"At its most basic level, every member transaction, every interaction, every connection .. – positive or negative – is marketing. In a strategic context, marketing drives the entire decision-making process and requires research that is objective, comprehensive and continuous. Marketing is strategic on one hand, the responsibility of everyone on the other. It is a philosophy, not a job - a way of thinking, not a department" 
(Goldman)

“We must remember that marketing library services is not a separate function – it belongs to everyone: it is a way of working and a way of living” 
(Gupta & Jambhekar)

What is marketing in a medical university library?

The strategic value of marketing in a library setting.

Introduction 
Some say that librarians do not market and never have. They count and report, advertise, orient and teach. The reason for this is said to be that there has not been explicit need for marketing before today, because there have never been so many choices for information, reading and entertainment as there is today. In short: competition (Besant & Sharp). I don’t agree. We have always been marketing our libraries, in different ways, perhaps not systematically and in a strategic way. But it is not until now that the strategic value is so great that you can’t neglect marketing. Yes, there is the issue of competition, but for academic libraries perhaps not so much in the sense mentioned above. Our competition is our users being too self sufficient, not understanding the value of the work we do “in the background” because they can find everything themselves from their desktops, not understanding that to a great extent it is librarians making it available. And of course in the long run this has effects on our funding. Why pay for something that you can do yourself?

In the library literature everyone agrees – we have to market, and we have to put our customers at the centre of our services. The foundation of the marketing concept is customer need: everything an organization does should revolve around and stem from a precise understanding of the customers true need. If you manufacture and sell quarter-inch drill bits, it’s not drills that the customers need - but quarter-inch holes! (Murphy)

Vocabulary
But is it acceptable to use the words marketing and customers in a publicly funded university library? I believe that terms such as marketing and customers are not necessarily comfortable for librarians unless they have experience from the corporate sector. A reason for this might be that you relate the words strongly to buying and selling, to aggressive advertising where you use all kinds of ugly tricks just to maximize your profit (Koontz & Rockwood). Another reason might be that in libraries we tend to call our users patrons because they, unlike customers, should be taught to be self-sufficient (Soules). I tend to equal marketing to information – informing your customers in which areas the library can be of benefit to them, and hopefully also get input regarding the service they receive.

There is a built in conflict in our libraries today: on the one hand we want our users to be more self-sufficient, and on the other we worry that we will not be needed any longer. We have to choose our future! If we want to stay alive, if we know that our work adds value, we also have to take the consequences! We have to provide information in a way that suits almost all the needs and wants of the present day users, we have to start treating them like customers with the power to make demands on the services we offer (Singh). The library will loose its raison d’être and will find it harder and harder to argue for its funding. This doesn’t mean that we should do everything the customers ask for, without limitations, and that we do not have a pedagogical responsibility. We have a triple role as a service provider, marketer and pedagogue.

A market oriented library has a continuous dialogue with its customers which enable the library to focus its services and offer the products and services of greatest value for the customers, and also to predict their future needs. A library that doesn’t change according to the needs of the customers, but only according to the ideas of the library staff, cannot be said to market the library at all, even if they actively promote library use.

The concept of marketing 

Traditional marketing 
The most widely taught marketing concept has been the marketing mix theory: the 4 Ps (product, price, place and promotion). 

•	Product (or service): working from a precise knowledge of customer need, a product or service is designed to meet that need
•	Price: the product must be made at a cost that allows the company to market it at a price the customer can afford and that is competitive with alternative products
•	Place (distribution): once the product or service is developed, a distribution system must be designed to make the product conveniently available to the customer
•	Promotion: the product’s availability, advantages, and price must be made known to the purchasing public. This may be accomplished through a variety of approaches ranging from word of mouth to aggressive advertising.

The marketing mix approach has been criticized for being incomplete, not bearing in mind properly the needs of the customer, and disregarding services marketing. In order to overcome some of its deficiencies, the 4Ps have been expanded, to 5, 6, 7 and 15Ps. Both the marketing mix and relationship marketing are – in theory at least – based on the marketing concept which puts customers and their needs as the focus. In practice, the 4Ps are too often used for manipulation of customers, exploiting customer ignorance (Soules and Singh). Most individuals think of marketing only in terms of the last P, or advertising. In fact, the true marketing concept is an integral part of strategic planning that starts with the identification of customer need and ends with the successful sale and distribution of the product or service (Murphy).

