Review

Module 3: Products in the Marketing Mix

Marketing library products

Marketing requires a critical analysis of the marketing mix (the 4Ps: product, place, price, and promotion) to identify the nature, features, benefits, and value of the products to the customer.

Products are tangible goods and services of value to the user. Library products are services, resources, programming, events, or instruction, for example, that are offered to the community.

In marketing, perception is reality. Library products have no value to users unless the users can perceive the value. One purpose of marketing is to communicate the benefits and the value of library products to our users.

We need to communicate product features (variety, quality, design, scope) and value (reliability, quality, performance, durability, image, trends) to the community, and market what the library does best -- in ways that will appeal to our customers.

For libraries "place" is not limited to physical location. It includes accessibility of information resources in the building, in a library system, through networks, on the Internet, at offsite locations, or delivered -- and the convenience of the times that our services are available.

In addition to fee-based services, price in library marketing refers to the cost of establishing and maintaining a service -- ultimately passed along to users as taxes. Also consider what a trip to the library is worth to users in terms of time to get to the library, time to learn the systems, or time to use the services.

Promotion is a highly visible part of marketing, but it is only part of marketing. It is most successful when the selected product, the target market, and the marketing plan goals are based on research.

Quiz