Six golden rules for marketing your information service successfully

Abstract

Offers advice on strategic and tactical approaches to marketing new business libraries or information services, based on the author’s personal experiences at KPMGin setting up a new information service. The focus is not restricted to the mechanics of marketing processes but is more concerned with ways of winning the hearts and minds of prospective clients and moving from a more traditional transactional relationship with users to a more consultative one. Suggests six rules to guide practitioners, with the proviso that these are the core ones that worked for the author and that there could be others equally valid: segment the service’s market; adapt the products to make them relevant; define and position the service; build relationships; understand how people work; and manage expectations and maintain momentum. Concludes that the underlying consideration governing all these rules is the shared values held throughout an organization and that these can provide a powerful driving force and focus for all its actions. Understanding this organizational culture and the critical business drivers is the key to how to adapt and develop the information service.