CROSS-MARKETING YOURSELF: ITDOESN'T HAVE TO HURT TO WORK!

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No doubt you've encountered the art of cross-selling as a consumer. You needed shoes, and there also

happen to be socks nearby. How about dessert to go along with that meal? You get the idea—it may

not have occurred to you that you wanted or needed something, but having the idea planted in your

head in a myriad of ways has a compelling effect. Cross-selling is the art of enticing customers with

goods or services that are related to what they are already buying. Now think for a moment about

replacing the word customer with library patron—they may not be buying anything per se, but they

may be moving from being a non-user to a user. How can you apply cross-marketing to better offer the

resources that you have on your campus?

SIMPLE POBLIC RELATIONS ANO CROSS-MARKETING IDEAS1. Spend more time with existing and long-using library patrons than you do appealing to new or

non-users. Relationships require maintenance time. Do you have trouble getting new teachers to

collaborate with you on library instruction, but you do have a few teachers who are the opposite?

Cross-selling is the art of enticing customers

with goods or services that are related to

what they are already buying.

34 71 LIBRARY MEDIA CONNECTION

Spend time nurturing existing collaborative

relationships. Word of your partnership efforts

will spread through the voices of excited

students who are the direct beneficiaries. Time

will bring others into the fold if you strengthen

those already strong relationships. The

marketing idea at work here is: "We have a good

thing going over here. Why don't you check out

what we are up to?"

2. Ask questions that are patron oriented. Get

people talking about their needs and wants.

Learn how to ask questions so that they are

user focused, not you focused. Instead of asking

"What do I need to do to help you?" ask "What

keeps you from researching your paper with the

online databases we have?"

3. Join forces and capitalize on your innate

skills. Just like the socks near the shoes, be the

value-added person in different areas of your

building. For example, librarians are terrific

March/April 2012

By Jennifer Coleman

Amass a stash of nice

note cards and make it a

goal to write one a week.

In four to five sentences

a week, you can build

your image in a strong

and positive way, one

word at a time.

organizers. Offer to come into any teacher's

class and help students who might need a boost

organizing their time or materials. Or offer an

"After School Organizer Boot Camp" where you

help kids get their school binders in order.

Maybe you excel at being detail oriented. Can

you partner with the secretaries, registrar,

or other office personnel once a month or

more to lend them a hand? Offer to proofread

a newsletter or assist in a large project like

schoolwide testing. Not only do you use your

gifts and talents to enrich others, you help

projects run more smoothly, people do their jobs

better, and you are a demonstrated team player.

Nothing but good comes from that.

4. Offer up the space; the library doesn't belong

to you. The library is programs and people, not

a warehouse of books. Allow people's energies

to be part of the space. Offer to lend it out for

meetings, book clubs, even baby showers and

birthday parties for staff members. People

who might come to those social gatherings

March/April 2012

will be looking around at your space while

being engaged in an alternate activity. Take the

opportunity to plant items in strategic places

that might hook a non-user. If you know the

staff party's refreshments are to be set up on

a table near the biographies, display some new

reads that you know might benefit certain

classrooms. In cross-marketing lingo this might

be called bundling.

Think: You might just want cake and punch

at the shower, but I'm going to make sure you

leave with more, like a handful of books that

you didn't even know would enhance your next

science unit!

5. Deliver more. Use your big picture expertise!

Use your knowledge of the curricular timeline

to your advantage. Gather resources in advance

and personally deliver items to teachers a week

before they need them. If you make the point

to create a personal connection with a teacher

and what they are doing before their immediate

point of need, it communicates a sense of caring

community and enhances their performance.

This simple act of being one step ahead will

reduce your stress because it will cut down on

those last minute panic requests. Keeping a

careful eye on the big picture becomes a win-

win for all involved.

6. Write Notes. In a world of e-mails and texts,

written communication gets noticed. Few take

the time to write and send cards anymore.

Written notes really stand out and show that

you care. Amass a stash of nice note cards and

make it a goal to write one a week. Compliment

a colleague on a lesson or thank them for

stopping by the library to check out books for

their literature circle. In four to five sentences a

week, you can build your image in a strong and

positive way, one word at a time. The marketing

idea here is putting yourself in a location that

is unexpected.

Think: The teacher is hurriedly checking their

mailbox in the lounge on a break, and in the

midst of a stack of photocopied to-do lists and

unsolicited catalogs, a personalized envelope

emerges from the stack. It gets opened first! The

librarian is in more than one place at a time?

"Wow, I'm impressed. This reminds me, I need to

go back to the library soon."

7. Be short, concise, and relevant. Everyone is

busy. If you run into someone in the hallway,

chances are they don't have much time.

Respect your colleagues' time and they will

appreciate you all the more. The cross-selling

technique at play is: "Oh, they think they are

just walking down the hall, but in 15 seconds I

will let them know I was thinking of them and

found three resources that can help with next

week's language arts lesson—I'll drop them by

this afternoon!"

Applying one or two of these ideas to your

already full plate does not have to be painful or

laborious. It doesn't have to hurt to work. It just

means being mindful of others, compassionate,

and confident. Know what you have to offer

and offer it. Reach out in a different way

than you usually do. Not only will you grow

professionally, you will grow personally. Bonus!

Jennifer Coleman is a freelance writer and thelibrarian af St Gabriel's Cafholic School in Austin,Texas. She may be reached af jennifer.coleman©sgs-ausfin.org.

Learn how to ask

questions so that

they are user focused,

not you focused.

LIBRARY MEDIA CONNECTION ^ 3 5

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