Marketing the Best Deal in Town: Your Library. Where is your Purple Owl?

Citation

Calvert, P. (2009), "Marketing the Best Deal in Town: Your Library. Where is your Purple Owl?", The Electronic Library, Vol. 27 No. 2, pp. 356-356. https://doi.org/10.1108/02640470910947755

There have been few good books on this topic since the publication of the second edition of De Saez's Marketing Concepts for Libraries and Information Services (Facet, 2002). This new title from Chandos is an excellent addition to the literature.

Unlike many other books that claim to be on marketing, but really only discuss practical methods of promotion, this book includes the theory that underpins the actions. The emphasis is on the traditional marketing mix (the four Ps) and there does not seem to be a mention of relationship marketing, but no matter, the important point is that this is truly about marketing as a whole rather than just a part of it.

The purple owl in the title is a reference to Seth Godin's book Purple Cow (Penguin, 2003) in which he argues that a business is transformed when it does something “remarkable”. Rossiter interprets this as a need for innovation in our libraries. Librarians need to create new and exciting products and services to keep the customers hooked, she says. Creating products that customers want is part of marketing, of course, rather than the product being the object of the marketing.

One of the most useful chapters in this book is on market research; a topic in its own right, to be sure, but covered more than adequately by Rossiter. One lesson is do not forget the potential of the telephone interview. The book also includes a brief but accurate summary of branding, which is again a topic for a whole book, but this chapter is good enough to blow away some of the misconceptions held by all too many librarians about creating and maintaining a brand.

Perhaps what is missing is more about using new technologies for marketing. We must think more about how to use Facebook, Flick'r and other social networking sites as a means of marketing – and yes, I mean marketing, not just promoting – the library. If that is where many potential customers can be found then we have to find out what they want the library to do for them and how to deliver it.

This does not read like a normal textbook but it could well serve as one, because it has a logical structure and additions such as case studies, exercises and suggestions for further reading. This reviewer has already drawn on the contents for use in a short workshop.