New Marketing Trends

Marketing Ideas for Non-Profits and Libraries

The M Word helps librarians learn about marketing trends and ideas.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

How we say what we say....

Sometimes marketing libraries is just about rewording library jargon into wording the layperson can understand, other times it is creating the copy that will move people to action. I just got this story e-mailed to me this morning that exemplifies that point beautifully.

One day, there was a blind man sitting on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet and a sign that read: "I am blind, please help." A creative publicist was walking by and stopped to observe. He saw that the blind man had only a few coins in his hat. He dropped in more coins and, without asking for permission, took the sign and rewrote it. He returned the sign to the blind man and left. That afternoon the publicist returned to the blind man and noticed that his hat was full of bills and coins. The blind man recognized his footsteps and asked if it was he who had rewritten his sign and wanted to know what he had written on it. The publicist responded: "Nothing that was not true. I just wrote the message a little differently." He smiled and went on his way.

The new sign read:

"Today is spring and I cannot see it."

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Sometimes we need to change our strategy. If we always do what we've always done, we'll always get what we've always gotten. And remember too, sometimes it's not WHAT we say, it's HOW we say it!

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