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 2.8. Publicity and promotion |
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Introduction
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Publicity and promotion are rarely at the forefront of people's minds when planning an information gateway, yet they are often essential ingredients for a gateway's success. Good publicity can help enormously to bring an information gateway to the attention of the people that really matter, i.e. the gateway's target users. An effective publicity and promotional campaign takes time and effort to plan and deliver; it can also cost money. This chapter attempts to highlight some of the issues that should be considered when planning publicity and promotion activities. |
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What are the issues?
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The key issues at stake with publicity and promotion are:what is the intended audience?
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What is the intended audience?
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You should think carefully about the audience which your publicity is intended to reach and win over. If you can characterise your user community carefully and target the publicity accordingly, it will be much more effective. |
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What kind of publicity and promotion is available?
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Publicity and promotional methods for gateways may be divided into three distinct forms: traditional media, electronic media activities and face-to-face activities. The underlying aims of each are very similar: to communicate to as many people as possible (ideally your target users) that your gateway exists and to convince them that they should use it. Once users find the gateway, then the quality of the resources should make them into repeat visitors. Traditional media activities Traditional media activities are often overlooked as methods of publicity when Internet-related projects are planned. This is a shame, as they can be extremely powerful and far-reaching and can often produce the best results in terms of reaching the largest group of potential users. Traditional media can include paper-based materials (leaflets, posters, newsletters, papers, journals, magazines, etc.) as well as media such as television and radio. Paper-based materials Paper-based materials fall into two distinct groups: publications in the form of journals, magazines and newspapers and paper publicity materials such as information sheets, leaflets and posters. Publications can be used effectively to access concentrated groups of target users directly. If you place an advertisement in a specialist journal that is read by large numbers of your target users, the results can be well worth the money. Paying for publicity by means of advertising is not the only route (although it should be considered, as the results can be impressive, far-reaching and cost effective). Writing review articles in journals or newsletters can be a good way to get some 'free' publicity. Obviously, the time involved in writing such articles should be considered and costed. Nevertheless, articles written by gateway staff are often a very successful means of publicity.
Another way for your gateway to appear in the user community literature is for it to be included or referenced in other people's articles. Of course this may be harder to achieve as it requires people to know about and value the gateway. However, as a gateway matures and becomes a feature of the user community, this kind of publicity becomes more likely. Targeting known journalists or writers within your user community can also pay dividends and produce some favourable results. Consideration should be given to all contacts that people associated with the gateway may have.
The benefit of carefully targeted articles or advertisements in your user community literature is that the materials immediately have context and are being viewed by people interested in the subject matter; this significantly increases the chances of people reading the article and subsequently visiting the gateway. Other paper-based materials such as information sheets, leaflets and posters can also be very effective as promotional materials. Developing a visually attractive information sheet about your gateway and distributing it to key users can help to raise the profile of the gateway. Several gateways have used this idea to great effect. Promotional materials do not need to stop at information sheets. Bookmarks, mouse mats, mugs and T-shirts have all been used and have potential. Naturally, the exact kind of materials chosen may be largely dependent on cost and funding.
