Smartest Card: What’s Your Story

Karen Hyman, Executive Director of the South Jersey Regional Library Cooperative, always has something interesting to say, and the humor in her delivery is just downright entertaining. After her fabulous presentation at the Smartest Card symposium at Midwinter, her presentation on telling a story to market, defend, or just talk about your library was not only a logical next step, but also fit in with the marketing theme of the preconference.

Her basic message was so simple, yet so brilliant. Tell stories because they’re memorable, they tell something about your organization, and they work. Don’t give them a laundry list of facts. They don’t care about numbers, you lost them at the first statistic. What trustee boards, town budget meeting attendees, potential funders, and even just patrons want to know why the library matters, and why to care.

Karen has a four-step process for stories:

- Creating the story.
- Framing the story.
- Creating opportunities to tell.
- Telling it. [And, telling it well.]

But how does one create a story?

- Decide what do you want to say
- Find examples for your story
- “Make the story about them,” and why the story matters to them
- “Make something happen”

When you deliver your story, Karen says you should portray the feeling that “It’s Christmas, and we’re all drinking Budweiser, and we all love each other.” It’s also the feeling that your listeners should have. Focus on the human interest part of what you’re getting across, and only sprinkle the story, your “elevator pitch”, with numbers as necessary. Be brief, speak to your audience to let them know why they should care, thank them for the opportunity, and don’t forget to tell them what you came for and ask for it (more money, more staff, the opportunity to make the community shine again, etc.).

An example of word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing that tells a story
At Hartford Public Library, everyone on staff is an advocate. Everyone on staff chooses a group or groups, or is assigned to a group or groups, and they talk the talk about their library, and they love it. But remember, your staff needs to love talking about the library to do something like this, you can’t just tell people they have to love being an advocate for the library in the groups they frequent. [So, really, make your library a place your staff will love to talk about!]

Using the local landscape to tell a story
If you look at the Ocean County Library web site, you can see that it tells a story. The Customer Quotes & Fun section, which is currently being rebuilt, normally lists a story from a patron about how much they love the library, and how the library has helped them. This library is able to collect this information, and understanding the community, share the information with the community, through simple stories.

Getting started now
- Add survey pop-ups at the end of in-house automated services, like Internet use time-outs, or when a patron closes a browser. It’s amazing the kind of content you’ll get.

- Have “Can we quote you?” sheets at every desk, and if someone says something you can use as a story, ask them if they or you can jot it down.

- At Reading Public Library, where I work, we have “Moments of Truth”, where we jot down an experience we had with a patron where we felt like it really made a difference. The quotes are added to staff newsletters, and often requested by city hall as ammunition and support material in favor of the library.

- Follow many of the tips given by Peggy and Linda on WOM marketing.

Gathering stories is an ongoing process, and it helps your library prepare to counter the bad experience stories.

What do you do with the people who aren’t comfortable talking in front of people? The story might be a good way to start to acclimate them to talking about the library, since good stories are the kinds people want to tell over and over again to everyone.

Don’t be that person who stands before a group and reads from a single-spaced sheet of paper full of boring numbers that no one cares about. Don’t wait until you need to defend your library to have a clear message. Have something ready to tell the world why you rock, and why you need what you need when you need it, because you’re worth it. Besides, everyone loves a good story.