Beyond the trend of rediscovering the adventure of reading and the nostalgic moments of rediscovering our favorite books, remembering the Scholastic Book Fairs, and missing earning rewards like Pizza Hut personal pan pizzas, libraries are filled with more than books, computers, and quiet spaces.
The challenge is to inform communities that all these cool services, programs, and events exist.
Like many public libraries around the world, Parsippany Public Library in Parsippany, New Jersey, is a place people can go to read, relax, learn a new skill, join a book club, borrow tools, games, and movies, or hang indoors on icky weather days.
Nicholas Jackson, Head of Information Services and Facilities Manager at Parsippany Library, has two goals: reaching the communities it serves and keeping people interested and active library cardholders beyond high school or college.
He turned to the online marketing tools from Constant Contact to help him share the great books, resources, programs, and events the public can access with a free library card.
Connecting with the community
Nicholas noticed people are often unaware of how the library serves their community. He also saw a pattern in people visiting the library as students throughout grade school and stopping after high school or college when they enter other chapters of life, like entering the workforce or becoming parents or caregivers. The pattern highlighted to him how people may associate the library as only a resource for school, and it creates a gap of time where they no longer seek the library when they’ve finished their studies.
Getting the word out on all that the library has to offer the community became easier with Constant Contact.
One way he used Constant Contact to reach the community was by creating a revamped email newsletter for their subscribers.
“We pivoted to Constant Contact to create a better e-newsletter,” Jackson said.
The library offers events, programs, and services like:
- Library of Things – borrow cool and useful items like a game console, sewing machine, karaoke machine, or board game.
- Museum Passes – reserve a free access pass to listed museums in the surrounding areas.
- Seed Library – get seeds to plant your own garden at home.
- Puzzle Exchange – take a puzzle home to solve and then exchange it for another puzzle from the library.
- Books Clubs To Go – start a book club easily using pre-made kits with books, guides, tips, and, if applicable, a DVD copy of each book’s movie adaptation.
- Find Your Next Favorite Book – fill out a Google form and get a book recommendation.
- Mobile Printing
- Poster Printing
- English as a Second Language
- Computer Classes
- Access to newspapers online (like the Wall Street Journal)
- Gentle Yoga Classes
- Google Slides, Gmail, Google Calendar, etc. Classes
- Writing Workshops
- Book Clubs
- Collaborative Crochet Circle
- Cookbook Club
- Holiday Gift Wrapping Program
- Paper Shapers Club with Deanna Kwan
- and more.
Using online marketing tools
To raise awareness of all that Parsippany Library offers to the community, Nicholas relies on online marketing tools like email marketing, SMS, and a content calendar to create marketing that informs the community about the library’s services, events, and resources.
Keeping the community in the loop with email newsletters
The library’s email newsletter has helped him reach subscribers and improve event attendance.
For example, for one of the library’s author events, over 40 percent of registrants found out about it from their email newsletter.
“We do have over 17,000 people on our newsletter. What’s really great is over 40% open the newsletter,” he said.
For another event, he promoted a reading party in an email newsletter, which resulted in over 75 percent of registrants learning about the reading party from the email.
Sending personalized marketing messages with list segmentation
Sending emails and SMS messages based on community members’ actions and the information they share with the library is one way the library personalizes its marketing messages to subscribers.
Nicholas personalizes the messages he sends to the library’s subscribers by creating lists based on actions and data like the date they became a library card holder, programs they’ve signed up for and attended, and events they’ve registered for and attended. The community can sign up for the adult newsletter, children’s newsletter, or computer class newsletter.
He also shares previous issues of the newsletter on the website using a link to the email that he created in Constant Contact. Check out what one of his October newsletters to share information on programs, classes, and events for adults looks like here.
He uses tags to further personalize his marketing messages based on whether the library card member signed up to learn about the library services available to adults, children (kids and teens), or both. This is especially helpful for users who sign up for events and programs. “For the different programs and events people sign up for… I have that list so I can send reminders,” he explained.
Keeping the content flowing with the help of AI Content Generator
Nicholas is able to consistently create new content to use in emails and social media with the help of Constant Contact’s AI content generator.
For any email or social media post he wants to create, he simply submits the information he wants to share in the generator’s text box, and the content is written for him.
For example, to promote their summer reading challenge, he wanted to share an engaging message that wasn’t just stating the usual information inviting people to join, the prizes they could win, and how great it would be.
He shared how he used Constant Contact’s AI content generator and said, “I’m like, here are some particulars. All right, AI, what do you have for me? And that helped generate some sentences to use.”
It saves him time creating messages reminding their audience about their many programs, events, and services.
