Building a Buzz - Libraries and Word-of-mouth Marketing

Even if your marketing budget has been slashed, you can still do effective word-of-mouth marketing, or “talking with a purpose.” An LSTA grant provided the opportunity to test training, planning, support, and information resources related to word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM) for different types of libraries. This resulted in strategies that form the center of this practical workbook. Chapters discuss why WOMM works and how, where, and when to “build a buzz.” Also included are reports from libraries practicing buzz and such samples as communication plans. Librarians know that advocacy is a daily effort to keep people aware of a library's value and resources. The ideas provided by two well-known marketing consultants who know libraries make this a compact, useful, cost-effective tool that is needed in these tough times. --Margaret Flanagan

Prior to launching Library Communication Strategies, Inc. in 2000, Peggy Barber was Associate Executive Director for Communication for the ALA, where she managed and implemented marketing and communication programs, including external relations and membership development. She established the ALA Public Information Office, Public Programs Office and the ALA Graphics program, including the widely known Celebrity Read poster series. She worked to implement the universal library logo that appears on streets and roads across the country. She also launched the association s development program and served as the first executive director of its foundation. She is co-author with Linda D. Crowe of Getting Your Grant: A How-to-Do-It Manual for Librarians (Neal-Schuman). Barber received the Lippincott Award for distinguished service to the library profession in 1999, and was honored as Alumni of the Year in 2001 by the Rutgers University School of Library and Information Science. Her current work as a consultant is focused on marketing and communication support for libraries.



Linda Wallace is co-founder and partner of Library Communication Strategies, a consulting firm for libraries. She was formerly director of the ALA's Public Information Office, where she developed and implemented creative strategies for National Library Week, Library Card Sign-Up Month, Teen Read Week and many other public awareness campaigns. Wallace is the author of Libraries, Mission and Marketing: Writing Mission Statements That Work. She has written and edited many other ALA publications, including the Campaign for America's Libraries @ your library® toolkits for public, school and academic libraries. A journalism graduate of Ohio University (Athens), Wallace worked as a newspaper reporter before becoming community relations coordinator for the Mideastern Michigan Library Cooperative, a system with more than 40 urban, suburban and rural public libraries, based in Flint. She received two Addys and two John Cotton Dana special awards for her work there and was named Librarian of the Year by the Flint Area Library Association.