All of the materials above have been sent to key sections of the target user community (subject librarians, University libraries, subject-specific book shops and museums) who have been asked to display them where their users could see them. Having a Biz/ed information sheet available in the Social Science library near the networked computers has obvious benefits. In several cases the promotional materials have been so popular that extra copies have been ordered by the people concerned. Correctly targeting the recipients of promotional activities can produce a cascading effect, so that the targeted people then pass on their knowledge concerning the gateway to more people locally. Television and radio Though perhaps not as appropriate for publicising gateways as some of the other media mentioned in this chapter, the use of television and radio does have enormous potential. Obviously the idea of placing a commercial for your gateway on the television or radio may be in the realms of science fiction, but getting the gateway mentioned as part of another programme may be a more down-to-earth ambition. This is especially true with the recent growth in popularity of Internet-focused programmes. Gateways are more likely to get mentioned if they are well established, by coming to the attention of television and radio programme producers and researchers. Well placed contacts can also help to raise the profile of a gateway within the relevant circles. Electronic media activities Search engines and directory listings It goes without saying that an information gateway should make sure that it is registered and listed in the leading Web search engines and directories. Tools such as Submit It! or any of the many others now available (see Yahoo's listing in this area, can make online submission to search engines a quick and easy task. All of the leading search engines and Internet portals must be targeted, although the issue of context is again very important. Your gateway needs to be included in search engines like Alta Vista and Yahoo, as many people use these as their starting points when searching the Web. However, subject-specific, geographically limited and specialist search engines should also be considered. Is there a local search engine that your users may frequent? If so, then registering your gateway with the site could pay off. If you can get listed on the most popular site (in terms of your target audience), then the relevance of the materials will be high and so the chances of people following links to your site are much greater. Getting the most from search engines requires the use of metadata in your information gateway Web pages. This will not be a problem for a metadata expert! Mailing lists and newsgroups Many people are now familiar with the benefits of newsgroups and mailing lists and their power to contact large numbers of people with a specific interest. These can be excellent tools via which larger numbers of target users can be contacted. All it takes is an email or a news posting and your gateway's latest features can be publicised to hundreds or thousands of people. It also only takes one inappropriate message to alienate lots of potential users. Be careful of sending too many or inappropriate messages to newsgroups or mailing lists, as promotion can easily turn to spam. Face-to-face activities The final area that should be considered in terms of promotion and publicity is that of face-to-face contact with potential users. Clearly, the effective way to do this is at large gatherings of potential users such as conferences and workshops. A presentation, paper or demonstration at a leading conference which will be well attended by potential users can communicate directly with a large group of users who may be influential. Running workshops for sections of your user community, especially for those who are themselves involved in training, can have similar results and is covered in more detail in the training and skills development chapter.
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Are all types of publicity worth while?
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The old saying that all publicity is good publicity probably has some truth, even when talking about information gateways. Any promotion and publicity that raises the profile of your gateway in your target community should be considered a good thing. Of course being voted the worst Web site by your user community should probably be avoided, but it may bring you a few curious visitors! |
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How can I best target a limited budget?
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The issue of how best to target a limited budget really depends on the makeup of your user community. If you have a wide user community, then you will have problems in targeting users. A well defined user community can often be more easily targeted as its members appear in concentrated groups or areas (within certain University Departments or organisations). A good example of this is the SOSIG user community, which can be relatively easily targeted via UK higher education social science dapartments. |
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Are there any failsafe methods for successful publicity and promotion?
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Unfortunately the answer to this is no. However, some of the existing gateways have demonstrated that certain techniques can be very cost effective; training trainers within your user community can produce very good results (e.g. Biz/ed) and well-placed publicity leaflets and posters in HEI libraries and departments can also communicate with large numbers of target users (as has happened in the cases of SOSIG and NMM Port). Your user community should be carefully characterised before any expensive promotional activities are embarked upon. Identify your users carefully and your promotional activities will be much more likely to succeed. |
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How can you retain the interest of your users?
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Once you have persuaded potential users to look at your gateway, you would like them to come back to it. A well-designed gateway which fulfils the expectations of its users will encourage them to return, but publicity can also help them to keep the gateway in mind. An email list can be a useful way of conveying information about developments in your gateway to interested users. Such a list has been run successfully for the SOSIG information gateway. |
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| References
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Alta Vista, http://www.altavista.com/ Biz/ed, http://www.bized.ac.uk/ NMM Port, http://www.port.nmm.ac.uk/ OMNI, http://www.omni.ac.uk/ SOSIG, http://www.sosig.ac.uk Submit It!, http://www.submitit.com/ D. Hiom, 'Around the table: Social scientists have their own favourite places on the Web', Ariadne 9 (May 1997). D. Hiom, 'SOSIG: Providing access to internet information', Laser Link (Autumn 1998). J. Kirriemuir, 'A report on the third annual OMNI seminar: A cure for information overload', CTICM Update 8:2 (December 1997). C. Sladen, 'Ethical Business', Business Review (April 1998). C. Sladen, 'Mergers and Take-overs', Business Education Today (May/June 1998). |
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| Credits
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Chapter author: Martin Belcher, Lesly Huxley |
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