7. before branding
Defining your audience
Who do you want to talk to about your library?
7
8. Ask yourself
When you do any marketing:
Who is my audience?
Are you talking to everyone in your community?
Or are you talking to one or more specific sub-
sets in your community?
Moms & dads?
Seniors?
Teens? 8
9. Why does this matter?
If you know who you are trying to reach
You can make sure your story is said in such a
way that your audience can “get” it
And you can make sure that your story is said
in such a way as to be relevant to your
audience
9
10. Would you tell a story about your library the same way
to each of these two audiences?
10
12. What is branding?
Figuring out the story
Why your library matters to your community
13. Story
Your story is telling your community - WHY
DOES THE LIBRARY MATTER?
Appeal to the emotions
Don’t list services
13
14. Exercise: what is your library’s story?
Think about “Why your library matters in your
community” (however you define community)
Two to four sentences at the most
Try NOT to list the services that your library
offers
Instead, ask yourself:
What makes your library special or unique in your
town?
14
15. What is branding?
Identifying a feeling
That you want people to get
when they see or interact
with your brand
15
17. Emotions are powerful and evocative
That’s why they are important
If your brand has an emotional connection to
your library patrons then you have developed a
powerful connection
Once you define how you want your users to
feel about your library, everything you do
should be to promote those feelings
17
18. EXERCISE
Identify 10 words that describe how you want
your library’s users to feel when they interact
with your library “brand”
18
19. What is branding?
Developing a tagline
That will tell your story in a
short, attention-grabbing
way
21. Exercise: Pick the best, Pick the worst
1)Boston Public Library 5)Quaker Oats
Books are just the beginning Warms you heart and soul
6)The Library of Congress
2)West Palm Beach Public More than a library
Library
An oasis of knowledge 7)CameraWorld
For negative people.
3) Tyson
We’re chicken.
4)Red Cross
Together we can save a life
22. How to write a tagline
Start with your library’s story that you wrote out
a few minutes ago and the words you used to
define your brand “feeling”
Pick out the most critical words
Think about alternatives to these words
Areany of them more powerful than the original
words you used?
Do the words articulate what makes your library
unique? 22
23. What is branding?
Putting it all together in a logo
That you use over & over again, until people
“get” your brand without having to think
24. The logo
The logo is important
As a jog to one’s memory
As the repository of the feelings about the brand
The brand’s logo becomes the users’ touchstone
Every time the customer sees the brand (logo) - reminded of
the brand story
A logo helps cut through the clutter – it “tells the
story” of the brand without having to be explicit
24
27. How do you develop a logo?
I always suggest using a professional if you can
fund it
They understand the need to have visual elements
reflect your story
They get the use of color, design, shape
It is a lot harder than you might think
A creative design can make a huge difference in a
logo
If you don’t have $ to hire a professional, I’ll 27
28. Finally –
Repeat, repeat, repeat
Tell your story over and over and over
Be consistent in the story and the look
Why? Your audience will eventually know your
story as soon as they see your brand – that’s
what you want
They know why your library matters
30. We’ve talked about what branding is
Now, let’s talk about what a STRONG brand is
30
31. A strong brand
A strong brand has:
A story and tagline that are compelling
And relevant to the audience
A logo that conveys that story without words
The ability to get the chosen audience to respond to
the logo/brand with feeling
Consistent use – over and over and over
31
32. VOLVO SAVED MY LIFE CLUB
The letters have been coming to us for years. Men and women writing
about how they believe a car helped save their lives. The Volvo Saved My
Life Club recognizes these "survivors'" faith in Volvo, as well as Volvo's
dedication to building cars worthy of such admiration. In fact, the only
downside to the Volvo Saved My Life Club is the condition for
membership.
Once it's determined that an accident was severe enough that the
performance of a Volvo did, indeed, help save the lives of the passengers,
they become members of the Volvo Saved My Life Club.
And, while we're very proud to be able to sponsor an organization like the
Volvo Saved My Life Club, we hope for the day when potentially fatal car
accidents will be a thing of the past.
Until then, we end with this heartfelt wish and advice: Drive safely.
33. Tastes great
Less filling
Lite Beer from Miller:
Everything you've
always wanted in a
beer. And less.
