Marketing and Advocacy

 

Your IFLS staff person for marketing and communications is Rebecca Kilde (kilde@ifls.lib.wi.us).

Questions about advocacy can go to John Thompson (thompson@ifls.lib.wi.us).

Tea cup

New! Marketing Tea

virtual meetup to talk about marketing

Once a month Reb will host a short little virtual cup of marketing. You can expect two marketing tips in the first 20 minutes, and then we’ll throw it open for questions for another ten minutes. At that point Tea is officially over, but Reb is delighted to stay as long as there are questions. The first half hour will be recorded and listed on this page. Watch the Weekly Digest and the IFLS calendar for details.

2024 schedule: first Monday of each month at 10:00 am.

Marketing tools and templates

for IFLS libraries

MORE app marketing toolkit

MORE e-card Facebook post or blurb graphic Suggested text: If you don’t have a regular library card from a MORE-member library and you’re a Wisconsin resident, you can get an e-card to use MORE’s shared electronic resources. Find the e-card self-registration form here.

Library Love Story

Library Love Story toolkit, updated each year prior to Library Legislative Day. You can use this testimonial-collection tool all year.

Library Legislative Day handout 2024

Public Libraries are Essential, Engaged, Valued

Annual Reports

Oldies but goodies

Canva templates 2022 (created in 2023 for 2022 report)

2022 Marketing Monthly: Annual Report, It’s the Stories

2023 Marketing Monthly: Annual Report, A goldmine of data & Who will be looking at the visualization? What do they need?

Angela Hursh’s 2021 Create an Annual Report Masterpiece

Anne Hamland’s 2021 video: adding annual report info to your website

Non-IFLS Marketing Resources

The best resources, curated by Reb

Marketing resources

  • Angela Hursh’s Super Library Marketing blog. This is the best library marketing blog I’ve found: it’s timely and actionable. She does a great job of covering social media trends. 
  • From 2020, a Marketing Plan template developed specifically for libraries by marketing staff from several Wisconsin library systems. There’s also an introductory webinar available.

General design resources

Accessible Design Handbook I found this handbook from The Association of Registered Graphic Designers of Ontario. The first chapter is on print design and it’s a clear and concise explanation of what’s important, with examples.

This pdf is a handy chart that explains different file formats and color formats for different applications. PROPR-File-Color-Guide-v01-1

Cole Zrostlek’s Canva Resources (from Tech Days)

Communications

Press releases

Most news outlets are ridiculously understaffed. They aren’t likely to have enough journalists around to read a press release, figure out how it applies to their audience and then write a news story about it. I think it’s much more effective to tell a story: https://allgoodtales.com/press-release-tell-story/

Website and digital

Advocacy tools and resources

Understand advocacy

Don’t run away from this critical tool for your library’s current and future success! Start here:

New Staff Pick! Board Support for Success webinar (Slides​  Recording) from the 2024 Wild Wisconsin Winter Web Conference Find all the recordings and slides on the conference archive page.

The Reluctant Library Advocate webinar with Jill Markgraf

Advocacy 101 with Jim Tripp and Rebecca Kilde

Advocacy Resources

Because local advocacy is so unique to a particular community and time, templates are difficult to find. Here are some more recent resources to help you frame your message.

 

Library Legislative Day, 2023

Library Love Story handout created for 2023 Library Legislative Day

designed by IFLS

Cadott library card: read
Boyceville library card
Spring Valley library card: library mural
Welberg Memorial library card

black lines are cut marks

designed by library staff

Menomonie library card
Hudson library card
New Richmond library card
Prescott library card: waves

Library Card design and ordering

Each year in the fall IFLS does a group library card purchase. If you purchase cards through the group order you’ll be assured that the design works for the printer’s format, you can order a smaller quantity than the standard minimum order, and your price per card will be lower. You can ask Reb to design your card, or you can design your own. When you place your library card order, you’ll be asked to confirm your last bar code. Here’s an explanation of how bar codes work

You can order outside of the group order. Contact Reb for details. If you order outside of the group order, it’s your responsibility let Reb know (kilde@ifls.lib.wi.us) so she can keep the spreadsheet and design records up to date.

Your library’s card can also be a fun way to promote your library. Here are a few examples from our system. 

Marketing Tea and Marketing Monthly

Marketing Tea Archives

2024

July: How Bloomer manages social media with Meta, July recording

June: How-to add a simple animation in Canva, recording is about 7 minutes long

April: no recording, content shared in Marketing Monthly

March: table tents, world’s shortest marketing plan, librarians share how they promote their Friends group

February: brochure design for in-house printing on your copier; annual report data and how to communicate it

2023

December Marketing Tea: Freedom to Read campaign, information hierarchy, getting responses to Library Love Story recording

November Marketing Tea: Accessibility Using templates on Canva, marketing for the holidays, how to update Google business listing, making open hours easy to find  recording

October Marketing Tea: walk-through the Canva Brand Kit, tools to pick a color palette. recording

Color picker links:

Wix reviews of 7 color palette generators.

September Marketing Tea video: Design: balance, white space, resizing, 5 things to remember about images. Marketing: finding people where they are, QR codes. Comments: Bloomer is doing a community-wide scavenger hunt. Recommended QR code generator: Beaconstac.

5 things to remember about using images

1. Facebook penalizes images with a lot of text, so use very few words. All details and links should go in the body of the post.
2. Tockify images also need very little text. The date and title appear right below the image. All information, including any registration links, go in the body of the calendar post.
3. Alt-text really helps people who use screen readers.
4. Use PDFs for documents to download only! Text-heavy PDFs don’t work on phones, and that’s where most people look at this information.
5. Images are a wayfinder tool for your users. Use consistent color, font and image across platforms to help people navigate all the information you’re sharing.

August Marketing Tea video: MailChimp statistics; design concepts in Canva–alignment; Q&A, “Why won’t my MailChimp e-letter fit on a phone screen?”

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Here's what I do at my library:

Past Marketing Monthlies

Here are the design and marketing support services that IFLS offers:

  • Annual bulk library card order (November), library card design.
  • Marketing Monthly, an e-letter about design and marketing; Marketing Tea, a monthly half-hour check-in of tips and answers to your questions..
  • Logo design, as time allows: Reb has been designing logos for almost 30 years. If you don’t like her style, Reb can help you make sure that the logo you design comes in the formats you need to be used for small and large scale applications. Here are some examples of Reb’s work: Wilberg Memorial Public Library of Osceola, Glenwood City (from student-created sketch),  Turtle Lake, Mosaic on a Stick, Spring Hill Community Farm
  • Marketing and advocacy strategies.
  • General design assistance: (Somerset info sheet, Lisa requested help with the Menomonie Public Library annual report brochure), accessibility, editing (I encourage Plain Language).
  • And more. Just ask.