Dear Mr. POPIN,
We librarians in Asia-Pacific POPIN suffer from an image problem -- users of our products and services often consider our work to be "passive" and thus of low status. Plus, we would like to increase the number of people seeking to obtain information. What can we do to improve this situation?
Dear POPIN members:
In this day of modern information centres, such an image should not be the case. Modern information work should considered a dynamic process, with the information specialist effectively responding to, or at least anticipating, the information needs of his or her clients. Thus, you should not expect potential information users to seek out you or your information centre -- you should be getting the information to them!
A positive image can be developed and reinforced if your library or information centre endeavours to use some "marketing" approaches and to promote its information products and services. Such a pro-active stance is all the more important as organizations face shrinking budgets and have to justify every expenditure in light of "value added".
It can also help you librarians and your related staff to improve your image, both within your own organization and as members of a regional and international Network.
Before defining some of the principles involved with marketing and promotion, it should be emphasized that good public relations is the hand-maid of marketing and promotion. Public relations may be defined as the deliberate, planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain mutual understanding between an organization and its "publics", i.e. audiences, or client base. Public relations approaches can be used to educate a wide range of audiences about the value of the information products and services your centre offers. Put quite simply, the aim of a library or information centre should be "client satisfaction". This is achieved by the following aspects taken from the pages of rules for effective marketing:
As emphasized previously the key factor in preparing a marketing campaign is to assess the needs of users -- your centre's products and services should not be considered as existing in a vacuum. It is the users' needs that decide what the products and services should be, not what you want to do or would like to give them.
The best way to match what you have got with the needs of your "market" or clients is through the conduct of a users' needs survey, the tools for which are questionnaires and interviews. In the event that is not possible a less strenuous and time-consuming means for getting this type of information is through the identification of shared information needs among "types" of clients, such as government planners and policy makers as an example of one group and population researchers as another. However, since such an assessment itself is not the focus of this article, we may deal with it later and more extensively as a separate article.
The main point is that you MUST know the information needs of your client base in order to position your library or information centre so as to be able to serve those needs, offering your clients that information in forms that are easy to understand so that they in turn can better perform their jobs.
You must also know yourself. What you can offer users of population information depends also on your goals and objectives, resources (both human and financial), and priorities. The following questions should be helpful for the above-mentioned purposes. Which types of products and services are most in demand? Which are the least useful? Are the ones most needed currently being offered by the centre? Is their quality sufficiently high? Is anyone else offering something similar, or even better? What are our strengths, our limitations? Do we offer any distinct or comparative advantage? Are sufficient resources available for us to provide them if we don't produce them now? Do we have the skills to change our product mix to accommodate users' needs through the production of new outputs? Do enough potential clients know about our centre and its functions? Is the centre easily accessible and does it offer a pleasant, helpful environment? Are potential users aware of their information needs? Do they want to get their information in the original or in repackaged forms? Do users have telecommunications capability? Can information be supplied through other cost-effective indirect means (see article in NEWS).
These are just some of the questions that can be asked in setting your own priorities in meeting users' needs. Once you have conducted an assessment of users' needs in light of your centre's capabilities, you will have identified segments of the market that you can target for effective information delivery.
Marketing programmes are usually based on the so-called four "P's": product, price, place and promotion. The following elaborates on each of them.
Product decisions include which products and service you can provide to meet the needs of your clients and which items you should no longer provide as well as which ones need to be improved or modified to match the clients' needs.
Price decisions are based on what you can afford vis-a-vis the demand for such products and services. Obviously you should try to meet the needs of the greatest number of users to make your products and services cost-effective. It would be highly inefficient to prepare an item that takes ages to compile if there are only a few people who need it or want it.
Place decisions concern distribution and dissemination methods, i.e. how you make your products and services available and accessible to clients. Currently, most of you depend on print formats, but in the not-so-distant future, it is likely that electronic means will become increasingly popular because of their speed and timeliness as well as their cost-effectiveness.
Promotion includes all the aspects mentioned above about public relations aimed at your "audiences". Promotional activities are based on the following considerations: What do you want your campaign to achieve? What message do you want to communicate? Who is the main target audience for each of the messages? What kind of results do you want? As for the latter, list them as objectives, for example:
In designing that work, your aim should be not so much to publicize or advertise the products and services you offer as it is to sell the "benefits" of the products and services, by showing or explaining how they meet the identified needs of your clients.
Your clients are exposed to promotional messages of one type or another all throughout the day. You have to compete for their attention. Thus, you have to help your potential clients to identify and eventually obtain the products and services that they want and that you produce now, or can offer in the future.
Although persuasion may seem an easy task, it is not at all simple. For example, before a potential user will take the trouble to visit your centre or telephone or write to you asking for information, he or she must be made aware of its existence, be convinced that it is worthwhile and easy to obtain and be motivated to obtain it.
The next steps are to select the medium or media best suited to reach the target group, and compose the most suitable message for the purpose.
A medium is the means by which information is communicated. The choice of media is based mainly on comparative costs and the capacities of the various promotional elements. They range from person-to-person contact to newspaper and electronic means for mass coverage. Normally for information centres in developing countries, the most appropriate medium is a brochure or other such product, although newspapers should not be overlooked (see article on page 3). For such a medium, the preparation of news releases is an appropriate way of reaching editors, but it is even more effective to develop a relationship with reporters who know the likes and dislikes of their readers. Yet other low-cost means of promotion are well-designed and informative letters, gift book-markers and demonstrations of computers for information-gathering, such as on-line searching and the like.
"Inspired" though your messages may be, if they are not appropriate in themselves or are not delivered through a medium appropriate for the potential clients, they will only turn people off by flooding them with information they do not want. Also, it is essential to make sure your centre can deliver on what you claim in the promotional message.
As previously mentioned, a useful item for promotional purposes is a descriptive brochure that presents a clear visual and verbal image. Another useful tool is an introductory guide to your services.
Posters are another means, and some of you -- for example, Indonesia, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Sri Lanka -- have been producing annual population data sheets with great effect because they state your claim to being a reliable centre for population data and information, and inform potential users where to get additional information should they need to do so.
Some of the larger members of Asia-Pacific POPIN have promoted themselves by preparing their Government's official publications for events such as the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development. China offers an excellent example in this regard.
Exhibitions and information booths at appropriate events are yet other ways to promote your products and services in your country, and add new names to your mailing list.
Tours of your information centre is yet another way to introduce potential clients to the benefits that you can offer them by providing them with the data and information they need to do their job well.
Because no single promotional method can be expected to reach all potential users, you will have to be creative and look for opportunities to "sell" the benefits you offer to a wide range of audiences.
Doing so will not only help to increase the utilization of population data and information in your country, but will help you to gain esteem among your clients, peers and colleagues as professionals who are performing a vital task in the creation of new knowledge.
If any of you have specific questions on this or other topics, please contact me and I'll try to provide answers through your newsletter, the Asia-Pacific POPIN Bulletin.