Some authors state that “Very few libraries undertake formal marketing planning and prepare marketing plans”. I think this is true, yes we market, but we seldom do it in a strategic way, and even more seldom prepare marketing plans. A reason for this could be that the marketing mix theory is not applicable to a service function like libraries, and that it takes a very long time to prepare a state of the art marketing plan, which many of us would consider an academic task with little relation to reality. I think most libraries use the four Ps, without thinking about it, but the most commonly used element of marketing is still promotion. All of this suggests a lack of understanding of the marketing process, of which promotion is just one element” (Besant & Sharp). Traditional marketing places emphasis on quantity versus quality, on the product rather than the customer (Besant & Sharp). It is focused on acquiring more customers. This is not the one aim of a library, just one important part of what we want to accomplish. 

In recent years the marketing paradigm has shifted towards relationship marketing. A way of illustrating the concepts in a library setting could look like this:
•	Library oriented marketing goals: promote library use, which will in turn lead to increased support and defend against budget cuts; justify existence of library; and publicize a job well done (the 4Ps)
•	Customer oriented marketing goals: inform users about collection and services; demystify libraries and make them more user-friendly; and overcome user fear or reluctance (relationship marketing) (Besant & Sharp).

Relationship marketing 
There are many definitions of relationship marketing, one of them is “Traditional marketing is about getting customers. Relationship marketing addresses the twin concerns – getting and keeping customers” (Besant & Sharp).  A working definition by one of the relationship marketing pioneers would be as follows: “marketing is to establish, maintain, and enhance ... relationships with customers and other partners … so that the objectives of the parties are met. This is achieved by a mutual exchange and fulfilment of promises” (Grönroos). 

Relationship marketing is based on a mutual interest between library and customer, it is a demonstration of a deep and abiding regard for the customer and his/her needs. It also encompasses every employee that represents the library (Besant & Sharp). If you study recent articles about marketing in libraries, with some knowledge about the different theories, you will find that many authors that never mention relationship marketing nevertheless applies the concept to their work (i.e. Gupta & Jambekhar).

Relationship marketing is based on the notion of trusting cooperation with known customers. This is the basic concept of a library. A library operates with a known set of customers. A library also operates on trust. When a customer walks into the library/contacts the library, he trusts that you will find the material or information he needs. The library in turn trusts that the client will return the items you borrow within the specified borrowing period. Libraries are built around relationships with booksellers, database providers, library consortia, and our customers. Customers are why libraries exist. It seems evident that the way to create a dynamic library organisation is by understanding and cultivating customers. Relationship marketing seems to be an obvious fit for libraries (Besant & Sharp, Singh). The 4Ps and their extensions will always be needed, but the paradigm shift develops their role from that of being founding parameters of marketing to one of being contributing parameters to relationships, networks and interaction.

What then is a relationship with a customer? It consists of an episode of encounters through resources, facilities, services, and service providers, which may extend over many transactions and several years. It is well known that the attitudes that are most useful are those that are formed through personal behaviour. A faculty member who has a direct, positive personal library experience will have a more enduring positive attitude than a faculty member who reads about library services in a newsletter. Repeated exposure to services is also extremely important (Wolpert, Rowley).

To be able to build relationships with your customers some things are vital: 
The library management must believe and act according to relationship marketing principles, and must also implement a corporate culture where this is embraced by all staff. This emphasises the need for internal marketing. The idea is that no library department can exist on its own; we’re all there for the customers. An example could be that the “front staff” is the customer of the cataloguing department because they rely on a professionally updated catalogue to provide the customers with the correct information about the library holdings. “Take care of the internal customers – they will take care of the external customers”.

