 All right. All right. Next up on our lightning round sessions is marketing out loud how small libraries can make marketing fun and interactive. This is Courtney Hicks who's from our Northwest Mississippi Community College. And their FTE is about 7,400. Correct? Yes. All right. Go ahead, Courtney. Okay. So I do work at a college that has an FTE of 7,400. I've been working at Northwest for about seven years. I have worked on our main campus as well as a branch campus. And I'm working on our branch campus now. And it's a very different world than our main campus. And so I started trying to think of better ways since it's a smaller group of people to get more involved with our marketing. So what I'm going to talk about today is marketing out loud or word of mouth marketing. So I want you guys to think about this. When was the last time that you tried a new restaurant or you tried a different book outside of what you normally read or went to see a movie? Is there a possibility that any of those answers, any of those times, it was because someone told you about it or someone recommended it to you? That's kind of what I wanted to think about as I go through today is the idea of creating conversations. So word of mouth of marketing is really great and it's really effective. So with us thinking about ways to create conversations, we are not only getting out there or getting in there and talking to people face to face and telling them what we want to know about the library, but we're also creating the opportunity to get other people excited about the library and hopefully having them go and tell others what's going on. I had, this happens to me a lot, I'll sit down with someone and tell them about something and then I'll find like five or six more people come to me later and say, hey, Jessica told me about this that you told her about and that's just kind of how the word spreads around here. So as we move into more of this marketing out loud, also what you guys to think about this, I feel like this is kind of an easy question for us to answer. Do you have anything to talk about? Of course we do. Our libraries are all awesome and we have so many things going on. So our patrons have problems and we are the ones who have solutions to those problems. We have things that will make their lives easier and better and then we just have that fun and entertaining stuff. So that's kind of how I start out. Just think of a few things that I want to kind of start getting the word out about, whether they're things that are new or they're underutilized. I just make a little list and then I start working on a communication plan. So marketing plans have become kind of a big thing in libraries right now and I've worked on a lot of our strategic plans. I had never really thought about having a communication plan and so I ran across this book called Building the Buzz Word of Mouth Marketing in Libraries and it had a lot about creating communication plans in it. And so this one was one that they kind of made an example out of. It's a pretty simple one. It's an eight-step process and each step builds upon the other and so I'm just going to talk briefly and expand on each of these steps just a little bit. So the first one is just trying to sit down and understand your library, thinking about your strengths and your weaknesses. What opportunities do you have on a day-to-day basis to get involved with people, create conversations with them, tell them things about the library. But then also what threats do you have that'll keep you from doing that? Number two, communication goals. This is kind of like the dream, the big picture. What is the best thing that could happen from us getting out and talking to people? Number three would be my objectives which was usually just like three or four doable measurable outcomes. Number four is my positioning statement which is basically what I want people to feel about the library, what I want them to think about the library. Number five is my key message. This is usually about 10 words or less, something that I can easily say over and over again that just kind of gets an idea that I want into other people's head. Number six, my key audience. Who is it exactly that I'm trying to communicate with? Who am I trying to talk to about whatever it is I'm trying to market? Number seven, my strategies and tactics. So how is it that I'm going to make my goals happen? I'm going to talk a little bit more about a couple things that I do that I've been successful with lately. And number eight, evaluation. How do I know that what I'm doing is working? Okay, so once you've sat down and made a list and made a plan, it's time to take action and get that out there and start talking to people. So I'm going to talk about three different ways that we kind of get out there and market face to face with people and talk to them and have conversations about everything that the library has. So one of my favorite things to do is pop up libraries. They're really easy to do. They don't take a lot of preparation. They don't take a lot of materials and they can kind of be done easily and quickly. So a couple of things about pop up libraries. So I'll start with the dance. A lot of times people think it's just a table with a bunch of handouts and just a person saying they're waiting to be approached. That's not what it is at all. So it really is a library in a different place. You've taken the library out and it should be intentional and focused. So you'll see my first photo up there. I always have something to draw people in. So the prize wheel is a really big one with students. They always just want to know what it is and if they can spin it, they'll spin it for anything, even just a little piece of candy. So I have something to draw them in usually and then I usually make it focused. Sometimes at the beginning of a semester, I might do one where it has a lot of different resources and services just to kind of put the bug in people's ears about what all we have going on. But then as the semester goes on, I try to make it a little more focused. So when research papers are due, I try to do ask us how to