35. Remember – a strong brand has:
A story and tagline that are compelling
And relevant to the audience
A logo that conveys that story without words
The ability to get the chosen audience to respond to
the logo/brand with feeling
Consistent use – over and over and over
35
46. Our story
Our core audience
Library users, seniors, parents
People who are community oriented
Interest in “the common good”
We developed our story
CurtisMemorial Library matters because we offer
“possibility” to our community
Community pride = possibility 46
47. Tagline
Possibility was “the” word
Curtis Memorial Library
Creating a world of possibility
47
48. Our logo
Our logo was old and out-of-date
No one understood why the ship
48
70. How to get started
During your audit
Ask yourself these questions:
Can I tell by looking at these
materials what role my library
takes in its community? What
is my story?
Am I telling that story in a
compelling way with a
tagline?
Does my brand evoke a
70
71. How to get started
2. Talk to
your
constituents
71
72. How to get started
3. Compare audit & conversation
72
73. If there is no playback of a consistent story, then you
need to start by working on that
If there is playback but it is confusing, make sure your
story is clear
If the story is there but no feelings are be evoked, you
need to revisit how you are trying to articulate those
feelings
If playback is consistent, then move on to the
next step…your brand tagline
74. Writing a tagline
Review your story
Start with the ten words that you identified as
summarizing the “feeling” that you want people
to have when they interact with your brand
Reduce your story to one sentence
Try using different words to get the right feeling
Look at what other libraries/brands have done
What you end up with should answer the 74
76. Designing a logo
Unless you are a design artist – don’t try to do it yourself
A logo needs to reflect your brand via its visual elements:
color, shapes, energy
Good article about how designers think about developing a logo
– very useful
http://www.netmagazine.com/features/10-steps-perfect-logo
KISS
http://www.marketingsource.com/articles/view/2011
76
77. Ways of getting design work done – for free (or almost)
Local high school or college art class or business class
project
Do it yourself (http://www.logoyes.com/,
http://www.logoease.com/, http://www.logomaker.com/)
Use web options (not free but cheap)
http://www.logoworks.com/, http://thelogocompany.net/
Find pro bono expertise through your Board
77
80. Support each other
Get together with other library folks and work together – make
this a project for a group
Share ideas, solve problems together
Branding is:
Common sense
Focus on the story
The first step? Jump in
Have some fun – it is a creative process!
80
81. You can develop smart and interesting
Click to edit the
branding outline text format
And it will have a real and positive impact on
Second Outline
how your community views your library!
Level
GOOD LUCK! − Third Outline
Level
Fourth
Outline
Level 81
Editor's Notes
Hi, I’m Liz Doucett, your trainer today. Hopefully you had a chance to take a look at the branding resources that were sent out to everyone prior to today’s class I think they provided a good introduction to the topic of branding and were interesting at the same time.
The agenda for today has three key items. We are going to talk about: - What is branding? Why should I care about doing it? - How can I get started? My goal is that when you leave today you should have a basic understanding of branding and a down-to-earth, practical set of action steps that you can employ to create a library brand. Because I want to make sure you have enough details to help you when you leave this presentation, there is a lot more verbiage than I normally use on each slide. I hope you’ll forgive that but it is meant to make your life easier! To help me understand my audience, I have a short poll for you… QUESTION: How many people here have a library brand? Yes or no Ok – for those of you that have one, do you think it is a good one? Yes or no Last question – for those of you who said your brand was a good one – do you think you have a good understanding of what makes a good brand? Yes or no
So, let’s get going by starting with the basics of what is branding… I usually do this to ensure that we are all using the same language.
For clarity, many of us in libraries use the words “marketing” and “branding” interchangeably. BUT – they aren’t the same thing. Branding is one of many different activities that make up marketing. Let me show you what I mean by that.
This slide gives you a broad overview of the marketing process. Marketing is an umbrella term that encompasses multiple activities. When someone says they are doing “marketing” at their library, that can mean a whole lot of things. Generally, marketing falls into one of two major types – marketing strategy and marketing tactics. Marketing strategy is the planning part of marketing. It should happen before you actually do any marketing activity. Marketing tactics are the steps you take to execute your marketing strategy.
Let’s get a little more detailed. I’ve taken marketing strategy and tactics and broken them into their basic components. You can get more detailed than this but for now, this is a good place to start. When I talk about marketing strategy being planning I mean the following: You need to identify what you want your marketing to accomplish – your goals. Do you want your marketing to bring new people into your library for a special event or service? Or do you want the people who already use the library to use it more often? Or do you want some combination of both? Why is this important? Because the tactics that you end up using will vary depending on which marketing goal you are trying to accomplish. Next you need to identify who you are directing your marketing toward – what audience? We will talk more about your audience in a bit. Finally, you want to develop your brand which is made up of your story, your tagline for that story, your brand feeling and your logo AFTER you develop your strategy, you move to developing marketing tactics which are the tools that will help you tell your story to your audience. This might include advertising or publicity or any number of other tools. We are not going to talk about those elements of marketing today since that is a whole other class. So – bottom-line, when people tell me that they are doing marketing in their library, my question generally is “what kind of marketing” – as you can see from this chart, that might mean any number of things!
