David Lee King

social media | emerging trends | libraries

Handy Library Marketing Resources from Innovative

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Check out Innovative’s blog post Top 10 Resources for Library Marketing Inspiration. There’s some good stuff here, including:

  • Webinars from Cordelia Anderson and Kathy Dempsey
  • A handy TikTok Tipsheet from Dallas Public Library
  • A link to two marketing-focused publications: Marketing Library Services – lots of handy how-to tips for marketers, and to the Marketing Libraries Journal – for the more academically-minded side of library marketing
  • A case study on using Vega Program (an event management platform)
  • Two “library influencers”: The way-cool Mychal Threets … and me.

Anyway – check it out, click the links, and find some handy marketing tips in the process! And Innovative – thanks for the mention!

Don’t Do Email Marketing Like This

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I’m planning to go to ALA2022 in Washington DC at the end of June (well, like 90% sure). I’m starting to get vendor emails about the conference – mostly invites to breakfasts, private events, and product launches. Normal vendor stuff.

That’s all good! But I just received an email that wasn’t so hot. Why not? Here’s a short list of things they did wrong:

  1. Bad email subject heading. It just mentioned the annual conference … nothing else. Seriously – the whole subject line says this: “The American Library Association’s Annual Conference.”
  2. Bad email content. It was all about this vendor’s brand-spankin’ new … conference booth! This is me, not caring about that fancy new booth.
  3. Bad video message. Finally, at the end of the email, there’s an embedded video – a message from someone in sales, I think (they don’t actually say who he is – they just mention his name). In the short video, the sales dude reminds me that: 1. there’s a conference coming up soon (yep, I know that), 2. there will be lots of vendors there (yep, I know that too), and 3. they have a new booth!

Ok – good for them for trying to do some good email marketing and for inviting me to find them at the conference. However, I think this vendor could have done a better job of it! Really easily!

Some things they could do differently next time include:

  • Don’t remind me there’s a conference. I know. I’m pretty sure they got their email list from ALA (my library’s not a customer of theirs).
  • Change that email subject line to something a bit more catchy and/or useful. Something like “3 Reasons to Visit us at ALA!” Or “we’re excited to see you in DC! Here’s why!”
  • Don’t mention the new booth. Um, guys. I am glad you are excited about that fun new booth. But guess what? Your customers are not. They’re actually interested in your new products, updates, innovations, etc. And how that new product might help meet their goals. You know … stuff like that. The booth is something that your sales team is probably pretty excited about, but not something your customers will notice. Instead, give me some solid reasons to visit your booth: things like … New products! A discount! A free t-shirt (hey, I’d wear it on lawn-mowing day). Then when I’m there… don’t mention the booth.
  • Short video message – great idea! Do a little editing (it could have been snappier pretty easily). And tell me about your new stuff (not about the booth). Or even your old stuff that still works.

Most importantly, this company should re-think their reasons why I should visit their booth. If the most exciting customer-centric reason to visit your booth is that you have a new booth … you are probably wasting time in the exhibit hall. I’m positive you can come up with a bunch of better reasons to visit your booth with a good 10 minutes of brainstorming time. So next time, do that brainstorming and focus on those things instead.

Mixology at the Library (well, sort of)!

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Has your library ever partnered with a bar to make drinks that match up with a library event? Well … we have!

Watch our first Mixology video (embedded in this post) – showing a bartender at a local restaurant making a themed cocktail.

Here’s what we’re doing: we have an art gallery as part of the library. Our current art exhibit is called “Blue” – more info here. Basically, the exhibit shows a bunch of … blue stuff. We also partnered with some local restaurants to create a signature blue cocktail, to go with our art exhibit’s theme. You can visit the restaurant and order the drink.

Why? Well, the exhibit’s goal is to help you “experience” the color blue. You can see blue-themed artwork, listen to “blue-sounding” music as part of the exhibit, attend a talk related to the theme … and “taste” the color blue via these cocktails. Just another way to experience the color blue.

We’ll eventually have 4-6 of these videos, all of local restaurants making their signature blue cocktails. It’s a fun way to reach outside the walls of our library building and into the community. Also into the part of the community that likes to visit restaurants and order blue cocktails.

Also, a good example of a nicely done video from our Marketing department! They actually took cameras and lights to each restaurant to make these videos.

So – fun idea, thought I’d share it! Hope everyone has a happy holiday season!

Making YouTube Video Ads

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In my last post, I shared about my library’s YouTube Video ads, and what our experience has been so far with them.

Here’s are links to the videos I made, if you are curious!

Here’s a little more about how I made these videos – I’ll discuss:

  1. Creating the video (and the awkwardness of making a video yourself)
  2. Equipment used
  3. The first 5 seconds

Creating the video:

Believe it or not, making a 15-second video is pretty tricky. It’s so short! Because of that, I created a script for each video. Our Marketing Director and I figured out what the focus should be for each video, and what the most important points should be for each video.

Then I wrote out a script, complete with different video clip framing ideas (i.e., move closer, stand by some books, etc.), for each video. After that, I followed along with my script and shot the videos.

Yes, it’s just me doing these – I’m the “behind the camera” person and the “in front of the camera” person (well, except in the Clean and Safe video – that’s someone else’s arm doing the cleaning).

For me, this type of video can be pretty awkward to do. I shot each of these at the library, mostly in our stacks, where the books are. For better or worse, we aren’t very busy at the moment, so it was pretty quiet, and no one interrupted me. We do have a staff member stationed in that area of the library, so I let them know what I was doing, and then did my thing.

