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