Conference call to discuss Digitization Hubs marketing, Thurs. Oct 23, 2014, 10:30 am.

On the call:

from Cincinnati:
  Paula Brehm-Heeger
  Maelynn Foster Hudson
  Angela Hursh
  Katrina Marshall

from Cleveland
  Chatham Ewing
  Cathy Poilpre
  
from Toledo:
  Meg Delaney

from State Library/OPLIN
  Stephen Hedges
  Katy Klettlinger
  Missy Lodge
    
Proposed agenda for the call:

  How are you currently marketing, or planning to market, your digitization hub?
    Target audience, publicity plans
  Is there any value in marketing the hubs as four parts of one project?
    If so, what about another name for the overall project?
  Should marketing folks be working together? sharing materials? keeping in touch?
  How do you plan to evaluate the success of your marketing?
  Shall we plan a face-to-face meeting? (If so, when?)

Summary of the discussion:

All four hubs are in different circumstances with their digitization work and marketing. Some have public-facing marketing of "digital libraries" that just needs to be re-freshed, others are thinking about replacing old marketing with new. All of this marketing is currently targeted at the local consumers of the digitization products (the images) that the libraries have been posting on the web for some time.

Marketing the digitization services of the hubs would be a different project, aimed primarily at organizations rather than individuals, though it could eventually extend to members of the public who have "shoe boxes" of materials for digitization.

While a unified approach to marketing each digital/virtual library of materials probably has no benefit, unified marketing of the digitization services themselves could be helpful in attracting interest from other organizations and funding from grant providers. For example, the group presentations to OhioDIG and OLC have gathered a lot of interest from other libraries and organizations.

There was general agreement that the whole question of how to market the digitization services should be left to the marketing folks, with no pre-conceived notions. Each library should present the problem to their marketing teams and ask, "What would you do?" It might also be good to ask their thoughts about the ohiodigihubs.org informational website.

There was brief discussion of eventual evaluation of digitization services marketing; perhaps the IMLS outcome-based evaluation could be adapted (http://www.imls.gov/applicants/outcome_based_evaluations.aspx).

Stephen will set up an OPLIN listserv for use by the marketing folks, so they can share their thoughts. Toward the end of the year we should think about another conference call.