s basic concept of having activities and giveaways stationed all over the library, near all the cool, new stuff,” says Mike. “The idea of showing your library card to get free stuff (and have fun) was a no-brainer, leading to the ‘Card Crawl’ name.”
“We just wanted the public to get in here and wander around. But showing appreciation for current cardholders and making new ones was the most important part. We wanted to help people feel proud of having a library card, foster those vibes.”
Besides building a lasting relationship with cardholders, the Card Crawl had another big benefit.
“We used the Card Crawl as a way to get different departments working together and excited for a common goal, something tangible of which we all had ownership,” explains Mike.” This included our Friends of the Library group. We also used the event to strengthen some community partnerships, working with Eau Claire Transit on free bus rides, and a local chain restaurant for free ice cream.”
Mike and the rest of the L. E. Phillips Memorial Public Library marketing team used the landing page as a hub and promoted the event on all their available channels, including:
- Press Release(s)
- Facebook posts and Facebook event
- Instagram posts and Reels
- Email newsletter features
- A dedicated email newsletter
- In-house posters
- Partner promotions
- Day-of directional signage and flyers
“For about six weeks before the event, we just feed the new copy and graphics into those channels whenever possible,” remembers Mike. “We also made three HUGE library cards. Before the event, we used them for some fun Instagram stuff. During the event, we set up two selfie stations so people could pose with them, post, and tag us. And now we have these fun, massive library cards to use for whatever.”
Mike says the biggest challenge the marketing team faced was “reigning in all the ideas.”
“Our library’s slogan is ‘So Much More,’” says Mike. “But staff jokes that it should be ‘Too Much More.’ Everyone has such great ideas, and they all want to dive into them. So, my job was to try and keep things doable and sustainable without too much stress. Our committee’s motto was ‘big impact for little effort.’”
“That said, we still had A LOT of moving parts to promote, and you can’t promote everything all at once in every little Facebook post, etc. or it becomes white noise. I had already dealt with this at the magazine I’d worked for, with some large, festival-style events we’d staged.”
“You need to choose a small handful of things (or just one thing) at a time, and then decide the best channel and tone. But when you promote, you’re always pointing back to the landing page for full details.”
The marketing team’s careful balance worked out. The Card Crawl brought in about 1,800 people, three times the library’s normal Saturday attendance.
“We did a week’s worth of card signups, renewals, and replacements in a single day,” recalls Mike. “Checkouts and circulation were through the roof. Culvers scooped 630 scoops of free, frozen custard. Our Friends group had one of their most profitable book sales. We gathered a few hundred emails in a prize drawing. And Eau Claire Transit gave a ton of free rides all over the city to cardholders.”
“We’re lucky enough to have a great Library Board and some big supporters on our City Council. So, we invited those people to come volunteer at the Card Crawl giving away prizes, and to just be a part of the day. It gave the ‘powers that be’ a nice, close-up look at what we do. They got to see our customers all being happy. They got a little ownership of what we do for the community.”
“The day had a great energy with both kids and adults excited to roam the library and bust out their cards for prizes. My wife and I were ‘Card Crawlers’ who snuck around the library with special prize wagons, waiting to be found. Since I don’t work a desk, this gave me an amazing chance to interact directly with customers, which really doesn’t happen that often.”
The prize giveaway the team ran during the Card Crawl not only collected emails for the library’s subscriber list, it provided a little post-event promotion when the library announced the winner in a video.
Mike will do a few things differently for the 2024 Card Crawl. For example, he wished the team had taken more photos of the event.
“Our Youth Services desk pulled double duty as a prize station, in addition to setting up a few different activities,” explains Mike. “That was just too much for the staff we had on hand. Next year, we’re planning on adequate staffing and extra hours.”
“The other big thing was the event’s end time. Things really tapered off in the last two hours of the day. We only had passive activities happening during that time. So, we either need to end it earlier or plan more scheduled events.”
But until September, Mike and the team at L. E. Phillips Memorial Public Library have plenty to do.
“Sustaining our annual events, programs, and promotional cycles is enough to fill our days,” exclaims Mike. “The challenge (as always) will be figuring out how to do new stuff while maintaining the old. Maybe letting some stuff go.”
“Right now, our video work goes in phases. We do a lot more videos during promotional downtimes. So, we’ll go from weekly videos for a few months to no videos at all. Finding a better balance is big on my list.”
“We’re also hoping to make time to develop general library marketing campaigns. So more of the ‘Hey! We’re cool! And you’re cool when you use the library! Tell your friends!’ type stuff.”
“If we’re not careful, all we do is fill the promo channels with upcoming events after upcoming events, which gets boring for people pretty fast. We need room for more fun, brand loyalty stuff.”
“Oh, and we also need to top last year’s April Fool’s Day video.”
When he needs inspiration, Mike looks to the work of other libraries.
“The Southern Adirondack Library System’s Facebook account is an absolute meme machine. Slam dunk upon slam dunk. I have no guilt in this: I steal their stuff all the time.”
“I have to mention the Milwaukee Public Library, right? We’re all Sconnie-proud of them. If they could stop being so cool, that’d be a big help.”
“The Joliet Public Library is another favorite on TikTok.”
“I like following libraries with cool or interesting events and services and thinking about how I’d market their events if we were the ones doing them. This usually gives me ideas on how to handle our own stuff. It helps to jump-start your creativity, like a thought exercise.”
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