Marketing and Advocacy

Marketing tools and templates

for IFLS libraries

MORE app marketing toolkit

MORE e-card Facebook post or blurb graphic Suggested text: If you don’t have a regular library card from a MORE-member library and you’re a Wisconsin resident, you can get an e-card to use MORE’s shared electronic resources. Find the e-card self-registration form here.

Library Love Story

Library Love Story toolkit, updated each year prior to Library Legislative Day. You can use this all year.

Annual Reports

• Anne Hamland’s adding Annual Report info to your website video
• The DPI has an infographic tool.  Instructions are on their website.
• Templates: click the images for your 2022 canva templates. The Trustee version has a page about customizing graphs and charts in Canva. The February 2023 Marketing Monthly is about annual reports. Most IFLS libraries use Canva. If you don’t use it please contact me, Reb Kilde, at kilde@ifls.lib.wi.us or submit a HelpDesk ticket and let me know the specific resource that would be useful for you. The WPI also has some tools for visualization, available on their website.

Non-IFLS Marketing Resources

The best resources, curated by Reb

Marketing resources

• Angela Hursh’s Super Library Marketing blog. This is the best library marketing blog I’ve found: it’s timely and actionable. She does a great job of covering social media trends. 
• From 2020, a Marketing Plan template developed specifically for libraries by marketing staff from several Wisconsin library systems. There’s also an introductory webinar available.

General design resources

Accessible Design Handbook I found this handbook from The Association of Registered Graphic Designers of Ontario. The first chapter is on print design and it’s a clear and concise explanation of what’s important, with examples.

This pdf is a handy chart that explains different file formats and color formats for different applications. PROPR-File-Color-Guide-v01-1

Cole Zrostlek’s Canva Resources (from Tech Days)

Communications

Press releases

Most news outlets are ridiculously understaffed. They aren’t likely to have enough journalists around to read a press release, figure out how it applies to their audience and then write a news story about it. I think it’s much more effective to tell a story: https://allgoodtales.com/press-release-tell-story/ 

Website and digital

Marketing Tea

Recordings of Marketing Tea live on Vimeo. Here’re the archives.

2023

October Marketing Tea: walk-through the Canva Brand Kit, tools to pick a color palette. recording

Color picker links:

• Coolors
• Red Ketchup color-picker
• ColorSpace

Wix reviews of 7 color palette generators.

September Marketing Tea video: Design: balance, white space, resizing, 5 things to remember about images. Marketing: finding people where they are, QR codes. Comments: Bloomer is doing a community-wide scavenger hunt. Recommended QR code generator: Beaconstac.

5 things to remember about using images

1. Facebook penalizes images with a lot of text, so use very few words. All details and links should go in the body of the post.
2. Tockify images also need very little text. The date and title appear right below the image. All information, including any registration links, go in the body of the calendar post.
3. Alt-text really helps people who use screen readers.
4. Use PDFs for documents to download only! Text-heavy PDFs don’t work on phones, and that’s where most people look at this information.
5. Images are a wayfinder tool for your users. Use consistent color, font and image across platforms to help people navigate all the information you’re sharing.

August Marketing Tea video: MailChimp statistics; design concepts in Canva–alignment; Q&A, “Why won’t my MailChimp e-letter fit on a phone screen?”