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Before you begin to contact the media or your constituents, draft a simple but thorough communications plan by following the guidelines below. This should be approximately one to two pages pages in length and should take into account your goals, messaging, audiences, tactics, existing resources, timing, evaluation, and budget. It’s also important to think about whether or not your program, activity, event, or topic is newsworthy and if it will fit into the news cycle. All of these topics will be discussed in more detail in this section.
Why do you want to do media or advocacy outreach? Your goals may be specific, such as:
Or, they may be quite broad, such as:
You only need to define two or three goals for a simple campaign, and you can use the list of what publicity can do as a guide (Section II).
When planning media outreach at first the impulse is to focus on the story. Resist. Instead, begin by considering your audience.
The easy answer to the question “who are you trying to reach?” is “the public.” In fact, there is not one public, but many different groups of people who get their information from a variety of sources. Your first task as a publicist for your library is to begin to identify those “publics,” find out where they get their information, and to set your goals for when you reach them. Talk to the group you’re targeting to find out what outlets they read, how the messages you’ve defined work for them, and what they priorities are. Your “publics” may include:
Regardless of your goal(s), your message(s) should always be simple and consistent. You may already have three or four key messages for your library, or you may develop messages for individual campaigns. If you already have key messages you may want to review and select one or two of these to use on a new campaign. Your key message should always be applicable to your library’s primary mission (for example, libraries are a community center, libraries are a source of learning) and then should be appropriate for particular events that are hosting or programs you are sponsoring. Come up with your key messages and develop talking points that support these messages.
Craft your messages so they can be used to reach all or most of your audiences selected above. If they are internal audiences, such as library Friends, they should be proud of the message and know what it means. Ideally, they should be able to communicate your library’s key message in one or two sentences or talking points.
Your message(s)—boiled down to a tagline—might represent a core value of your library (“A book a day keeps the doctor away” or “Our children need our library”) or be a call to action (“Get involved—get a library card!”). It might also incorporate The Campaign for America’s Libraries messages that include the phrase “@ your library®.”
Following are the three main Campaign for America’s Libraries messages (and talking points):
REMEMBER: You, the librarian reading this guide and/or some of your colleagues, may not be your target audience, nor may you “get” your messages depending on your activity or project. For example, your reference librarian may not know exactly how or with what to reach potential library users, but may know exactly how to reach those that use the library daily. If new users are your target audience, you’ll have to test your messages with people who represent that audience. This does not always mean running formal focus groups, as this can be an expensive undertaking. Consider testing messages on your child’s group of friends or their parents or people who attend your gym or religious group, or ask one of your relatives to test your messages with people they know.
You may also find the “Shaping the Message Worksheet” on page 31 of the ALA’s Library Advocates Handbook helpful when developing your message. And check out the @ your library® campaign Web site.
Use this guide to pick and choose elements for your campaign that will help you develop a plan of action that is closely related to your goals, audience, and timeline as well as the financial, staff, and volunteer resources you have to fulfill your chosen tactics. You’ll see that many of the communications tactics discussed incorporate advocacy activities as these are more important than ever in effectively reaching and engendering support for your library activities and issues.
USING YOUR AUDIENCE LIST: The first step is to refer to the key audiences you’ve already identified and determine the tactics you can use to best to reach them. Targeting your efforts toward these audiences will be more effective and efficient than throwing your message out there and hoping it hits the right ears.
Consider where each audience group gets its information. For example, housewives often don’t hear drive-time radio. Business people rarely catch daytime TV talk shows. Legislators and their staffs read both their hometown opinion pages and state or national dailies and weeklies. Local weeklies may have small circulations, but their clips often end up on legislators’ desks.
CONSIDERING TIMING WHEN PLANNING YOUR RELEASE, EVENT, or PROGRAM . Timing your news delivery is key to your success. Think about the best/worst time to release information or a report—or do an event or activity. Consider the news cycle. Here are some examples:
LONG-TERM PLANNED EVENTS OR ACTIVITIES. If you are planning an event or activity that you would like to invite press to attend and cover, consider scheduling when there won’t likely be competing events. This is easier said than done. Remember that since your date will be set well in advance, even if media is interested in attending breaking news may change their plans. Keep this in mind in your planning so that you, your team, and your volunteers are not disappointed.
Timing can also help strengthen a news or feature hook. Try to consider other happenings locally, statewide, or nationally when planning your date. For example: Consider releasing a new report during National Library Week, Banned Books Week, School Library Media Month, Library Card Sign-Up Month, or Teen Read Week if your event has a related theme. Also, holidays such as National Library Worker’s Day, Labor Day, Mother’s Day, Women’s History Month, or others also provide opportunities for media outreach campaigns.
DAYS OF THE WEEK. Your town or city may have better days when reporters and producers are likely to attend your event if there is no breaking news. In many big cities, the best times for media events is Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays between 9 a.m. and noon. This gives you time to get your spokespeople onto early morning shows before your event and will give the evening news shows time to attend and then get back to the station to edit their news segments. Figuring out your news cycle can help you plan this.
TACTICS. Advocacy and media activities can be designed and planned to overlap or can be planned independently. There are three primary types of tactics for reaching out to target audiences:
A few pointers as you think about selecting your tactics:
- A public service announcement on a radio might reach your audience better than a direct mail piece.
- If you decide to do outreach through television news, remember that you will need to have trained spokespeople ready to be interviewed on camera.
- If you are promoting an event whose potential attendees will be high school students, then it would not make sense to buy an ad in a local paper where the average reader is considerably older.
- If you are looking to reach the Hispanic families in your community, go to the Spanish-speaking media outlets or community centers with your Hispanic spokespeople.
See Section IV for descriptions of types of events, media tactics, and strategies.