Relationship marketing is an activity that does not work unless everyone believes in it. It should be everywhere in the sense that there has to be a marketing aspect in all roles, tasks and departments of a service organisation. In other words; there has to be an appreciation of the customer in all tasks that are performed in a library. The customer is the responsibility of everyone in the library. Marketing is a question of the attitudes of the staff and the entire organisation. Goods are used, but services are experienced. The people who work in the library are the most important marketing resource. The deciding factors for success are our attitude and our commitment to our users, clients, customers, patrons, or employers. The marketing concept must guide all functions and departments of the library and must be understood and accepted by everyone (Singh, Gupta & Jambhekar).

You need to know/collect and act on a lot of information about your customers. It can be obtained in various ways; customer feedback, surveys or focus groups or one-on-one transactions (Soules). A systematic relationship marketing approach requires an analysis of the customers of a library, and an understanding of the aspects of the services that creates value. The challenge is then to develop a series of value generating activities that continues to forge relationships with customers (Rowley). 
First of all you have to identify your target customer group/s. Singh provides us with a checklist to use on these groups:
•	Who are they?
•	What are their characteristics?
•	How much do they know about what the library has to offer?
•	What triggers their decision to use the library?
•	How do they use the library?
•	What services do they want now?
•	What services will they want in the future?
•	What are their perceptions and expectations?
•	What benefits are they looking for?
•	Which kinds of life experiences have our customers had in terms of library use?

Singh also lists several specific relationship marketing based questions relevant to your target customer groups. The most relevant ones that you always have to ask yourself are:
•	How do you reach this target client base?
•	How do you communicate with the customers about library services and products?

He also poses the question if you treat all users equally. My conviction and my experience tells me that it is impossible, and not desirable. 

In recent years a popular buzz-word in the library context has been; pro-active. You have to develop your services to become pro-active instead of re-active. I’m convinced that applying relationship marketing principles is an important tool in this development. In the literature there is evidence of additional positive results of relationship marketing: reduced costs, more meaningful relationships, increased customer numbers, better customer loyalty and retention, and a sure way to prove that libraries and librarians add value. We have to shift our focus to building relationships and partnerships just as substantive as the resources and services we have spent so long developing. If we nurture those relationships and create a loyal customer base they will do some of our marketing for us (Soules).
 
Branding
Branding is another of the popular buzz-words. Branding means imprinting the identity of the library in the customer’s minds. One part of the identity is the library logo and name used consistently (Soules), but the basic purposes of brand identity are to make it easier for consumers to identify and remember a particular product and to strengthen the association of a product with one or more attributes of quality (Wolpert). Branding builds a relationship with people by creating and using a unique set of associations to represent what a brand stands for and its implied promise. While logos are part of a brand’s identity, to effectively communicate value, logos must be supported by a 360-degree branding strategy that includes the brand name, personality, position and credibility (Olson 2002)

The central function of creating distinction among information services provides significant benefits for the customer; first, brands reduce the level of effort a consumer must put into assuring a specific, desired level of quality; second, brands reduce the perceived risk of making a costly mistake; and third, brands provide certain psychological rewards to the consumer such as prestige or status. For libraries there are several benefits, such as the return on the invested time in the task of training patrons in the use of the collection (Wolpert).

Ann Wolpert, director of MIT libraries, argues that libraries already have strong brands, for historical reasons. I think she’s right, but we have to take care not to loose our strong brands. Strong brands are built by understanding and focusing on three elements; quality, consumer attitude and image  Image can be viewed as three dimensional:

A

C

B

	        					
A – Represents the image of the library in the eyes of the staff (this is the best place to work,   
       we can never satisfy our customers etc)
B - Represents the image you want to convey to your customers
C – Represents the image of the library in the eyes of your customers

The circles can overlap more or less. If the staff view of the image is negative you don’t want circle A and C to overlap very much. On the other hand it is desired that circle B and C are more or less on top of each other, especially if you have a systematic approach to marketing. But unless the organisation’s own view of itself is positive circle B and C cannot overlap very much. In a well functioning organisation with a positive internal image the three circles will overlap to a great extent. 

