Marketing & PR Committee: A Year in Review

The Marketing and Public Relations Committee of NEO-RLS has been working hard over the past year to examine and discover a variety of innovative ways to convey the many valuable services and benefits that NEO-RLS has to offer to its membership. We developed our committee charge which states, “The Marketing/PR Committee serves as a resource to the Executive Director in areas of marketing and public relations in order to ensure effective message content and delivery and increase recognition of the services and benefits of NEO-RLS membership for the libraries of the region.”

One of our goals this year was to originate practices that would allow NEO-RLS to communicate information in a manner that is both intriguing and interesting as well as easy to read, navigate and understand. One project that we were committed to was the evaluation of the NEO-RLS website. We began by reviewing data analytics to learn how visitors were using the website and find ways to enhance the user experience. Committee members worked with NEO-RLS Executive Director, Betsy Lantz, and Continuing Education Coordinator, Holly Klingler, to reformat the homepage making it more visually appealing. As a result, the homepage banner has been redesigned to depict photographs of real people enjoying NEO-RLS programs and services. In addition, content on the home page has been broken down into story blocks so that information is more streamlined and simpler to find on the page. Finally, the committee reviewed a list of meta keywords to incorporate into the website to communicate information to search engines allowing more people to find the site and learn about NEO-RLS.    

Another area of focus for the committee was the weekly newsletter that is sent out by the Executive Director via e-mail to the membership. The committee recommended making changes to the Newsletter that were similar in nature to those made to the website, concentrating on ways to make the newsletter more aesthetically pleasing and implementing a static, predictable, easy to navigate block style format that would draw the user’s eye to pertinent information related to their areas of interest. Adding other features such as clickable logos and links that direct users to the NEO-RLS website was another way to provide users with even more useful information.

As we move forward, the committee plans to embark upon ideas for incorporating a more personal and interactive approach to marketing and PR strategies. Look for exciting new features in the future, such as member testimonials on the website and social media campaigns that engage users while promoting programs and services. I am so honored to have been a part of this committee which has done some wonderful things over the past year, and I can’t wait to see what we do next. I invite you to join us and be a part of helping NEO-RLS be the catalyst for maximizing library potential.

2020-2021 Marketing/PR Committee Members: Kim Garrett, Chair (Kinsman Public Library), Michelle Alleman (McKinley Memorial Library), Ann Malthaner (Stow-Munroe Falls Public Library), Margaret Simon (Shaker Heights Public Library), and Ragan Snead (Lakeland Community College).  Ex Officio:  William Rutger (Avon Lake Public Library), Betsy Lantz and Debbie Blair (NEO-RLS).