Christina Kelly if Golley Slater on what we can do at our own level to advocate our library services. Presentation given on the 27th October at the Carnegie Conference Dentre (Dunfermline) at the CILIPS Autumn Gathering.

1. CILIPS conference
Taking national advocacy and making
it local
27th
October 2010

2. Agenda
• What do SLIC want to achieve?
• The national campaign
– Public affairs
– Public relations
• What can you do locally?
• Over to you!

3. What do SLIC want to achieve?

4. What do SLIC want to achieve?
• Create better understanding of the role
of libraries in modern, civic Scotland
• Stop unnecessary cuts to services
• Remind local and national politicians of
the value placed on libraries by their
constituents
• Remind local politicians and civil servants
of their statutory duties

5. How will this be done?
• A public affairs programme:
– Local and national politicians engagement
• A public relations programme:
– Stakeholder engagement
– Media relations

6. What is being done nationally?
Public Affairs
• Lobbying political parties to discuss their
manifestos and inputting to these
• Writing and distributing a manifesto for
libraries in Scotland
• Engaging with national politicians – Garden
Lobby event

7. What is being done nationally?
Public Relations
• Engaging with local authority decision makers
• Engaging with other influencers, e.g. CoSLA,
UNISON
• Speaking at relevant events & conferences
• Developing a campaign to ensure national and
trade media coverage
• Building a consumer campaign - ensure public
are supporting libraries at a grass roots level

8. Stakeholder engagement

9. Why are stakeholders important?
• They represent wider communities or interests
• Are decision makers
• Are opinion formers or opinion leaders
• Can be experts or enthusiasts
• Often feed the media
• Shape the environment within which you work

10. Who are stakeholders?
• Those individuals and organisations with a stake in your
organisation’s success or failure
• For example:
– local & national politicans
– Civil servants/government departments
– NGOs / NDPBs
– high profile influencers and thought-leaders
– decision-makers
– trade & professional associations
– consumer groups / pressure groups
– charities / voluntary organisations

11. Who are not stakeholders?
• The general public – they are a target audience, a
community, a market segment…..
– Parts of the public are influenced through the various bodies
representing them
• Your own employees – they are your partners, your
team……
• Not the media – they are a channel of
communication…..
– Unless they shape opinion, e.g. specialists in their field

12. When do we turn to stakeholders?
• Problems in the media
• When a crisis hits
• As part of wider communications strategy
• Preparing the way for change…

13. Stakeholder mapping
• We typically map and prioritise stakeholders according
to likely:
– influence / power
– awareness / interest in you
– impact on your organisation's ability
– credibility to engage
• This has to be reappraised on an annual basis as
environmental factors can cause stakeholders to rise or
lower in priority

14. Public Relations

15. What is PR?
You’re at a party and you see someone particularly attractive on the
other side of the room. What do you do?
• If you walk straight up to them and tell them that you are extremely
good looking, excellent company for an evening and pretty rich
along with it - that’s advertising
• if you walk over, explain why you are the perfect partner for them
for the evening and manage to convince them - that’s direct
marketing
• if they walk over to you, tell you that they’ve heard how charming
you are and they’ve been dying to meet you and please could they
spend the evening - that’s public relations

16. Media relations
Ask yourself these questions:
• Who is your audience?
• What do you want to tell them?
• What are you trying to accomplish?
• What is your ideal headline?

17. The concept of “Newsworthiness”
“News” does not have a precise definition
Editors’ screening process to consider:
• Timeliness (relevant to media lead times)
• Proximity (relevant to media’s ‘community’)
• Consequence (affect the health, financial well-
being, social status or political future?)
• Human interest angle

18. Engage with your local media
• Find out who cover areas where libraries could get
involved, for example
– Education
– Enterprise
– Jobs
– Technology
• Arrange to meet the journalists to introduce yourself
• Invite them to visit a local library on a day where there
is an activity going on, e.g. ITC taster session
• Let them know any good news stories

19. What can you do at a local level?

20. Amplifying national activity locally
• Contribute to the debate at a local level
• Map your stakeholders and meet with them to
ensure their support – arrange to meet local
decision makers
• Look for local speaking / networking
opportunities, e.g. chamber of commerce
• Publicise your successes in the local media
• Distribute campaign materials

21. What should you say?
• Write your elevator speech
• Prepare your pitch:
– What have you done locally
– What would you like to do?
– What can the person you are talking to do to
help?
• Be clear about what you are asking them
to do, e.g. publicly endorse your work,
contact national politicians

22. The elevator pitch
An elevator pitch is an overview of your service and is
designed to just get a conversation started
• Keep it short – around 200 to 250 words
• Have a hook, e.g. an interesting statistic that you can
compare to something easy to understand
• Make it clear – no acronyms or jargon
• Ensure it is credible – how can you add value?
• Practice so you remember it

23. Golley Slater elevator pitch
• Golley Slater Scotland is part of the wider Golley Slater marketing group,
with offices across the UK
• We have around 350 people working with us
• We draw on a national pool of highly-skilled and talented people in
Scotland and across the UK to deliver fantastic results locally
• We are experts in planning, PR, marketing, advertising, direct,
recruitment advertising & contact management
• We build a bespoke team for our clients, based around their needs and
requirements
• As one of the leading agencies in Scotland, we are proud to be chosen to
be a supplier of the Scottish Government marketing services framework
• In fact we are the only agency in Scotland who is listed on advertising, PR
and digital rosters.
• Our belief is none of us is as smart as all of us

24. Over to you
• At your tables – come up with a list of
your local stakeholders - between eight
and ten individuals or organisations
• On your own – write your elevator pitch
• 20 minutes for both exercises

25. Feedback
• One stakeholder per table – build a list
you can take with you to get you started
• One elevator pitch at random from each
table

26. The end
Any questions?