You have to understand that everything about the library is part of the image. Firstly, matching your library’s image to that of the larger organization will help the library to be perceived as part of the team. Secondly, you have to be aware that the library image involves more areas of your library than you may think. A library’s image is composed of everything in and about the library that a client encounters. This includes all the papers and products your library generates, as well as the physical aspects of the library, like layout, lightning and comfortable chairs! Some think, and I agree, that the most important part of the library image is projected by the staff. It doesn’t matter if each member of your staff is a top-flight professional, if they don’t project the right image. A helpful, professional-looking, and friendly staff with exactly the same qualifications and abilities will do so much more for the image, simply because they are inviting use of their services and expertise (Olson 1993).

Measuring success
Measuring is often overlooked - because it is notoriously difficult. This is simply because there is usually no “control” situation, which makes it difficult to differentiate between the customer response after marketing, and what that response might have been without marketing. The measures are also of the subjective kind, including customer satisfaction, reputation, level of customer engagement with the service, and visibility in the market (Rowley).
If you trust in the traditional marketing mix the basis for evaluation is statistics, quantitative data collected during a long period of time (Koontz & Rockwood). This is not sufficient if you belong to the growing believers in relationship marketing. 
During recent years the word value has been used a lot when talking about measuring library performance. A value profile identifies the criteria people use to evaluate their exchanges with the library, usually expressed as levels of satisfaction. Armed with a value profile, an information professional has the advantage of insight – of knowing what it takes for information services to be perceived at the highest level of satisfaction (Olson). There are several ways to approach measuring value, which I will not dwell on here. In the literature it is advised that you seek assistance from professionals outside the library when attempting to measure the value of the library services.

Marketing in practice – the Karolinska Institutet University Library

Background
Karolinska Institutet was founded in 1810 as a medical university, and today it is one of Europe's largest medical universities. It is also Sweden’s largest centre for medical training and research, accounting for 30 per cent of the medical training and 40 per cent of the medical academic research that is performed in Sweden. Karolinska Institutet educates for all professions in health care sector, and has about 7000 students and 3500 permanent staff positions.

The library was founded the same year as the institute and it is the largest medical library in the Nordic countries. It’s also a national expert library in the field of medicine. We have about 130 full time staff who works in two equally large libraries on the two campuses in the Stockholm area. The physical libraries are student centred – with study areas, group rooms, copying, computers, customer services, textbooks etc. Our electronic services are faculty centred, and are accessible from all computers on campus, and via a proxy-solution from any computer in the world. The libraries are also open to the public – both walk in use and telephone/e-mail customer services. As the largest medical library in the country we also have a lot of users in other libraries, for inter library loans etc.

Marketing at the Karolinska Institutet University Library (KIB)
At KIB we work with a mix of traditional marketing methods and relationship marketing, with a focus on building relations with students and staff at Karolinska Institutet. We are not afraid to call our users customers, and we have a department called Customer services. The library director has worked actively towards a corporate culture that focuses on building relationships, and made sure that all library staff is aware of how important it is. He is himself doing a lot of the work towards senior management at the university, and also towards the library community in Sweden. A few years ago he was chosen for the national library marketing award for his excellent marketing of KIB. 

As a basis for my work with the library image, the library director has identified some keywords to describe the image the library desires: dialogue, fantasy, flexibility, aiming towards the future, happiness, it-solutions, creativity, knowledge, customer focus, leading, receptive, humaneness, meeting place, pedagogical, pro active, professional, service minded, education, progress, openness and susceptibility.

Our primary customers are students, PhD students, faculty and staff, as well as funding bodies at Karolinska Institutet, and it is towards these groups that our marketing efforts are targeted. 

I work with the library director on the strategic goals for our marketing activities, and they are then made operational by me and a group of librarians. For the last four years we have produced a paper listing the activities we plan for the coming year. It is not a state of the art marketing plan, and the activities and customer segments are chosen more or less on gut feeling. Every year the plan is followed up, and I also keep track of all activities that could fall under the heading “marketing”, i.e. study visits to the libraries, papers given at conferences, outreach activities on campus etc. When it comes to measuring our efforts we are still mostly collecting quantitative data. 

My role is to help in fostering the corporate culture, to co-ordinate, plan and follow up all our marketing activities. Of course I also take part in some of the activities. I am also part of the executive board of the library, which is vital to having first hand information about library goals and activities.
 
