The Hook: Planning a Sellable Event

One thing we’ve discovered when planning large events is that big events need a hook. The “hook” is the thing that reels people in – a super-cool activity, or a chance to win a great prize, or a pre-existing notion that the event is fun. Let me offer some examples:

At the library’s Comic-Con, our “hook” is the pre-conceived notion that a Comic-Con is cool. Our target audience already knows what a Comic-Con is, and they already think a Comic-Con is cool, so we don’t have to sell the idea. We just have to let people know when it is, and make sure that the publicity supports their idea of it.

At our library’s annual Teen Read Week Masquerade, we have to go one step further. Nobody knows what a “Teen Read Week Masquerade” is or what it looks like, so at the same time that we’re spreading information about our event, we also have to sell the IDEA of our event. Our hook is the prizes. We heavily advertise our grand prize, which is usually a tablet, and the winner must be present to win. In addition, we give away books to EVERY attendee. Between the chance to win a terrific prize, and the guarantee of free books, we are able to incentivize attendance in a significant way. Of course, the prizes don’t provide the fun – our activities provide the fun. The prizes just offer a hook.

A hook provides an entry point, something to make people take notice and say to themselves, “Hey, maybe I should go to that!” You’ve got to have it, and you’ve got to plan it. The best promotions in the world won’t get good attendance unless your event has an easily-stated, easily-understood selling point. “Lots of cool activities” won’t do it – not even if you actually do have lots of really cool activities. Our Dia de los Ninos event struggles every year, and it’s because no one knows what it is, and nothing that happens there is quite enough to change people’s indifference into interest.

The larger lesson here is a familiar one: marketing begins in the planning stages, not in the promotion stages. You’ve got to know what you’re selling, and you have to be sure that people want it.

Value Frameworks

Here's some good reading:
http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/2013/10/who-counts-grappling-with-attendance-as.html

And it does bring up the question: is attendance our main measurement for success? I work in event planning, so let's use that as an example. Are the most popular events the best ones?

In terms of what we report and measure, we certainly act as though popularity is the only thing that matters. But we know, we know in our hearts, that it's not. An event where 100 people watch a skateboarding dog is NOT a "better" event than a class where 20 kids use Lego to learn about science. I think most library people would feel like the science class was more valuable, and a better use of taxpayer dollars, than the skateboarding dog.

Which means that we need to use another framework to define our success. To put it another way, when someone asks, "How did the Lego program go?" we need an answer that doesn't relate to attendance. "It was wonderful, the kids had fun and learned a lot!" is a good start.

But of course, that's just a start. Most of the time, when we are explaining why something is valuable, it's important to be professional and convincing. Which means that you need to take that statement and turn it into something you can tell your boss, and maybe something you can tell the board, or tell the taxpayers.

My quick and dirty method for doing this is to find one thing to measure that isn't attendance. Use your library's mission statement, your strategic plan, or your department's goals to figure out what this should be.

For example, if your mission has to do with learning, think about doing a quiz question at the end of the Lego class. Did the kids get it right? You can report that 90% of the kids in the class displayed an understanding of the such-and-such principle after your class. If your mission has to do with inspiration, try asking them instead if they plan to go home and use what they learned to make more Lego creations. If your mission has to do with providing opportunities, ask the parents whether they would have been able to do this with their child at home.

If you don't have a stated mission or goals, then just find some commonly-agreed-on Good Thing to support. If your boss is always happy to hear that people are checking out books, try setting up a display of Lego books in the classroom. Count how many of the items get checked out, or count how many kids take books from the display. Then you can say "75% of attendees checked out Lego books after the program!"

This is going to help you in several ways:

First of all, it will help you express the value of what you're doing. Right away, your projects will sound more purposeful and more impressive. If you work in a library (or other non-profit) then you probably believe pretty strongly in your work. This is going to help you get other people on board.

Second, it will actually add value to your projects. Here's a recent example from my job: I was using this method to think about a "Hunger Games" party the library is hosting. I wanted something besides attendance to measure, and I wanted it to be related to reading. Maybe we could measure book checkouts somehow? Then I had the idea to create a cool read-alike book display that would encourage the teens to check out books. What a fun idea! And it doesn't just articulate the value - my program is better because of this idea. In a small way, I am better expressing our mission.

Third, it will help you prioritize. You'll be able to sit down and say, "What should I schedule for this summer? A Lego science class, or a skateboarding dog?" You won't have to guess which would be "better" - you'll have a framework that helps you evaluate which program fits with your organization and helps you accomplish your mission and goals.

Long-term Planning for Library Programming

My former boss (actually, like 3 bosses ago) used to make everyone who wanted to suggest a library program fill out a form. This form asked why we suggested the program, how it helped fulfil the library's mission, and more stuff like that. At the time, I thought it was the DUMBEST FORM EVER. And maybe it was, but since then I've come to appreciate the impulse that went into that form: the idea that we ought to be thinking hard about every single program we plan.

Since right now we are trying to increase overall program attendance, it's easy to approach this by trying to schedule more programs. At times, it seems like this becomes rather haphazard. People contact us, and we schedule a program. We have an idea, so we go for it.

But this approach has serious problems. Here are some of the issues that can (and do) arise when we fail to create a long-term plan:

1. Events not spread equally between branches.
Some libraries in our system are larger than others. Some have nicer facilities, some are more centrally located, and some staff express more enthusiasm. It's easy for events to develop a drift; we get in the habit of putting our large events at one or two branches, or a particular manager is always clamoring for children's events, and before you know it, some branches are slammed with events while others are ignored.

2. Seasonal ebb and flow.
Summer is a crazy-busy time for our department, because of the Summer Reading Program. So here is how our year usually goes: We are crazy-busy in May and June, getting the summer straight. We're so exhausted from that effort that we plan very little for September. But in August/September, we bring out all our new ideas, and plan TONS OF STUFF for October and November. Then we get busy publicizing that stuff, so we don't plan anything for December and January, until we get busy with the Winter Reading Program and Black History Month. Enthused from our winter break, we go NUTS with the events for April and May. WE get so caught up in our April and May stuff that we don't plan for summer as early as we should, so May and June are crazy-busy...and it all begins again.

If we had a clear map of how many events should be held each month, and a sufficiently long-term calendar, we could create a nice spread of events, with something great happening every month.

3. Competition between events.
When we all just schedule whatever we feel like, it's easy to get into a situation where each person in the office has a pet project needing to be publicized in May. Then we end up in competition for budget and advertising. What event will be the newsletter cover story? What will be the first slide in the slide show? We could plan these things in advance, and we would not only market more effectively, we would reduce office tension.

4. Haphazard or slapdash array of program topics.
This is key. What percentage of our time and budget goes to children's programming as opposed to teen programming? How many of our programs are interactive instead of lecture-style? How much money are we spending each year on musical events vs. author events?

Not only do we need to know the answers to these questions, we need to know what we WANT the answers to be. We need to know if our behavior is in line with definite goals and guidelines. In short, we need a long-term plan.

Of course, a plan for distributing efforts across months, geography and genre is only a subgoal. The true issue, the true beginning of such a plan, is the role of events in the library's mission. But that's a topic for another day.

A great article

Okay, this is a lame thing to post after such a long hiatus, but still:

http://librarianinblack.net/librarianinblack/2011/05/makerfaire.html

The importance of interactivity cannot be stressed enough.

(Thanks to whoever posted this blog to our library's wiki!)