Effectiveness of Marketing Strategies for Library Programs for Young Adults
Allison Robinson
Completed as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
Master of Library and Information Science Capstone
Valdosta State University
April 12, 2015
Abstract
By improving their marketing strategies, libraries can serve more young adult patrons, and
increase future support for their programs and services. By identifying strategies currently used
by libraries as presented in the library and information science literature, the intent of this paper
is to summarize the marketing strategies used in libraries and theorize which of these strategies is
most effective based on frequency of use and content of the articles examined. This paper will
benefit public libraries by providing them with a short list of strategies that have worked in other
libraries from which they can develop a plan to market their own events to young adults.
Keywords: marketing strategies, young adults, public libraries, library programming
Effectiveness of Marketing Strategies for Library Programs for Young Adults
Marketing library programming to young adults is a daunting task for many librarians
because of a combination of the availability of a wide variety of marketing strategies and little
published research on the subject of which of these strategies are most effective in libraries.
Creating a successful young adult marketing campaign is, however, vital to the future of the
library because today’s young adults are tomorrow’s adults who will be funding public libraries
through their tax dollars and donations; instilling the value of the library upon people as young
adults will help to ensure that tomorrow’s voters and donors will think positively of the library.
Literature Review
In the Library and Information Science (LIS) literature, there exist many articles that
suggest ideas for marketing library services and programs to young adults. Few articles,
however, address the perceived effectiveness of the marketing techniques suggested, and very
few studies have been conducted and reported in the literature to determine how libraries have
implemented marketing techniques aimed at young adults and the effectiveness of such
techniques. The business literature offers some additional insight into how an organization might
effectively reach young adult users.
Because of the quickly changing nature of the digital platforms in which much marketing
takes place, this review will cover only recent works that address current marketing strategies.
Each of these articles addresses a method or methods of marketing to young adults that is being
or can be used in public libraries.
Biggs and Calvert (2013) conducted a study of the marketing strategies used by two New
Zealand libraries to reach young adults. Their study was exploratory in nature, using interviews
with library staff to determine what strategies were being implemented and how. The authors
found that most marketing was done by the individual branches and that there was little strategic
cooperation toward developing a formal marketing plan for young adults. The primary methods
of marketing at these libraries were “point solutions” that were “predominantly organic and
informal” (p. 717). At both libraries, the marketing technique that was stated to be most efficient
was word-of-mouth marketing in which library staff and patrons personally told prospective
library users and program attendees about a service or upcoming program.
Colburn and Haines (2012) looked at the ways libraries present themselves in
promotional YouTube videos. The authors also considered ways in which viewers discovered
and interacted with these videos. These different measures of the effectiveness of the videos in
reaching the public are examined in case studies of three representative videos. Based on
referring websites, the authors found that the majority of views were from within the library
profession and felt that producing libraries could do a better job of promoting their videos to the
intended viewership. Proposed best practices include setting goals and interacting with viewers,
both through humor in the video and through using features of the platform to communicate after
watching. Luo, Wang, and Han (2013) present a study of students and librarians at Tsinghua
University in China working together to create a short series of videos promoting the library.
This series, entitled “Falling in Love with the Library”, was presented to the student body
through the social media website Youku, a video sharing site similar to YouTube. The authors
found that the series was successful and identified four reasons for its success: content, style,
venue, and partnership with students (p. 464). These reasons align with Colburn and Haines’
proposed best practices.
In a study of the use of electronic newsletters by Romanian publishing houses, Zbuchea
and Mocanu (2013) found that the publication of such newsletters could “add value to both
companies and customers” (p. 313). The bulk of the article is devoted to suggestions on how to
create a dynamic, interactive, and effective e-newsletter. These ideas and techniques are equally
beneficial to libraries as to for-profit companies, as e-newsletters distributed via e-mail are a cost
effective way to disseminate information to consumers or users. People of all ages now
commonly use the internet and can be reached using this method, but the teenage and young
adult sections of society are at home in the digital world, and the authors determined that this is a
useful method to reach these young people.
Much of the literature discussing marketing library programs and services to young adults
does not focus on specific studies but rather presents ideas for marketing strategies and
techniques. For instance, Urquhart (2013) provides a list of ten best practices for online library
marketing to young adults. The ten tips are overarching ideas, such as “Build Relationships” and
“Listen”, that libraries can adapt to use on varying platforms (p. 20). Within each tip, Urquhart
lists several specific ideas for implementing the overarching theme. Another example of articles
listing ideas is that authored by Peowski Horn (2011), who begins with a case study of her
specific library situation, then provides a wide variety of ideas for marketing to young adults
online. Some of this author’s suggestions are dated, but the article provides several timeless
ideas, such as using photos or videos featuring teens using the library. Peowski Horn concedes
that her list is very broad and that “[w]hat works for one public or school library may not work
for another” (p. 27). This type of article is the most common type of article found in the LIS
literature, and while they can be very helpful, they do not provide insight into the true
effectiveness of the techniques suggested.