For a couple of the video clips, I needed to be in a busier part of the library (like our circulation area), and I felt pretty silly setting up a camera and talking to it while other people were present! Not sure how all those YouTube vloggers do this type of thing while they’re hanging out with a bunch of people. Just awkward.

And the car in one of them is my car. For that particular shot, I parked my car in a Curbside Pickup parking space, then set up the camera, pressed record, then got in my car and backed out of the space, then drove back in again and parked. While talking. Yay for wireless mics!

Trimming the different video clips down to fit into a 15-second slot was … fun. I was mostly there already (because I timed out and then followed my script). But I also edited out space between words and sentences, trimmed beginnings and endings of video clips to shorten them as much as possible … and even slightly sped up 1-2 video clips so they’d fit.

Equipment used:

Pretty simple stuff. For the first video, I used a Canon G7X Mark II point and shoot camera, and a Rode Smart Lav + lavalier microphone that was recording to an app on my iPhone. For the other four videos, I upgraded a bit and used the library’s Canon M50 mirrorless camera and a Rode Wireless Go lavalier microphone. For all the videos, I mostly used a tripod. You can see the difference in quality between the first video and the other four!

The first 5 seconds – get this right!

On the first video, I accidentally got something right that I think is really important with these video ads!

With this type of YouTube video ad, you’re essentially “forced” to watch at least the first 5 seconds of the ad. After that, you’re presented with a Skip Ad button.

That means that the most important message needs to be in the first 5 seconds of your video, while you have a captive audience. So I made sure that happened.

Here are my 5-second messages for each video:

  1. Oh Hi, I’m David. Did you know we’re open? We miss you guys!
  2. Hi, David here. Our library is really clean and safe. Here’s what we’re doing.
  3. I got a whole stack of books selected just for me, by using Browsing Just for you. Here’s how it works.
  4. Curbside pickup is happening everywhere, including at the library. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3!
  5. Too busy to browse for your next read? You need a Grab and Go book bundle! Preselected and bundled by librarians …

For each video, our main message (we’re open, we’re cleaning the library, a quick intro to a new library service) is shared within the first 5 seconds. After that, there’s a bit more explanation or details related to the main message, and then a What to do next” message (come visit, check stuff out, etc).

And it worked! The videos are getting watched (see my previous post for details about that).

So that’s what I did, anyway! I’d love to hear about your experience making social media ads – please share!

YouTube Video Ads – new thing for us

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My library has been experimenting with YouTube Video Ads. They are pretty cool!

Google Ad Dashboard

So awhile ago, we were talking to Koios, who runs our Google Ad Grant program. They mentioned YouTube video ads in passing, which we had never done before. After talking about it, we decided to make some video ads and do some experimenting.

We created a 15-second video for the ad, and Koios helped us set the first one up in Google Ads. That went pretty well, so we made four more video ads. I set the rest of them up (I don’t think Koios is doing this anymore – but don’t take my word for it!).

Why make YouTube video ads? It’s a way to easily share about new services and other important library news with our customers.

We have been getting lots of people asking “are you open again?” (we are in the midst of a phased reopening plan). Because of that, our Marketing department launched a re-opening campaign. The video ads are part of that campaign. We also are doing some direct mailing, adding “we are open” stories to e-news and social media, and even have billboards up around town with that message (yes, I’m on a billboard!).

Our other video ads share how the library is clean and safe (i.e., pandemic stuff), and then about three new library services – Curbside Pickup, Book Bundles, (3-4 books bundled together that you can check out), and our new Browsing Just for You service (you fill out a form, we’ll pick books for you).

We think the video ads are doing pretty well!

Here’s what we have done:

  • We made five 15-second video ads
  • We set the ads up in Google Ads to appear only for people living in Shawnee County, KS
  • We narrowed that group even further to focus on some audience interests that Google Ads uses, like Book Lovers, Movie Lovers, Education, etc. We went with categories that make sense for a library.
  • We set a spending cap at $1500. Once we hit that, the ads will stop running.

Performance so far:

  • We have spent $588 – so we haven’t hit our spending cap yet.
  • The videos have been viewed over 29,000 times – these are people who watched the whole 15 second video.
  • There have been over 71,000 impressions – people who have been served the video (but didn’t necessarily watch them).
  • The View Rate is 40.81% overall, which is pretty good. According to Google Ads, the View Rate “measures the percentage of people who watched your video after they first saw the video or thumbnail. It equals the number of views your ad receives divided by the number of impressions, including thumbnail impressions for video discovery ads.”
  • Average Cost Per View (CPV) is $0.02
  • 3 of the 5 videos have been viewed over 10,000 times
  • Our first video has been up the longest, and has the most views. It’s been viewed 17,059 times to date, and cost us $586 so far.

Are they working? Yes, I think so. I know they are being watched – I’ve had people tell me they saw me on YouTube 🙂 I’ve even had one person tell me they saw me on a TV commercial! Either they watch YouTube via their TV (apparently lots of people do that?), or it’s quite possible that Google Ads has some partner sites (Netflix? Hulu? Not sure).

So – people in Shawnee County are getting served the videos, and therefore are getting our message that the library has opened back up. We are also getting more people visiting the library again. There are lots of reasons for that – not just the video ads or our re-opening campaign. But I’m sure it has helped!

If you haven’t yet experimented with social media ads, this is a great time to try them out, because there are still lots of people working from home, staying safe at home, etc.

You can create ads for YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram – I know that YouTube and Facebook will narrow down to people in your community (not sure about Twitter or Instagram).

So – spend a little money, learn a new skill or two, and see if YouTube ads help meet your library’s goals!