Now, let’s dig a little deeper into each of these elements, starting with the audience. Defining your audience in academic terms is not really part of branding. However, I always bring defining your audience up when I talk about branding because I think it is a critical component of any marketing that you do and the more carefully you define your audience, the better all of your marketing is apt to be.
Why is the audience for your marketing important to consider? There are many people who might be interested in your story – library users, nonusers, old, young, middle-aged, book lovers, movie lovers Your goal is to make sure that the audience that HAS to hear your story, hears it.
Why does this matter? If you know who you are trying to reach You can deliver a very relevant message, focused on addressing the needs of that audience You can also be efficient in how you deliver that message, making sure that you use the “language” that works for that audience And be able to hear what that audience has to say in response – are they responding to your message
Look at it this way Would you tell your library’s story the same way to each of these two groups? Your story might be exactly the same – our library is important because it opens up all sorts of possibilities for our community. However, the WAY you tell it in this situation is going to be very different. If it is critical that seniors hear your marketing message, then you need to make sure your marketing is developed in such a way that seniors will hear and respond to it. That isn’t the same way that a room full of kids might hear and respond to it.
Usually at this point someone ways – but the library is for everyone. Well, yes, the library IS for everyone and I’m not arguing with any part of that. And, in the ideal world you would tell your story to everyone But, marketing costs money and in a world of finite resources (which most of us face) You need to spend your money where you can have the biggest impact You need to focus your marketing on reaching the audience that you want to MAKE ABSOLUTELY SURE hears your message So, you get as knowledgeable as you can about your audience to make sure your marketing is effective.
Now that we’ve talked about defining your audience, let’s get down to the details of branding. The heart of branding is articulating your library’s story. By story I mean – why does your library matter to your community? This is the most important slide you will see today – figuring out WHY YOUR LIBRARY MATTERS
Why does your library matter to your community? What can your library do in your community that makes a difference in the lives of the people of your community? Your story ISN’T a list of what you provide to your community. It IS the benefit that your community derives from those things that you provide. If you have a library mission, your story about why your library matters to your community should have a close relationship to your mission statement. At my library I didn’t start developing our branding until AFTER we had updated the library’s mission/vision and strategic plan. Your story should appeal to the heart more than the mind. We aren’t listing our services – we’re telling people why the library makes a difference to our community. You need to think emotionally versus intellectually because people respond much more quickly to emotion than they do to their brains.
Take two minutes to think about your library’s story. Write it out Was this exercise easy, hard, inbetween?
Now let’s move on to the next element of branding – defining how you want people to feel when they interact with your brand. Do you want people to feel connected? Part of a community? Happy? Smart? Part of a shared history? Involved? These are all questions you need to ask yourself as you develop your brand.
A brand has to encompass the feelings of its users. Your brand is about every experience they have when they walk through the door of the library, when they talk to a staff member, when they borrow books or come to a program. In this slide you are going to see a video shot when the Apple store in NY started selling iPads. The questions I want you to think about as you watch the video are… What are the feelings that Apple wants its users to have about its brand? What are the Apple employees doing to promote those feelings? Do the Mac users standing in line have feelings about the Apple brand? Do you think people have as strong feelings about your library when they walk in the door there? Wouldn’t you love it if they did!
So – now I want you to take 2 minutes and identify 10 words that describe the emotions you want your library users to feel when they see your brand. Share those with us and I will read some of them. Can you see how powerful these words are? And, don’t they tell you much more about your brand than saying things like “we provide good customer service” or “we have ebooks”? Hold on to these words as we go into the next section…
Now we are going to talk about developing a tagline. After you figure out who you are talking to, what your library’s story is and how you want people to feel about your brand, you need to be able to boil it all down to a TAGLINE – an attention grabbing way of telling your story in one, short intriguing statement
This is Apple’s tagline I think it tells their “story” perfectly – it is quick, simple to “get” and compelling Who doesn’t want to be seen as someone who “thinks different”? This is the type of simplicity that you are striving for.
Remembering that a tagline must tell your story quickly and make it compelling and get across a lot of information about the brand quickly, look at these taglines and pick one that you think is the best & click that number Then click on the number of the tagline above that you see as being the least effective.
