Promoting Discovery: Creating an In-depth Library Marketing Campaign

Abstract

This case study aims to describe how librarians at Indiana University Kokomo designed a marketing campaign to promote its discovery tool to undergraduate students during the Fall 2012 semester. The authors illustrate how, through the use of a coordinated marketing plan, librarians applied marketing principles to select a target audience, create promotional designs, organize events, and assess campaign effectiveness. The authors express how libraries can construct cost-effective yet comprehensive marketing campaigns, as well as learn from both unexpected successes and shortcomings of such projects. Ultimately, these takeaways can inform a library’s future marketing endeavors.