Download 2.3 Facilitator notes - Developing a marketing plan

Facilitator Notes
This document gives comprehensive facilitator’s notes for the unit
Course title
Marketing and promotion of electronic resources
Module title
Module 2: Developing a plan and putting it into practice
Unit title
Unit 2.3: Developing a marketing plan
No. of unit
2.3
Session day/time
Day 2 Session 5
Length of session
150 minutes
Objective
For participants to begin to put into practice the ideas developed
through the earlier sessions and to start to develop a marketing plan
Participant profile
See MarketingEResources-Workshop-outline.docx
Pre-workshop activities
None
Room layout
Set up with tables each seating four participants, with chairs in a
horseshoe around each table, facing the presenter (café style).
Number of participants
20 - See MarketingEResources-Workshop-outline.docx
Materials
Extra copies of marketing planning template for all participants
2.3.1 Activity - Developing a marketing plan.docx
Files
2.3 Facilitator notes - Developing a marketing plan.docx
2.3.1 Activity - Developing a marketing plan.docx
2.3 Presentation - Developing a marketing plan.pptx
Customisation
None required
Equipment needed
Computer with PowerPoint, Word and Excel linked to data projector,
internet connection for facilitator’s laptop
Module/Unit outline
Timing (150 minutes)
10 minutes presentation
60 minutes discussion in pairs
60 minutes report back
10 minutes wrap up
10 minutes end of day reflection
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Slide Information
2.3 Presentation - Developing a marketing plan.pptx
The Facilitator has a choice:
Either: Copy slides from Powerpoint into this document before printing (instructions below)
Or
Print note pages directly from Powerpoint.
To use Powerpoint feature to copy slides into Word.
In PPT presentation
 File
 Save & send
 Create Handouts
 Create handouts (again)
 Select Notes next to slides format
 OK
Word document opens, cut and paste slides into this file
Annex A: materials for activities – facilitator’s version
Facilitator:
The facilitator offers some advice from Ruth Gibendi, librarian at Meru University College, Kenya,
from her INASP blog (http://blog.inasp.info/marketing-e-resources/).
Ruth’s 9 pieces of advice are:
Start planning early: This may seem like an obvious first step, but never underestimate the amount
of time needed to plan and prepare. Procrastination or making planning a low priority can quickly lead
to last minute activities. This, in turn, may minimise the effectiveness of your marketing and create a
greater workload over a short space of time.
Include marketing in your budget: Effective marketing is more than simply making resources
available, people need to know what is available and how it can benefit them. Whether this means
printing information or website development, making your resources known will cost money and
discussing this upfront with institutional or library managers will help reduce compromises and cuts
further down the line.
Get to know what users really want: Getting to know the information needs of your users is vital if
you are to market your resources. Be sure your marketing is directed to exactly what they need (and
think they need). A user is much more likely to return to a resource if they know that, no matter the
effort it will take, they will get what they need once there.
Perform selective marketing: Too much information is often overwhelming to users and you don’t
want your efforts to be overlooked or become little more than white noise. In our case we sought to
market only databases offering access to e-books, and even then limited them to one collection.
Equally, one could market resources in one subject area.
Ensure ease of access: Provide access points to e-resources embedded in the traditional catalogue,
and include use of the catalogue and links to resources in the user training.
Work with the students: In our case, we trained selected users as ‘Library Ambassadors’ and
actually used them to run the campaign. The librarians took an overseer role for the campaign.
Social media works: Social media provides valuable tools that are both popular and effective. In
addition to reaching a large number of people, they make use of a different tone that users may
respond to. We involved the students as administrators to help run the social network campaign.
Motivate users with small, relevant rewards: We offer rewards to users that are relevant to the
activities without requiring a large chunk of the budget. These have included airtime and catchy
‘souvenirs’ with messages embedded along with a grand winner receiving the first prize — a smart
phone.
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Keep in touch and offer on-going support: Just because a marketing campaign is complete
doesn’t mean the users are now expert searchers and users. Anticipate that they will face difficulties
in using the resources, even after the marketing and training. By providing troubleshooting and simple
contact mechanisms you help to build long term engagement.
Activity:
Participants work in pairs (or possibly groups if there is only one participant from each institution) to
complete the marketing planning template; they are encouraged to start by addressing the particular
departments or user groups that they identified earlier in the ‘Starting small’ session. The facilitator is
on hand to answer any queries and to discuss the approach the group is taking.
The facilitator stops the groups after 60 minutes (so there are 30 minutes remaining). Initial plans are
then presented to the wider group and participants encouraged to comment on these.
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