Top Ten Tips for Brochure Design

(for libraries or anyone else)

1. Figure out the main objective of the piece. Is it an advertising brochure, or an information brochure? It cannot do both equally - you need to decide what is the top priority.

2. Think about the "vibe" you want the piece to have. Should it be accessible and welcoming? Sleek and corporate? Hip and trendy? Don't just wing this - decide in advance. It will help you as you select fonts, colors and photos.

3. Word and Publisher templates are not your friends. They're the cutting edge of design from the 80's. Avoid.

4. Clip art is not your friend. Clip art tends to make a publication look amateur. Even if you are limited to black-and-white, try using graphic elements (like large blocks of ink, and bold fonts) rather than clip art.

5. Avoid aligning elements right on the fold. Folding is almost never an exact science, so graphic elements that need to be folded just-so are likely to end up looking bad. Instead, build a small folding buffer into the design.

6. Cut down your text. Cut it drastically. Cut it in half. The more text there is, the less likely people are to read it. (I know, I know, this is a horrible thing to say to information professionals. But you have to do it.)

7. In that vein, don't explain things that don't need explaining. Saying "Free Wi -fi" is enough - you don't need to write a paragraph about it.

8. A single large image is better than a collage of images. I know it's tempting to try to include lots of pictures, to advertise all your different services and appeal to all your varied users. Restrain this impulse and select a few striking images to illustrate your main point.

9. Limit your fonts. Don't use more than two - and they should both be very easy to read.

10. Skim-ability is important. Use headings, and make them meaningful. Separate chunks of information with color blocks. Use bullet points.

Have fun!

All Things to All People: Large-focus versus small-focus marketing

There is a long-running, low-level debate in our library system about the target audience for our story times: should we design them for a specific age/reading level, or should we try to create broader multi-age appeal? Some people make the argument that by broadening the appeal, we are serving more children. Other staff say that these broadly-designed storytimes are losing their early-literacy benefits; since we can't design for a specific reading level, we can't focus on any particular skills, and the result is that we don't help anyone.

As I listened to my coworkers discussing this issue yesterday, I was struck by how well this debate applies to marketing as well. What works better, a "something-for-everyone" approach, or a targeted effort?

Something-for-everyone is a tempting path for library marketing because it is so true. A wide range of people use the library, and there's a wide range of people who don't use the library, who should. And yet, it is like nails on a blackboard to me when we start to create a new bookmark, and everyone starts (metaphorically) shouting out services that we ought to mention. "Put something about our new downloadable books! Add a bit about room reservations. Be sure to include this new grant-funded program we're running! Make it appeal to twenty-somethings, but also to seniors. Put in something about the small business resource center, because some of these moms might be business owners also!"

No.

I realize that our print budget is tight, and that we would all love it if this one bookmark could appeal to all groups, and convey information about all our services. But by trying to cram in too many functions, trying to appeal to too many audiences, all we're really creating is confusion. Our marketing piece doesn't know what it's trying to say or who it is trying to tell.

How do we fix it? We target, and we simplify. We pick a group, like "Moms", and we tell them what the library can do for them. We tell them what a particular SERVICE can do for them. Then we have a piece that's truly versatile, because we know that wherever we take it or put it, when moms see it they'll think "Oh, that's for me."

SEO: Quick Tips for Libraries

If you've already heard a bit about SEO, you may find the idea terrifying, because the potential scope is so large. It can be a huge project requiring a great deal of time and expertise. But please don't run away screaming; I've got some quick tips that can get you started.

(I already know what SEO is; I want to skip straight to the tips)

Or you may be wondering, What on earth is SEO? Well, I'm glad you asked, because I've been doing some reading, and I'm learning a lot.

SEO is Search Engine Optimization. Basically, this means "making sure that people who are looking for you (whether they know it or not) can find you. So: you want them to be able to find you if they google you; for example, if they type "marketing non librarian." You want them to be able to find you even if they can't remember the name of your organization: "publicity not a librarian" (you can see that I don't turn up here at all, so I obviously need some tips!) Ideally, you want to be at the top of the page when someone searches for what you do: "library marketing blog" (again, not in the list.)