Google or ask me if what an academic journal is and make them more research focused. And then sometimes I'll just do some databases like we have a database free goal to download free music. And so I'll just put a big sign up that says ask me how to download free music and I'll just go through and show students how to do that one or two databases. So pop up libraries are always a great way and I always get a lot of people, these two girls right here, let me tell them about a couple different things just for a couple pieces of candy in that bucket. Next, I like to try to disguise my marketing efforts because I often think about any time that I go into a store and someone approaches me and they start saying, can I tell you about such and such? And before they've even finished their sentence, I'm usually like, no, thank you, I don't want to hear you now walk away. So they never get to tell me whatever it is that they want me to know. So I kind of think sometimes our students are patrons are the same way. So I try to disguise some of my traditional marketing and one of the ways that I do that is through themed events. So something that I did last semester that was really successful was the idea of a library carnival. So I took about half of the library and turned it into a carnival. It looks just like a carnival. There were booths and every booth was away to market a different part of the library. And the students would come and visit each booth and I would give them a ticket at each booth or one of the other library staff people would give them a ticket. And then they could cash those tickets in for a prize or just a little bag of popcorn from a popcorn machine that we rented or play a game. And so they were super into that. We had over 250 different interactions within that two hour time frame. And then the next day, a lot of the students were coming back and asking me, can you show me how to download that audio book again? Or can you show me how to do something that we had told them to do yesterday? So they were all kind of thinking about it and talking about it. And we were able to kind of talk about a lot of our resources at one time. And then when I first started working in instruction, so I did instruction a lot, but then when I started working more with community engagement and outreach, one of the things that I first learned is that it's not always fun to do everything by yourself. And it's not always effective either. So I started now every time I sit down and I say, well, I want to do this, I think about who can I partner with to do it? It's great because you have another brain, you have other ideas, you have people to run your thoughts across. But then it can also take you into the community more. So I always try to find someone to partner with to do things, whether it be a workshop or a student support showcase or something like that. But then I also try to put myself into the story of our college. So as we have things, I always volunteer the library to be part of that. Because the more people see us, the more they realize that we're part of this community and that we're doing something. And we can just be involved with everything. So this here is something that our college does. It's a trunk or treat. It's just for the community. A lot of our students come from the library to carry potter trunk or treat. And while the main purpose of it was just to get our students involved and be involved with our students, as they were walking by and we were giving them candy, we were talking to the student parents, we were talking to the students. And somehow I ended up telling them about all these different things about the library. Some of their phones were dying. So I told them we had phone chargers. Some of the kids were getting restless. And so they wanted to go inside the library. And so I told them we had children's books they could read to their kids. And so we just found all these opportunities to really start telling some people that we don't usually see about the library just from volunteering to be a part of this, being a good community partner. So a couple of things when you're out there trying to market is the first one is don't forget to listen. Our patrons have so many ideas that sometimes I don't even think about. But it's always just a good thing to remember. So even at like the pop-ups, I try to make sure that I have a survey so that I can just kind of see what they're thinking. When you get the chance, show them rather than just telling them. So I always try to have an iPad or a computer with me so that rather than just telling them about a database or something, I can also show them. I like to get the whole staff involved when I can. And that can be them actively being involved or them just knowing about everything. A lot of times I find that not everyone in the library knows everything that's going on or even everything that we have. So I always try to keep people involved and informed about what I'm doing and what I'm telling people about. And then deliver the right message at the right time. So especially with like pop-ups, I'll work really closely with all of our faculty and make sure I know when all the due dates are. And so then I'll start doing workshops or pop-ups to meet those deadlines. And then definitely make it fun and easy. When we're excited about stuff, our patrons get excited about it also. And so finally, I'm just going to leave you with this. It's all about you, how often do we get to say that. So you are the library. Every time that you walk through the library, you walk outside of the library, people should associate you with the library in a good way and know who you are. Every encounter is an opportunity for us to talk to someone about something that the library has or how we can help them. And it's always important to remember to keep building those partnerships and relationships. And you'll have a strong hold to keep that marketing going. Anna, I think I mentioned this book earlier. So this is where I got the communication plan. Take a peek at that. Great. All right. Great. Thank you very much, Courtney. That was some great ideas.