Mary and I are so excited!!! We are going to start doing some pro-bono work for the Adams County SPCA in Pennsylvania soon. Which means we get to work with the awesome Lisa Conklin, their director of development.
We will keep you updated on what we come up with. This is really exciting for us since we are both huge animal lovers:
A great day in Texas. Mary and I gave our presentation/workshop to the Amigos folks in Dallas this past week. The workshop, “Can Libraries be Sold Like Soap?,” was similar to our CARL presentation but we did make a few adjustments. What’s great about the way we have structured the workshop is that we can easily tailor it to fit any size group. We’ve worked with groups as small as ten and as large as fifty. We can also easily cut or add activities to accommodate for time constraints. One hour workshops work, but they’re not as effective as the three hour workshops we have given.
“Can Libraries Be Sold Like Soap?” is constantly evolving. At the core is our commitment to offering a workshop that is engaging, practical, entertaining, and of course, educational. Still, we are always updating it with analyses of new social marketing campaigns and new activities that really allow participants to come out of the workshop with the beginnings of a campaign. The folks at Amigos came out of the workshop with some great ideas including the “Take One for You and One for a Friend” school library campaign and the public library campaign “Steal Music for Free at Your Library.”
We got to meet some great folks from the area including Nancy Hill from UTEP and Betty Long from the New Mexico State Library. We hope to see these folks again and develop workshops aimed at their particular staff and needs. Only regret is that we had to leave so early. Mary to Chicago for another workshop and me back to Tucson for work and three-year old play.
Thanks to Eddy and Laura at Amigos for all the help behind the scenes. Presentation and travel went off without a hitch thanks to their support. And again thanks to our guru, Katya Andresen, for continued inspiration via her book and blog.
One last thing. If you doubt Mary’s presence and stardom, just click here: http://genneaux.wordpress.com/2008/05/09/i-am-a-tool-of-engagement/
The gal’s a rising star!!!
This week Mary is presenting at two conferences. Woah Mama!
Keep an eye out for her if you are attending either of these conferences!
A Brand You World: Amigos Member Conference 2008
Breakout Session with Yvonne Mery
Wednesday, May 7th, 2008
Can Libraries Be Sold like Soap?
When: Wednesday, May 7 - 1:00 p.m. – 3:10 p.m. (Breakout Session)
Speakers: Mary Evangeliste Director of User Services & Outreach, Gettysburg College and Co-Founder, Fearless Future: Marketing for Things That Matter; Yvonne Mery, Assistant Librarian, Undergraduate Services Team, University of Arizona Library
Audience: Branding and Marketing
Traditionally, many librarians have had little faith in commercial marketing, perceiving it as unnecessary and claiming, in effect, that you can’t sell libraries like you sell soap. This session will present an alternative perspective on commercial marketing: social marketing and its applicability to libraries.
Tools of Engagement: Attracting and Engaging Library Users
Library Challenges & Opportunities
Friday, May 9th, 2008
What are the most creative libraries doing to engage current and potential users of the library? Join us as we explore great new ideas for reaching and engaging users and look at some results of users’ involvement in shaping library services, programs, and spaces. This program will go beyond PR, to involving our various communities of users in shaping the libraries of the future. Panelists include an accomplished library social marketer and outreach librarian, a very successful public library director who has integrated her library with other public agencies, a leader in college student engagement programs, and a recent MLS graduate exploring new ideas. This teleconference is 90 minutes–Noon to 1:30 p.m. Eastern Time
Mary and I are always haranguing anyone who will listen about the importance of a solid brand. So, in order to strengthen our own brand, we have launched a new logo.
In order to maintain a little of the old branding, we took the three circles of our old logo and turned them into the windows of the rocketship. By and large, the typography remained the same but our tagline has now changed to more accurately portray our company.
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| Old Logo | New Logo |
We were able to keep our “Retro-Futuristic” look that we love, but make it more eye catching and dynamic.
What do you think? Oh, and check out the new homepage design too…
This past month Yvonne Mery and Mary Evangeliste were given the opportunity to present at the 2007 Arizona Library Association Conference in Mesa, AZ. Originally we had applied for just a 50 minute break-out session, but to our surprise and delight were later asked to present it as a three-hour workshop. The workshop, Value-based Marketing: Integrating our Promotional Strategies with Our Mission & Ethics, turned out to be a huge success.
In three hours our goal was to have everyone in attendance have the beginnings of a killer marketing idea centered around the concept of social marketing. Social marketing uses well-proven commercial marketing techniques to promote the public good. As far back as 1953, G.D. Wiebe posed the question “Can brotherhood be sold as soap?” Since then, many non-profits have proven, yes, it can!! We showed how they can and have with some in-depth analyses of several successful social marketing campaigns including Click It or Ticket, Truth, and Back to Sleep. There are many elements that make up a successful social marketing campaign but the most important ones we discussed were:
We must give our thanks to Katya Andresen and her invaluable book Robin Hood Marketing for giving us so many strategies to work with.
We will be giving a recap of this presentation for the Pima County Public Library on December 7th. We will also be offering a similar presentation at the California Research and Academic Libraries annual conference in April. And of course, we are always available to come to your library and teach you how to a plan a simple yet effective marketing plan.