This applies to libraries in a big way. Don't you want people to be able to find you when they search for "teen events [yourtown]"? Or "job search help [yourtown]"? Or when they search for your annual "humpty dumpty festival"?

Of course you do! And there are some very simple things you can do to help this happen.

1. Web pages should have meaningful titles. Don't just have the title of every page say "Mytown Public Library." Include some descriptive information, such as "Mytown Public Library - Job Search Resources" or "Mytown Public Library - Teen Events." (By "title" I mean the stuff that goes inside the "title" tag, and shows up in the bar at the top of the window. But this could also apply to the headings you use.)

2. One topic per page is best. If something is important, it needs its own page. If your annual Humpty Dumpty Festival is a big deal, don't bury it in a mile-long listing of events - give it its own page, and this will help search engines find it.

3. Put relevant text on the page. So you've created a page for your Humpty Dumpty Festival. Don't just upload a pdf of your flier and leave it at that. Add some text that will make sense if you see it in the search results: "The annual Humpty Dumpty Festival is held the third weekend in September at the Mytown Public Library."

4. Don't put important information in images or in Flash. Search engines can't find words in images or Flash. So if important information - like the topic of a page or the name of an event - is only displayed in an image or in Flash, Google will not find it. If you're using images to convey information, be sure to use alt tags on the images. If you're putting information in Flash (for instance, in a slide show) then make sure the information is also available elsewhere in text format.

5. Links are important to search engines. In some way that I don't fully understand (yet), it changes your search rankings when you link to people, and when they link to you.

How do I get people to link to me?
I don't know! This is a tough question. I can offer a few suggestions:
-Take advantage of your community partnerships; offer to link to their site if they can link to yours.
-Add your events to online event listings. Your local paper, or other local sites, may have a section where you can list your events for free. This builds links, and as an added bonus, you get free publicity!

I'll leave you with a few articles about SEO.
This claims to be a list of basic tips, but it's not; it's a quick run-though of the potential scope of search engine optimization:
http://www.businessinsider.com/10-basic-seo-tips-everyone-should-know-2010-1#monitor-where-you-stand-1

This is one of the nicest bare-bones guides I've seen:
http://ezinearticles.com/?Bare-Minimum-On-Page-SEO&id=1843695

A super-intensive (and graphically excellent!) beginner's guide: (full disclosure: I haven't read it all. But what I read seemed good!)
http://guides.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-search-engine-optimization

Tiny, Tiny Text; or, Information and Advertising in Library Publicity

I can't even tell you how many times I've had this conversation:

Designer: If we want this to fit on one page, we'll need to cut some of the text.
Librarian: That reminds me, I thought of a few things to add!

Librarians are "Information Professionals." Connecting people to the information they need is part of a library's core mission; it's not surprising that librarians always want to add one more link to the website, one more sentence to the description, one more book to the list.

This is not usually a good idea. Why? Well, in order to answer that, let's talk about the function of whatever-it-is I'm producing for you.

If the purpose of the piece is to advertise something - say, a weekly "teen gaming" activity - then it's important to concentrate on the basics: let people know when and where, and make it look appealing. Now, information professionals usually want to list the games we have available, or include some information about how gaming increases literacy, and maybe some links to some articles. Soon, the flyer is covered with tiny, tiny text. When-and-where is hidden in a mass of other information, and the appeal has been lost. No teen would ever pick it up this document, because it looks like homework - an academic paper, complete with footnotes, crammed onto a half-sheet of paper. Advertising pieces can only EFFECTIVELY convey a bare minimun of information, so choose carefully. Decide in advance what the piece needs to convey, and then limit yourself to those necessities.

But what about informational documents? Actually, the rules remain true. It's equally important to prioritize your content - decide what you must include and what you'd like to include if there's space. You don't want to risk leaving out or obscuring something truly important in favor of something that's only tangentially relevent.

It's also important to remember, when you're making a list of selected resources, that "selected" is a key word here. People don't want to wade through every book in the business section; that's why they need a librarian's help in the first place. By the same token, they don't want to wade through a list of every book in the business section. They need us to narrow our focus so that we can help them narrow theirs.

I hope my librarian co-workers understand this - that when I ask them to trim lists and cut text, I'm not trying to limit the flow of information for the sake of "making things pretty." It's all about function and usability.