Marketing strategies for visibility

Abstract

Any organization must build a good reputation and image in order to ‘anchor’ its relevance and indispensability in the minds of a wide variety of audiences. Many commercial organizations maximize opportunities to raise favourable awareness about what they do — and their techniques and approaches can be applied to libraries. Examples from organizations such as supermarkets, charities and tourism demonstrate how they have taken an opportunity to draw national and international media attention and to promote themselves favourably to a wide audience. Techniques demonstrating the significance of the right timing, the importance of having the right resources in place and using the right means of communication to reach the various audiences involved relate in the same way to libraries as to other organizations. Sponsorship is now big business, going beyond the commercial sector as some libraries are now negotiating effective sponsorship deals and attracting favourable media coverage in doing so. Ongoing evaluation informs marketing techniques to build on success and maximize publicity.