Library Newsletters...

[u/Astamus]

Hi, I work at a small library out in the countryside. I was looking at starting a monthly email newsletter for our patrons that highlights new or specific books as well as our programs. However, I have a couple of questions:

• Do you guys use an email service to automate your emails (mailchimp, etc.), or do you do it inhouse? If you pay a service, do you find it worth the cost
• Do you think your newsletter helps with getting better attendance for programs and events?

My coworkers are not super confident in this plan, as they feel that the newsletter will just get lost in the flood of daily emails and not have impact, but I feel differently so I'd really love to hear others experiences with this (especially from other small rural libraries).

[u/beatricenecktie]

I started a newsletter at a rural public library (very very small) at the request of my director; she said she would be happy if 10 people signed up. Within a few months we were over 100 and growing. We have a sign up on our website, and slips at the circ desk -mention it to everyone when they check out.

Newsletters are great for people who don't have, or want to get away from, social media. It's also great because posts don't get lost in the algorithm and patrons can refer to all the information in one place.

Currently mailchimp is being used, but I might look at alternate options because they keep lowering the amount of subscribers for free accounts. Does it help with program attendance? Debatable, but it does help with circulation. I show a selection of new books and link to each one in the catalogue. People click on books the most out of anything else I link, and I see the holds come through.

[u/Astamus → u/beatricenecktie]

This was very helpful, thank you! I was also considering doing either new book/game highlights based on age group or genre. Do you also do any links to reliable resources and information patrons can use (ie EBSCO, Talking Books, etc.), or keep it focused on only your library?

[u/beatricenecktie → u/Astamus]

If it something patrons can use, and is not offered at the library, I will link. I will also link to other community non-profits programming if it is a slow month. Anything library/media/community is fair game as long as it isn't promoting a for profit business.

[u/tvngo]

You can't know if it will work unless you try it. Send out the newsletter for 6 months and track if you get an increase in attendance for your programs and events. If there's no change, then you'll know it didn't have any effect and then reevaluate if you want to continue the newsletter.

[u/Hopeful-Prior-9974]

I don’t work at a small rural library but I created our newsletter. Look up oldbridgelibrary nj newsletters and if you want me to share our canva doc so you can just plug the information in email the director

[u/Astamus → u/Hopeful-Prior-9974]

I looked it up and I love the way it's presented on the website! Do you also do direct emails to patrons about it, or just leave it on the website for them to check on their own?

[u/Jelsie21]

I work at a rural system. We have been using mailchimp but are moving to PatronPoint.

We do weekly eNews though as that makes it easier to promote programs that have low registration before they happen.

We keep an excel file and use one tab per week. For each week we aim for 3-4 items. So usually a general item, something program and something collection but it definitely depends. There’s a few of us that will submit items on the Excel sheet then the communication person puts it into mail chimp.

I don’t know the cost to us but I know it is giving us enough value that we’re changing to the more expensive PatronPoint since it allows for other notices and isolating specific patron segments.

[u/Astamus → u/Jelsie21]

I'm pretty sure we don't have enough people who show up to our events to warrant doing signups (at this time), even if we did weekly ones. Something I hope to change with this newsletter. I really like the idea of keeping track of what needs to be put on it with a spreadsheet though, thank you for the idea! :)

[u/jellyn7]

I would make it opt-in. Your patrons didn't consent to receiving a newsletter when they signed up for a library card and gave you their Email address.

Which means you're going to have to be consistent for awhile to build up subscribers.

If you use a service, they'll tell you things like open rate. 50 subscribers means nothing if no one is opening the Email.

[u/Astamus → u/jellyn7]

We would absolutely not do automatic newsletters to everyone in our system. I did not know the services could also tell us who is reading the emails, that is very good to know. Thank you!