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Marketing youth services - Marketing of Library and Information Services
Library Trends, Wntr, 1995 by Barbara Dimick
Abstract
A marketing orientation to service planning offers youth services professionals marketing techniques that are especially useful for designing effective programs, collections, and services. Market segmentation research is a valuable method for determining customer needs. The marketing mix - the four P's of product, place, price, and promotion - provides a useful framework for analyzing the effectiveness of the services of the library. Youth services can have a strong positive effect on the library's position in the community, helping to build a loyal customer base and future library users.
Introduction
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A true marketing approach to managing libraries asks that librarians change how they define what they do - from an emphasis on product (collections, services) to an emphasis on customer. "A customer orientation holds that the main task of the organization is to determine the perceptions, needs, and wants of target markets and to satisfy them through the design, communication, pricing, and delivery of appropriate and competitively viable offerings" (Kotler & Andreasen, 1987, p. 41). Market-oriented management identifies its markets, or specific populations, researches the needs of those populations, and then devises products and services designed to meet those needs, taking into account the available resources and ability to implement the necessary mix of services. "A customer-centered organization is one that makes every effort to sense, serve, and satisfy the needs of and wants of its clients and publics within the constraints of its budget" (Kotler & Andreasen, 1987, p. 43). Similarly, marketing is more than devising communications strategies designed to change customers to fit what the organization offers. The true marketer's philosophy considers that it is the organization that must be willing to adapt its offering to the customer and not vice versa (Kotler & Andreasen, 1987, p. 56). Collections and programs are driven by what is known about the needs of the target market and may or may not parallel traditional library service offerings. This can be, and has been, a difficult concept for many librarians, including those in youth services.
The difficulty lies in the perception of librarianship as held by its professionals. A "professional orientation" holds that the organization's task is to develop programs and services which it believes are satisfying to the public and do not conflict with the professional role to which librarians aspire. Librarians are unwilling to relinquish their professional role in determining what products the library will offer to the marketplace. Yet marketing demands that the organization be designed to serve not the needs of the librarians, but the needs of the chosen markets (Dragon & Leisner, 1983, p. 36). There is an "unspoken fear that [a] marketing orientation will ultimately cause...nonprofit professionals to bend their professional standards and integrity to `please the masses'...[which] can be at variance to many of the most elevated pursuits of society" (Kotler & Andreasen, 1987, p. 61). "[S]ome librarians, in all likelihood, are apt to experience a role conflict between what they believe is appropriate professional conduct and the behavior requirements of a marketing-oriented organization" (Dragon & Leisner, 1983, p. 41). Examples of this are the youth services professionals who agonize over adding comic books or Barney spin-offs to the collection, arguing that their professional responsibility is to use limited resources wisely to acquire materials of the highest quality for the community.
This perception of marketing misses the point. Marketing's role is one of supporting the organization in achieving its goals by devising strategies that are customer focused instead of organization focused. It is a tool to help the library get where it is going. Using marketing and being customer-oriented are not goals in and of themselves; these are ways to achieve goals. Management sets direction through ongoing planning and evaluation, and marketing becomes a means to achieve the organization's goals (Kotler & Andreasen, 1987, p. 61). Library professionals, including youth services professionals, instead of being threatened by this marketing orientation, can apply their expertise in developing services and collections that meet the needs of identified target markets and that take into account library resources and the overall mission of the library. Those youth services librarians struggling with the pop-culture demand could detemine what needs are being met by those comic books for those children wanting them, or for those preschoolers demanding more Barney, and evaluate various possibilities, given available resources. A marketing orientation views services from the customer's point of view; therefore, it actually adds a dimension to professionalism rather than detracting from it by asking that librarians analyze markets, assess their needs, and develop services to meet those needs. Successful marketing requires that a library professional devise a proactive public relations effort that enables effective two-way communication between the library and the library user, continue to evaluate target markets and their response to library offerings, and adopt a flexibility that allows for changing service priorities based on changing customer profiles. This is a tall order, especially since many youth services professionals have no background or educational experience with marketing concepts or techniques.
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