Photo courtesy Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library

This week I want you, my dear reader, to make me a promise.

Please, for the love of all that is wonderful and majestic about libraries, add one critical step to your library marketing and promotions.

I want you to start setting goals.

Now, I know this may make you sigh/scream/cry/get angry at me. I know you are incredibly busy. I know you are trying your best every day to create effective library promotions. And I want you to have ALL the success possible.

Which is why I am asking this tiny but incredibly important thing of you.

Goals are an absolute necessity for library marketing success. Full stop.

And they will make your work EASIER for you. I promise.

Why you should set goals for your library promotions

Goals will help you:

  • Focus your efforts, allowing you to measure your progress and determine whether your promotions are successful.
  • Establish priorities so you can show your supervisors, your co-workers, your community, your donors, and yourself where your energy is best spent.
  • Stay motivated. Goals will help you identify your successful promotions so you can repeat them and create more success!
  • Reach your library’s overall strategic goals more quickly.

Where to start with goal setting for library promotions

Your marketing goals should align with and support your library’s overall strategic goals.

For example, let’s say your library’s strategic plan includes an objective to improve the kindergarten readiness of children in your service area. A goal you could set for your library marketing is:

To increase the circulation of our library’s picture book collection.

But that goal isn’t quite good enough. To turn this from an okay goal to an effective, meaningful marketing goal, you have to add two things:

  • A number to reach for
  • A time frame for reaching your goal.

Here’s your new, more meaningful goal:

To increase circulation of our library’s picture book collection by at least 10 percent before June 30, 2024.

Here’s another example from a real library. The Buda Public Library’s strategic plan includes this objective: “Create and circulate Maker Kits, for wider accessibility of the library’s technological resources.”

Their library will likely do all sorts of things to promote the Maker Kits: emails, social media posts, bookmarks, and more.

A meaningful goal they can (and should!) set is:

To get 100 checkouts of our library’s Maker Kits in a 12-month period.

See how easy that is?

The most important thing to remember about goal setting for library marketing is to define what you want to do specifically.  

Do you want to increase circulation? By how much? And in what time frame?

Are you looking to boost the use of a certain part of your collection, like your digital materials?  By how much? And by when?

Are you trying to get more people to participate in your event? What percentage increase in attendance do you wish to achieve in what amount of time?

You can set both long-term and short-term goals for library marketing success. A long-term goal might be to get 500 downloads of your library’s new app by December 31st. A short-term goal might be to increase Kanopy streams by 25 percent before the end of the month.

One important question to ask yourself

A key element of library marketing goal setting is to make sure your goal is realistic. If your goal is too far-fetched, you and your coworkers may end up feeling demoralized when you fail to achieve it.

For example, if you try to double traffic to your library website in a month, you are likely setting yourself up for failure. Instead, ask yourself this question when you are setting goals: Is this goal ambitious AND achievable?

The final step

Once you’ve set a goal, write it down.  Why? Studies show the most successful people write their goals down on paper!  

More advice

Paid Partnership for the Win! How a Library System Turned a Holiday Tradition Into an Opportunity To Reach New Library Marketing Goals

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