If you market, they will come: evolution of marketing strategies at Jane Bancroft Cook Library

Abstract

Jane Bancroft Cook Library increased event attendance after changing marketing strategies. Although our annual Games Day was moderately well-attended, we hoped for more participation. In 2017, we revamped our marketing approach for a new event, Library After Dark. We changed our strategies for this Halloween party, performing more active outreach rather than just using passive strategies (e.g. email, posting flyers). We achieved unprecedented success: more than 13% of our student body attended. We built on these successful strategies to market Games Night in spring 2018., , Using survey responses and modeling student advertising techniques, we effectively reached our target audience: students. Our advertising included chalk messages around campus, distributing flyers at the cafeteria, and promotions on student email lists. We used Canva and Microsoft Publisher to create print and digital flyers, that we distributed via social media. Active marketing required collaboration among all library administration, professional staff, student workers, and librarians.