The Vancouver Public Library launched its Virtual Branch in 2008; Cahill (2011) studied
how this branch had blossomed since its inception. The two main marketing initiatives presented
in the article are the teen web site and the library’s Twitter account. After consulting local teens,
the library used their suggestions to create a new website that fulfilled the patrons’ need for
“constantly changing content; and opportunities to interact” (p. 262). Interaction was a major
part of the success of the branch’s Twitter campaign as well, promoting the library, getting
patrons to interact with each other and promote the library to each other, as well as providing
better customer service for library patrons.
Library use of social media is the main purpose of King’s (2015a;2015b) recent issue of
Library Techmology Reports. King (2015b) lists every major American social media site and
defines each platform before providing examples of how libraries are and should be using it. This
is particularly useful to libraries looking to implement or enhance an existing social media
campaign because it recognizes that different outlets can be appropriate in different settings and
gives examples using a wide variety of these outlets. In another chapter, King (2015a) offers tips
for connecting with patrons through these sites. He begins with a list of ten overarching tips very
similar to Urquhart’s (2013) before delving into “quirks and tips” for Facebook, Twitter, and
YouTube (p. 19).
Braun (2013) suggests that libraries should branch out when reaching out to patrons. She
suggests recruiting teens and “tweens” to utilize word-of-mouth marketing of the library as well
as using new interactive social media platforms such as Vine to connect with local youth. Miura
(2014) provides a litany of low-cost marketing ideas for libraries. These ideas include word-ofmouth marketing via a Teen Advisory Board, e-newsletters, press releases to local newspapers,
and printed signs and posters for displaying at the library and at other local organizations.
Neither Braun nor Miura go into much detail about how to use the ideas they suggest, but the
articles provide examples proving the usefulness of each idea.
Barber (2014) and Barber and Wallace (2010) provide ideas on how to make word-ofmouth marketing work for libraries. These authors remind librarians that word-of-mouth
marketing is a marketing strategy and must consist of planning, listening, relating, and
evaluating. They find that recruiting front-line library staff to engage patrons can lead to an
avalanche of communication about the library. Barber (2014) asserts that word-of-mouth
marketing is the most powerful and effective form of marketing because “there is no more
powerful communication technique than one person talking with and listening to another” (p.
34).
In a two part series, Lamb and Johnson (2014a; 2014b) discuss the use of infographics in
school libraries as an aid to curriculum and also in marketing the library. The main thrust of the
articles is utilizing infographics to supplement classroom studies, but the authors also spend time
discussing how to make new infographics about the specific library and how to use these visually
exciting tools to draw students into the library. This could be well utilized by public libraries,
giving the library vibrant tools with which it can market itself to young adults. As with the
Urquhart (2013) article, however, the authors do not use a study to back up their findings.
Nolan (2014) looks at the New Hanover County Public Library’s (NHC-PL) use of
EBSCO’s LibraryAware tool. She focuses on the environment of the digital world and the NHCPL’s unique environment, and describes how this tool functions within the library’s other
physical and digital offerings. Nolan spends much time discussing how this tool creates unique
promotional tools and how these tools can be integrated with social media platforms as well as
other EBSCO products. This case study reflects a small-scale study of a single library, and is
useful in that it provides a review of tool that libraries can use to market to young adults.
Sump-Crethar (2012) and Messner (2012) each focus on how a library can utilize a
specific social media platform. Sump-Crethar writes about using Twitter to “build relationships,
grab people’s attention, fit the user’s needs, and generate a conversation between the users and
the library” (p. 350). She suggests several ways of fulfilling these goals, most centered around
the need to communicate and interact with patrons. Messner’s focus is Pinterest, a content
sharing service that allows users to organize webpages of interest to them and share these pages
and collections with others. Uses for Pinterest in the library, according to Messner, include social
bookmarking and connecting with authors who also use the service.
Discussion
While few articles directly discuss the use of marketing techniques to reach a young adult
audience, each piece of literature reviewed above discusses strategies that can be used to market
the library to teenagers. The frequency with which each technique is discussed can be seen as an
indicator of how frequently that technique is used or of how useful and effective authors have
found it to be in their personal experience.
The different types of marketing found in the LIS and related literature can be
categorized as: word-of-mouth marketing, e-newsletters, print materials such as bookmarks and
posters, library website, local newspaper, and social media. Social media is a very broad
category and can be divided by individual services.
