Terms

Actual customer – (see customer)

Campaign –  interrelated and coordinated marketing communication activities with a single theme or idea that appears in different media across a specific time period

Customer – actual or potential user of library services

Customer information –  data gathered with respect to a particular market, which may describe their characteristics and behavior.

Evaluate –  systematic methods which measure the level of success of meeting objectives.

Four P’s (4 P’s) – the marketing mix of controllable variables price, product, place and promotion, that the library uses to pursue the desired level of customer satisfaction (i.e., library use) in the targeted customer market.

Goals –  a broad and lofty big picture approach to what the library wants to achieve.  Goals are not always quantifiable.

Market –  group of actual or potential customers

Marketing communication – see promotional tools

Marketing mix – see Four P’s

Marketing project – an activity based upon measurable objectives and a well-developed marketing strategy to satisfy a targeted customer group’s wants and needs.

Measurable Objectives – see objectives

Objectives – desired or needed result to be achieved by a specific time. 

Offer – a proposal  by a library to make available to a target customer a desirable product, service, program or behavior, to satisfy and meet identified wants and needs.

Place – usually the physical point of distribution of the offer, but this concept embraces all points of distribution including websites.

Planned or actual budget – the amount of funds committed to the marketing project

Potential customer –  (see customer)

Price (perceived costs) –  the formal ratio that indicates the quantities of resources needed for the customer to acquire a given good or service.  For a library user price may come in the form of time the library users much expend to obtain library materials or services.

Product –  anything that may be offered in tangible form to a customer(s) to satisfy an identified need.

Program ­- events for public presentation, such as a story hour, bibliographic instruction or other planned occurrence to satisfy an identified customer need.

Promotional tools –  various marketing communication techniques such as advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, public relations/publicity, direct mail or web-based activities.

Service – any activity or benefit that is offered by the library that is intangible, such as a reference question answered, a loan of material.  The service may or may not be tied to a physical product.

Targeted customer – particular customer group on which the library focuses its expertise to satisfy the group, to accomplish its marketing objectives

Translations

Editor, Dr. Christie Koontz, ckoontz@admin.fsu.edu.  The word library is used throughout the glossary, to represent any library or information related institution.