running academic library induction as a marketing campaign

#UoYTips:Reimagining

Library Induction as a Marketing

Campaign

#pprgconf18

THEPROBLEM

The trouble with academic library inductions generally: too much information at a time when students are saturated with more important things.

The trouble with our own inductions previously: the activities took huge amount of time and money to create but few students actually completed it.

THEPLAN

THEPLAN Run it like a marketing campaign.

Strip out anything that isn’t essential so as not to swamp people with messages

Use clear calls to action

Cross-promote wherever appropriate

Use the #UoYTips hashtag to tie it all together

Tie in more closely with Central Comms

Context

Aims

Promotion

Evaluation

CAPE Campaign

SOMEUOYTIPS

The UoYTips hashtag has several advantages from a marketing point of view:

1) It’s memorable. In fact it’s the only thing you need to remember to find the info you need.

2) It’s cross-platform. You can search any of the platforms above, or just Google it.

The UoYTips hashtag has several advantages from a marketing point of view:

1) It’s memorable. In fact it’s the only thing you need to remember to find the info you need.

2) It’s cross-platform. You can search any of the platforms above, or just Google it.

3) It endures. It’s not time-specific. You can come back to it later, it’s always there, and you don’t need to ask for help to use / find it…

4) It allows people to see key messages more than once. No one changes their behaviour based on the first piece of marketing!

THERESULTS

117 students visited the welcome stand in Week 1, more than we’ve ever had before

Just under 2,000 students took part in the interactive Kahoot quiz as part of face-to-face Induction talks (which they LOVED!)

The online materials we created for the campaign were viewed 3,698 times that month, and we got around 300 engagements on social media

We received unsolicited feedback from 10 academic Departments about how good Induction was compared with previous years

THEFUTURE

Changes for 2017 Induction

1) The first time we’ve evolved the previous year’s project rather than started afresh

2) More emphasis on the website

3) Much greater use of Instagram

4) Videos created (and updated!) using PowToon and Videoscribe

5) We finally found a way to get the students’ own tips – via a #UoYTips whiteboard

Changes for 2018

Full-scale adoption of #UoYTips by the wider University. Our tips will now be part of a wider tract of useful info for students.

This is the closest we’ve got to fulfilling my original aim of doing some Content Marketing…

More stuff:bit.ly/uoytipslibinnovation.blogspot.co.uk@UoYLibrary

running academic library induction as a marketing campaign

Education