In the literature examined, the category of marketing that is discussed most often is social
media, discussed in eleven articles, followed by word-of-mouth marketing, discussed in seven
sources. Table 1 is a list of the frequency with which the literature discusses each type of
marketing. The dominance of these two types of marketing is underscored by the publication of
Barber and Wallace’s (2010) book on word-of-mouth marketing in libraries and King’s (2015)
issue of Library Technology Reports on the use of social media in libraries.
Table 1
Frequency of Occurrence of Types of Marketing in LIS Literature
Type of Marketing
Social Media
Word-of-Mouth Marketing
Print Materials
Library Website
e-Newsletters
Newspaper
Frequency of Occurrence in 16 Instances
11
7
5
4
3
2
With the overwhelming majority of articles discussing social media in one form or
another, it is appropriate to determine which social media platforms are discussed most often.
This distinction goes to Twitter, discussed in six articles, closely followed by Facebook and
YouTube1, each discussed in five articles. Table 2 provides the frequency of occurrence of each
social media platform.
Table 2
Frequency of Occurrence of Social Media Platforms
Social Media Platform
Twitter
Facebook
YouTube1
1
Frequency of Occurrence in 11 Instances
6
5
5
Luo, Wang, and Han’s (2013) article on the use of Youku is included with articles discussing YouTube due to
Youku’s nature as a similar video sharing service in China.
Pinterest
Blogs
Vine
Flickr
Google+
Instagram
LibraryThing
Linked-In
Shelfari
SnapChat
Tumblr
Wikipedia
3
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
Due to the high frequency of occurrence of word-of-mouth marketing, social media, and
print materials in the literature, a librarian could reasonably assume that these strategies are
commonly used and found to be effective when used well. The same can be assumed of
Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube as cornerstones of social media campaigns.
Further observations made while analyzing this body of literature include that authors in
the LIS field have more commonly discussed ways in which libraries can market themselves than
how effective these techniques are in attracting users to the library. This limits the possible
usefulness of the literature because assessments of how implementing the proposed techniques
would benefit the library are not included. Such assessments would help libraries to create or
increase funding for marketing campaigns. Another observation is that the focus of these articles
and studies have typically been on marketing the library to the general public. A focus on
marketing the library to young adults would help to increase future support for library programs
and services.
Conclusions and Recommendations
In analyzing the existing literature that can be related to marketing the library to young
adults, it was found that the most prominent marketing technique was the use of social media
platforms, specifically Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, to electronically promote the library
and its services. Word-of-mouth marketing and print materials were also commonly referenced.
It can be concluded, therefore, that libraries looking to begin marketing themselves to young
adults would find these techniques to be a reasonable starting point.
The hallmark of a successful marketing campaign, as asserted by several authors, is
communication and engaging patrons. Another piece of a successful campaign is the
combination of different strategies to support each other; Melton and Hicks (2011) found that
“the relationship between social media and print media expanded the promotional power of
each” using social media to lead viewers to traditional media and vice versa (p. 499). It is
imperative to remember also that each library’s situation and population served is different and
that each library must discover its own recipe for combining different techniques into a
successful marketing campaign.
Marketing the library to its young adult users is of vital importance to libraries. Because
of this, it is imperative that research be conducted to determine how libraries can best begin to
implement or improve marketing strategies. To this end, the author has three recommendations.
First, librarians looking to implement new strategies for marketing to young adults in the
immediate future will find little substantive help from the existing literature. They should thus
seek out librarians with successful young adult marketing campaigns at libraries similar in size
and situation to their own to discuss the techniques that make the libraries’ campaigns
successful.
The author also recommends that an exploratory study be conducted to determine what
techniques are used by libraries that define their young adult marketing campaigns as successful.
This study could be conducted via an e-mail survey prefaced by a pre-study questionnaire to
determine librarians who self-identify as having created or overseeing a successful young adult
marketing campaign; the pre-study questionnaire could utilize a sample as small as the members
of a single state’s public library association or as large as all American Library Association
members working in public libraries. It would be beneficial to replicate this study in multiple
locations to determine if the results are typical or if and how they vary in different locations
The final recommendation is that a study be undertaken in which the techniques
identified as successful in exploratory studies are implemented in libraries that did not previously
have strategic young adult marketing campaigns. This study should look at whether these
techniques increase measurable outcomes such as attendance at young adult programs, young
adult door counts, and circulation counts of young adult materials. These recommendations will
give rise to a body of literature that addresses the effectiveness of techniques available to public
libraries for marketing to young adult patrons, allowing them to strengthen support among future
voters and donors.
References
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