This outreach can include events such as a town hall or fundraiser, a pep rally, or a workshop. It can include simple written correspondence, such as a postcard, or more detailed pleas for involvement, such as a volunteer or fundraising letter. Once you’ve determined your end product, you may want to distribute your materials in various forms and to different audiences. Some of these materials can be produced for a very small budget. This is especially true if you your board members and advocates reach out to the community for free services or printing. They want to help and may be chomping at the bit to do their part to encourage library support.
Get in touch with community groups. These groups might include the local Parent-Teacher Association, a Rotary Club, religious organizations, or school boards. Speaking engagements, library tours, or exhibits can be an effective way of reaching key audiences who share particular interests or concerns. You can also create a one-time or ongoing partnership with a community group. For example, if your audience is children and/or teachers, you can try to arrange for one of your library representatives to visit your local schools to talk about the benefits, programs, and activities of your library. This will give you access to teachers, students, and, by extension, their parents. It will also put a face on their library—and a personal connection.
Personal contact. To reach opinion leaders, elected officials, and their staff, personal, one-on-one contact is always more effective than a letter or a brochure; however you may decide to send a letter as your first introduction. Once you become familiar with their offices, you may find that phone calls are appropriate and more effective than e-mail. Keep track of their preferences. After you’ve made that first contact, you may try to follow up with a phone call or visit. When you DO speak or meet, let your elected official know how many of his or her constituents support and use your library. In any case, when you do write or speak to your legislator, do so from the heart. Avoid clichés and try to be brief.
Approaching Media. Section IV is entirely devoted to approaching the media.
Whatever your strategy and timing, you will need to consider creating new or revising existing materials to send to interested groups and/or media. Different types of written materials are covered in depth in the Written Word section, but two rules of thumb are:
Use the Facts. If you are waging an awareness campaign, prepare a brief but informational “fact sheet” that supports your position. Statistics may be especially helpful. Perhaps supporting the local ballot initiative would just cost the average property owner the equivalent of a Happy Meal or two movie tickets a year. These facts will persuade the voters more than the mantra “your library is important” or “save your library.” And, the fact sheet will dispel myths or inaccuracies that your opposition may spread.
Feel free to distribute fact sheets to each of your supporters. They can become informal spokespersons for your library and help you spread your good messages. A Quotable Facts about Libraries brochure is also available for your use: www.ala.org/ala/pio/availablepiomat/quotablefact.pdf. So is a version translated into Spanish: www.ala.org/ala/pio/availablepiomat/spanishquotablefacts.pdf.
Regardless of how much time you have to deliver your message, to accomplish your stated goals, consider developing a calendar to help you stay organized.
To begin, start with the event or release date and work backwards, figuring out how much time you need to give yourself for each task. In this section, the focus is on approaching the media. You will also need to develop an internal calendar for the event itself.
Some of the items that may be included are broadcast and print outlet deadlines, as they work on various deadlines and timelines. For example, monthly magazines have a longer lead time than daily papers and broadcast outlets.
Your timeline several months out might begin by specifying what needs to be accomplished in a particular week, but as it gets closer to your event or activity, the timing might be down to the hour. Try to be specific in listing tasks to be completed to help staff plan their time so that you have enough time to make phone calls and write releases or other items. Also, remember that the actual event or release isn’t the last thing on your calendar! Follow up during the days and week after the event, to gather news clips and thank reporters.
This is a sample calendar to be adapted for your use based on your media outlets and deadlines.
Your biggest resource is your library users. Children can be effective media spokespeople; parents know the value of the library to them and to their children. Seniors often rely on the library for reading materials or Internet access and use it as a community center. The tips below may help you to maximize your resources:
Try to get to know your library users. For example, if there is an unemployed person who comes to use the Internet at the library to find a job, take note of that, as he or she may be able to provide a moving testimonial in the future. Noticing all of the different reasons that people come to the library will broaden your base of support and reinforce the necessity of your library for the members of your community. It will also highlight important, concrete stories you can tell to the media, funders, elected officials, and opinion leaders. Keeping a file of these individuals can prove invaluable.
Take special note of opinion leaders in your community who use your library. Perhaps the president of a local PTA is a frequent user. Or maybe one of the members of your Board of Trustees is also on the Board of Directors at the local YMCA. This person is likely to have a large network of contacts that he or she can influence to support the library, either through giving time, money, or simply writing a letter to an elected official. Making use of these supporters and potential supporters is inexpensive and it is the most effective way to reach your other target audiences.
Don’t forget your library trustees and friends. Library trustees generally have political and community connections that can benefit the library, and Friends of the library are valuable not only as voices, but also as eyes and ears for library staff. Take time in your trustee meetings to discuss these connections in relationship to specific events or advocacy activities—and encourage your trustees to act on them. Discussing their commitments in front of peers can be an effective way to hold them to their promises.
Ask “volunteers” how best to get in touch with them , for example, via e-mail or telephone. Remember to keep your volunteers informed about important events, issues they should know about, and/or how they can help; you want these people to be as “in the know” as possible to enable them to maintain their connection to the library and spread accurate information.
Making the most of the resources at your fingertips often means that you or another staff member at your library must spend a significant amount of time talking to library users and identifying those that are best positioned to reach out to the community. However, cultivating these supporters will be worth the effort, and the network you build can be used for years to come.
Remember to incorporate periodic evaluation into your planning from the very start. This can be done monthly, quarterly, prior to board meetings, or on your chosen schedule. Set this into your planning calendar. Evaluation can be focused on the number of placements you got or can be broader to encompass your overarching advocacy goals.
In the ALA’s Library Advocates Handbook, the following chart of indicators was listed:
Key advocacy indicators might be:
Here are a few ways to incorporate evaluation:
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