Making email creation simple with the Canva integration
Nicholas saves time creating more engaging email newsletters with graphics using the Canva integration in Constant Contact.
Any graphic or image he needs from his Canva account is available in the email editor section of Constant Contact.
“You have a nice, attractive graphic to grab people’s attention, and then they click on it to discover more,” Nicholas said.
Improving Event Turnout with SMS
Getting people to register for events and encouraging them to attend is another goal the library strives to achieve.
On one hand, Nicholas works to get people interested in the events. On the other hand, he needs to remind people about the event to ensure they remember to attend.
He uses Constant Contact’s multi-channel marketing tools, including SMS, email, and social media, to send information and reminders about registering for upcoming events. By requiring event registrations, they can better budget for any needed event supplies.
With 58 percent of Parsippany Library’s custom contact list subscribing to SMS marketing messages only, Nicholas depends heavily on SMS marketing to increase event attendance.
The library uses Constant Contact’s SMS marketing feature to quickly and easily remind people to attend upcoming events.
Having fun moments and sharing what’s happening at the library on social media
Social media has also been an excellent way for the library to share what’s happening with the Parsippany community and to build their subscriber base. Nicholas schedules the library’s Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn content using Constant Contact’s social posting features.
Connecting with the community using social media marketing helps the library continue its marketing goals of reaching its audience and raising awareness of everything it offers.
“Social media is a good way to highlight people doing things. This is one of the many ways people engage in the libraries,” Nicholas said.
Some ways Nicholas uses social media to connect with the community are:
- publishing posts with information about upcoming events
- posting photos from past events
- creating Facebook events to promote upcoming events
- sharing the Facebook event in local Facebook groups.
He also connects with the community in the comments section of the posts. When people learn about the events and services offered at Parsippany Library, he makes sure to use that opportunity to invite them to subscribe to the library’s email newsletter.
Organizing and planning marketing with a content calendar
Consistently creating and keeping track of marketing content for emails, SMS, and social media can be a challenge. Nicholas keeps up his marketing strategy for the library by using Constant Contact’s content calendar to plan when to publish content or send emails and text messages.
Constant Contact’s content calendar helps him visualize and plan a schedule for sending emails and SMS reminders about upcoming events, programs, and classes on their event schedule.
Building their lists
There are many options for creating opportunities for people to subscribe to marketing and updates. Parsippany Library asks for emails and SMS opt-ins when library card holders first sign up for a library card and when they register for a program on the website.
The library also uses its event and program registration process to help drive signups. For example, the Your Next Favorite Book! program is a service the library offers. When people fill out the Google form to share their interests and information, they are also invited to opt-in to receive marketing from the library.
Measuring the results
Lastly, he uses Constant Contact to see how his marketing efforts are paying off for the library. He uses data that shows how many people opened the email, clicked on links to the email, registered for events or classes, unsubscribed from the email list, and which sections of the email caught people’s attention the most (based on where they clicked on the email).
Email performance reporting
One way he uses the reporting tools is to measure conversion, tracking how many people sign up for upcoming events from the emails sent to subscribers.
Another way he uses the reports available in the library’s Constant Contact account is to analyze the email newsletter results to see why people may be unsubscribing from the email list.
“Our contact list is so big. Most of the time, people have moved. It’s not that they’re no longer interested,” he shared.
Heat map
Nicholas also uses the heat map tool to see which areas of the email newsletter people are scrolling to and clicking and how many people are clicking.
By looking at the heat map, he can determine which parts of the email people are most interested in and the programs, events, and services that may be drawing their attention the most.
The heat map tool came in handy when he tested soft-launching the new Seed Library program to the community by placing the announcement at the end of an email newsletter.
To his surprise, they received a lot of inquiries about the Seed Library from the email newsletter, which showed that people were checking out the entire email.
“It’s interesting to see a lot of people look through the whole newsletter. I put it on the very bottom! It wasn’t overwhelming, but it was more than I anticipated,” he said.
Making a lasting impact
Parsippany Library makes a difference in the community by giving people access to free physical books, e-books, audiobooks, technology, crafting items, and much more. For Nicholas, the goal is to get more people to become active library card members by raising awareness of everything the library offers to the community and continuing to offer programs and services that serve the community.
“It’s the library. It’s for everyone,” he said.
By using Constant Contact to promote the library through email, SMS, and social media marketing, Nicholas has increased awareness of the library’s free programs and services.
The numbers show just how much the library is used and loved in Parsippany. They’ve seen hundreds of visitors per day and 20,000+ items borrowed in a month (including 2,000+ ebooks and 2,000+ audiobooks).
“People tell me they love it. It’s wonderful. Whether I’m here or out in the community…they’re thankful,” he shared.