This year we have decided to take our marketing efforts one step further and work more systematic and strategic. During this fall we will start using focus groups to get more feedback on library services, and the wants and needs of our customers.

But is it really possible to write a state of the art marketing plan in a university library? Yes, I think it is, and I think it is vital to marketing in libraries. Without a marketing plan you may do pretty well, but it is easy to loose focus, and impossible to have a long term strategic goal. 

In my experience, even if there is an awareness and acceptance of how important marketing is to the future of the library, there are never resources to match. In the corporate sector the cost of marketing is always part of the budget, but in publicly funded libraries it is hard to set aside time and money for this work. I am fortunate since the director of the library thinks it’s so important he wants me to work full time with these tasks. I also have a small, but still, marketing budget.
´
To summarize marketing at KIB
•	High awareness about marketing and the value and importance of relationships and a strong brand
•	Not as structured as we would like to!
•	Not good at measuring at all!

How to learn more about marketing in libraries
My first tip to all of you is to read widely. It is not enough to read every article published in the library literature about how to market your library. The new ideas and concepts are not found here, but in the literature about marketing in the service industry! 

I’m only aware of one library journal dedicated to marketing: Marketing Library Services (ISSN 0896-3908), which in its profile is very American, but nevertheless worth checking.

Another source of information and inspiration is the IFLA section on Management and Marketing with its newsletter (http://www.ifla.org/VII/s34/somm.htm). The section organises pre-conference meetings to the IFLA conferences, and also awards the annual IFLA 3M International Marketing Award. 

I’m also a member of an e-mail discussion list devoted to library marketing, but in my experience there is not a lot of activity on that list (mrktlib@listserv.louisville.edu.
“This list will be used to distribute information concerning medical and special library marketing and promotion”).

In Sweden the Swedish Library Association has a section dedicated to marketing, in the UK the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (cilip) has its Publicity and Public Relations Group (http://www.cilip.org.uk/groups/pprg/index.html). If your national library association has not understood the importance of marketing in libraries I strongly suggest that you take the initiative in starting a national collaboration on these questions! 

References

Besant, Larry X. & Sharp, Deborah – Libraries and relationship marketing. Information outlook 2000(March):17-22

Goldman, Neil – All for one survival marketing. Credit Union Management 1999(Nov):46 

Grönroos, Christian – Strategic management and marketing : managing the moments of truth in service competition. Lexington : Free Press, 1990

Gummesson, Evert – Making relationship marketing operational. International Journal of Service Industry Management 1994;5(5):5-20

Gupta, Dinesh K. & Jambhekar, Ashok – What is marketing in libraries? Concepts, orientations, and practice. Information outlook 2002(November):24-30

Koontz, Christine M. & Rockwood, Persis E. – Developing performance measures within a marketing frame of reference. New Library World 2001;102(1163/1164):146-53

Murphy, Kurt R. – Marketing and library management. Library Administration and Management 1991;5(3):155-8

Olson, Christine A. – Test your library’s marketing IQ.  Medical Reference Services Quarterly 1993;12(3):75-83

Olson, Christine A. – What’s in it for them? Communicating the value of information services. Information Outlook 2002(November):19-23

Rowley, Jennifer – Information marketing : seven questions. Library Management 2003;24(1/2):13-9

Singh, Rajesh – Developing relationship marketing with customers : a Scandinavian perspective. Library management 2003;24(1/2):34-43

Soules, Aline – The principles of marketing and relationship marketing. portal : Libraries and the Academy 2001;1(3):339-50

Wolpert, Ann J. – Marketing strategies : lessons for libraries from commercial brand management. IATUL Proceedings, Vol. 9, nr 99 (1999).
http://www.iatul.org/conference/proceedings/vol09/papers/wolpert.html [2004-08-25]

Further reading:

Seiss, Judith A. – The visible librarian : asserting your value with marketing and advocacy. Chicago : American Library Association, 2003

De Sáez, Eileen Elliott – Marketing concepts for libraries and information services. London : Library Association, 2002