Marketing youth services - Marketing of Library and Information Services

Place in the marketing mix refers to the obvious for libraries - where the service is offered. Access to convenient facilities is a most important consideration, especially since geographic location can be a major barrier to library use for children. "[L]ocation is an important factor in predicting use. If the library is in a convenient location ... it will draw people" (Welch & Donohue, 1994, p. 151). But bibliographic access issues are also involved - if the title being sought is not on the shelf due to lack of adequate shelving time or inaccurate bibliographic control, there is a psychic cost (frustration) to the customer (Wood, 1988, p. 73). Placement can refer to internal organization and display of collections as well as the safety and comfort of users. Is the furniture child-size and the physical environment appealing to children? Are the books displayed face out to take advantage of the lure of cover art for children? Are the bibliographic access tools appropriate to children?

Promotion, the last "P," is the one that is most commonly associated with marketing. Four aspects of promotion have been identified - personal selling, indirect selling, publicity, and advertising:

* Promotion in the form of personal selling occurs during every user interaction, every time a librarian represents the library at a community event, and every time a customer complaint is fielded. * Indirect selling means encouraging use of a product by indirect means. Youth services encourages reading and library use during the summer using incentives, giveaways, and programs. * Publicly is essentially free advertising. Youth services is very good at providing photo opportunities for the print media or an interesting feature for the six o'clock news. Since children as a market segment have almost universal media appeal, publicity for the library is not hard to come by. * "Advertising is paid nonpersonal communication about an organization, product or person, the purchaser of which is clearly identified." The effects of advertising are not easy to determine, since they may be long term and cumulative. Since an advertising campaign is expensive and its benefits are not immediately apparent, libraries have not used it extensively, unless joint advertising opportunities occur where the cost can be shared, or unless the cost of an advertising campaign is subsidized as a result of a cooperative venture with the private sector or through a grant or special fund (Wood, 1988, pp. 75-77).

All four methods of promotion aim at the same goals: arousing the attention of the customer about the product, moving the customer to have positive feelings about the product, and, finally, influencing the customer to action - use of the product Wood, 1988, p. 78).

Since there are so many variables to all four P's, the potential for creating marketing strategies is staggering. Youth services looks at the information about the target market, evaluates the internal and external environments in light of opportunity and available resources, and determines the best marketing mix for each market segment. But one more facet of the process is missing - i.e., looking at the marketing process itself.