Un-marketing E-resources: Moving from Hard-Selling to Relationship-Building

Doralyn Rossmann

Montana State University

@doralyn on Twitter, doralyn@montana.edu

Kirsten Ostergaard

kirsten.ostergaard@montana.edu

• Serve 
• Evaluate 
• Provide 
• Communicate 
• Continue

The Role of Libraries

Traditional Marketing

• Commercial

• Selling

• Impersonal

• Disingenuous

• Annoying

• Ignorable

Source: Forbes.com, "Inside the Millennial Mind" 4/16/14

Un-marketing concept

• Reframes the conversation
• Shifts from promotion to connection
• Happens with every interaction
• Listens, converses
• Recognizes communication types & places
• Engages with community
• Includes word-of-mouth
• Is natural, authentic, personal, life-long
• Informs marketing

Un-marketing

Positive User Experience

• User: Samantha
  • Attends root beer floats at freshman orientation
  • Stops by booth at Catapalooza
  • Regularly studies & buys coffee
  • Attends Paws to De-Stress
  • Has librarian visit her Poli Sci class
  • Actively Tweets

Negative User Experience

• User: Jill
  • Incurs overdue fines with 1st checkout
  • No library presence at orientation
  • Is ignored by staff at service point
  • Submits question on FB with no response
  • Has laptop stolen
  • Cannot find plugs for phone charger
  • Experiences poor wifi connections

Social Media, Users, & E-resources

Social Media Move

• Pre-2012: Montana State on auto-pilot
• Pushing information
• No listening, conversation
• 2012: shift to building community, i.e. un-marketing

Approach

• Develop a plan
• Follow your community members
• Listen, interact, engage
• Have a personality
• Provide the unexpected

Maximizing e-resources for sharability

How does your URL Look?

http://www.lib.montana.edu/resources/item/238

http://weblib.lib.umt.edu:8080/login?url=http://gateway.ovid.com/autologin.html

Branding, marketing is more informed

Other Un-Marketing Opportunities

• Social media conversations
• In-library events
• Events outside the library
• Liaison channels
• Peer helpers
• Partnering with other groups
• On other people's turf

Assessing efforts and resulting

e-resource use

Google Analytics

Other Considerations

• LibGuide Statistics
• Uptick following other interactions?
• Follow-up with users
• College & Research Libraries News study on Facebook Ads (Sept 2014) 

Benefits of Un-marketing for the User & the Library

• Community building
• Aligning library with user values
• Connecting users & resources - ROI
• Information literacy & education

Thank you!

Doralyn Rossmann

Montana State University

@doralyn on Twitter, doralyn@montana.edu

Kirsten Ostergaard

kirsten.ostergaard@montana.edu