As ALA rounds the corner and you are getting your schedule squared away, all of you have to make room for the LAMA Swap & Shop. Mary and I will have some great brochure makeovers on display and we will be giving away tons of pointers, as well as a few packets of hands-on information.

Swap & Shop:
Sunday, June 25th
11-1:30 in the Main Exhibit Hall in the special events area behind aisle 3700.

I can’t wait to see you all there.

Collage Images is a flickr group that is a great collection of vintage copyright-free artwork that you can grab and use as you wish.

I really hope that we can see more of this in the future. Take a few minutes and explore the collection, they have some really great and obscure images. Believe me, these images are a much better option than using clip art, and a lot cheaper than hiring a designer.

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P.S.
You do have to register with the group before you can view the images.

If you are going to be at ALA in New Orleans this year, you definitely need to stop by the Swap & Shop on Sunday, June 25 at 11:00 am – 1:30 pm in the Exhibit Hall.

Not only will you get a chance to see a showcase of successful PR materials, but you will also get a chance to see me and Mary in action. Fearless Future has been invited to handle the redesign of the chosen academic library brochures that were submitted for the “Makeover” section of the Swap & Shop.

We would love to see all of you there!

Link to press release about the Swap & Shop.

I ordered a bucket of chicken from KFC the other night (my arteries are still feeling the burn from that workout) and was struck by the oddest marketing partnership that I had ever seen. KFC meets Hallmark, enough said.

This was a marketing ploy for mother’s day, and KFC had sticky ads printed up and stuck on top of the bucket of chicken, offering 20% off at Hallmark Flowers and Gifts. However that begs the question what do chickens and flowers have in common? Nothing as far as I can tell.

Safeway on the other hand pulled their cross promotion off flawlessly. It’s not a mother’s day promotion and it doesn’t have the same disparity as the KFC/Hallmark deal, and that is why it works; it isn’t forced.
It’s simple – you buy cereal, you get milk.

The reason that I’m mentioning this is that partnerships are a very effective strategy to maximize the attention that your product/service gets, but you have to make a conscientious effort to make those partnerships pertinent.

My yoga teacher talked last night about the importance of feeling OK with the fact that you can often be wrong or not know how to do something.

I think this is a very integral thing to realize and embrace if you are embarking on any kind of public relation campaign or marketing campaign for your organization.

Let me explain:

1. With a marketing campaign you often have to take a leap into the unknown, you have to try things that aren’t comfortable.
2. You have to be ready when you create a campaign to be wrong – just dead wrong sometimes.
3. Sometimes you will create a funny poster that just bombs or conversely you will create a wild poster that really hits the mark and becomes wildly popular. Last year we made this poster that students ripped off the wall and hung in their dorm room.
   

How can you comfortably move into taking chances?

1. make a one year plan; assess it after one year; and be flexible.
2. show your posters and other design material to someone outside your organization; ask them to critique it; sit quietly while they do it and actively listen.
3. browse magazines and journals open your mind to images that may not naturally come to you…
4. walk around your community and look at what people are wearing , saying and looking at ….

BUT MOST of all be able to be wrong – BE FEARLESS

I think it was David Byrne, of the Talking Heads who said
“By being lost , you can be found” or something like that….

When you begin to think about creating a marketing plan for your organization the best thing to do is start talking it up: at beginning of meetings, at the lunch room or any other place or time where people informally gather.

Make sure you get the world out that you are looking for amazing and talented people to work on your team. I have no doubt that you will find most of these resource right within your organization.

If you are working at a university or college you probably have people right in your building who have marketing experience or who are taking classes in this area, people who are great at event planning, people who already have great connections to important people on campus and people who have graphic experience.

The most important thing to do is make sure that these people know that you need them and that you will respect their talents.

Our friends over at Advertising/Design Goodness have brought us another great example of effective message placement; talk about demographic targeting.

“Great idea for Fissler pans. When you buy a piece of meat at the grocery store it will be wrapped in piece of paper with the pan on it.”
link

I was browsing through BibliOdyssey, a repository for strange and beautiful images from books, and it reminded me that I have only a slight idea of what treasures exist in the archives of my institution.

Your archives are a treasure-trove of images and/or inspiration for use in your marketing materials. I’ve used materials from archives for everything from annual reports to event invitations.

I encourage you to throw on those white gloves, and start digging around your archives for materials. And I offer this tip, you can photograph some of the more fragile pieces rather than scanning them and still get very usable images.

One of the things that people forget when developing your marketing plan is that marketing extends to everything that comes out of your organization. Posters, brochures, even temporary signs all get the magic marketing treatment.

Every chance that you are presented, you need to reinforce your brand. Let’s not kid ourselves, it is time to begin thinking of your institution as a brand whether or not you like the idea of it.

Reinforcing your brand is the most fundamentally important aspects of marketing, you have to tie your brand to your institution.

Here are two logos for American University Library, one is used for formal publications and the other is used for the day-to-day materials from the library.

A logo is the easiest way to create a brand for the library in the mind of the viewers. Keep this in mind, most libraries usually forgo a library logo for their university’s logo.

Finding a designer:

If you aren’t lucky enough to have an onsite designer, check the local chapter of AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts), or if you work at or around a university, you can usually solicit a student to do some freelance work for you. Sites like craigslist or Agaveblue are great places to find or post freelance jobs as well.

Initial stage of working with a designer:

Designers are notoriously hard to work with.
Here are a few tips to make your interaction with them more beneficial for the both of you.

The reason that designers are so hard to work with is that their clients never say exactly what they want. The best way to overcome this obstacle is to bring as many examples of things that you like – Cut out advertisements from magazines, bring print-outs from the internet, if you like the color of your coffee mug, bring it with you to show your designer.

As a designer, I would love to be in the position to have too many resources to design around as opposed to nothing. I know that you will be happier with the outcome if I can pick and choose elements of things you like rather than fishing in the dark.

So now that you have provided your designer with a treasure-trove of insight into what you like, does that ensure that you will like the results? Not necessarily, but I can guarantee it will be closer to what you want.

Review stage:

This is the make-it or break-it moment. The designer has taken all of your input and put it all together. You are either thrilled with the outcome, or it just doesn’t seem right.

If it doesn’t seem right, then you need to communicate exactly what isn’t working for you. Sometimes that is a hard thing to do, but rather than just saying this doesn’t look right, try to be as specific as possible.

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I hope that this will help bridge the gap between you and your designer, you can’t be afraid to say what you want, but you should also try be open to the ideas and the feedback the designer is providing you; they have a vested interest in making you look the best because their reputation as a designer is on the line.