We aren’t going to write a tagline here because it takes some quiet thinking time but here are the basic steps I go through to develop a tagline. Start with your story that you write and the way you want people to feel when they interact with your brand Pick out the key words Think about alternatives to those words Try writing several options As yourself….does my tagline encompass my story, is it compelling, will it be relevant to my community, is it easy to say? Test the tagline Funny is ok, emotional is ok – but make sure people understand what you are saying quickly
The final step in branding is putting everything together in a logo that tells your story and conveys your brand feeling visually. By putting your logo “out there” over and over again, people will start to connect your logo with your story & your brand feeling without having to think about it. And, that’s what your are ultimately striving for – quick understanding of everything your brand represents.
A logo helps cut through the clutter – it helps tell the story” of the brand without having to be explicit The brand’s logo is NOT the brand - the logo is a reminder of the brand A logo by itself is not generally a brand Unless the brand is very established A logo is particularly helpful in a world of information overload Visually arresting, breaks through the clutter
These are all old, established brands. They can stand alone without taglines because people know what they stand for as brands and they have been telling their stories for years and years. However, odds are your library is NOT an old established brand so it is important that your logo includes a tagline!
Do these logos/taglines tell a story? Do they evoke an emotion? Do they grab your attention? Do the logo and tagline work together?
So – now we’ve gone through the details of branding – a brand is made up of first defining your audience, then telling your story, developing a tagline, identifying your brand feeling and building a logo that puts it all together and finally….repeat, repeat, repeat
So, keeping all of this in mind, I’m going to read you information about three brands and you identify after each one if it is a strong brand…
This is a brand that I think does a great job of articulating its story. Volvo – it’s promise is safety and they make it a real mantra in the organization.
“ It’s all about the beer”
Maxwell House Coffee has one of the oldest brands in the country. Their logo is…Good to the last drop…which I’m guessing everyone here could identify immediately. The company tried to change their logo about 15 years ago and then gave up when they realized that “Good to the last drop” was so firmly rooted in consumers’ minds that nothing else was EVER going to stick. I don’t know why that’s a negative – I think that is what most marketers strive for in their branding!
As all of us who are librarians know – the library isn’t the only place to go anymore for information. We used to OWN the information story – but not anymore!
Average American – 3,000 marketing messages a day American newspapers - more than 10 million tons of newsprint/year Average person consumes 94 pounds of newsprint a year The Internet In 1985 – 6 domain names registered Today – 63 million domain names registered Exponential increase in cell phone use 1985 – 340,000 cell phone subscribers Today – 175 million!
Think about how many of those sources brand and market themselves and talk about what they provide Sadly, if libraries aren’t part of the “conversation” We get forgotten
Cut through the clutter Clear, consistent message and look What makes YOUR library unique in YOUR community – what makes the library relevant
Helps with funding Everyone understands the library’s role in the community More than just a “nice to have” – instead a “have to have” Builds opportunities for partnerships
Branding has another benefit – it puts everyone on the same page in your library Clear message Clear audience to whom you are conveying the message A plan of action that everyone can understand Synchronized promotional efforts to achieve one goal Greater awareness of resources/services/programs
Finally and most importantly – good branding (and marketing) leads to increased usage of your library as people understand what your library can provide to them
No clear story No clear visual connection Unmemorable tagline, not relevant to my audience We needed to: Clarify our message Update our logo Find a better way of visually connecting the library with its partners Sub-brands within the library Spent a lot of time reading/considering OCLC study “From Awareness to Funding” Determined that we wanted our library to move from informational to transformational New tagline “A world of possibility”
In actuality if you have been doing the exercises as we’ve gone along today, you have already gotten started in developing a library brand. However, just to make sure that you have clear, concrete steps to move forward with, I’ll give you the key steps that you can focus on when you leave here today.
Collect a representative sample of your marketing materials Pin them all on one wall where you can review Ask yourself these questions: Can I tell by looking at these materials what role my library takes in its community? What is my message? Do I like my logo? Does it reflect visually what makes my library special? Based on the look of the materials, would I know that they all came from the same organization?
Talk to Patrons, Board, Staff Can they tell you about: Audience Story Tagline Logo Feeling Confirm or deny Your own impressions from an audit about your story, your look Is there consistency?
Compare what you saw in the audit and what you heard in constituent discussions Do you find consistency in what people say? Does your message come through? Do people seem to find the message meaningful? Do people have feelings about your brand and are they the right feelings, meaning the ones you want?
