Welcome to episode 012 of Library Figures. In each episode, we interview a new guest and hear about one of their favorite marketing strategies. In this episode, Misty Nesvick of Anchorage Public Library will be sharing about using radio ads for libraries. She comes from a 16 year career with iHeart Media and is a fountain of knowledge regarding getting the most out of your radio ads. She discusses how to choose relevant stations, influencers, and time slots to reach your target audience, the “sweet spot” for amount and frequency of ads, and the benefits of choosing less popular time slots to reach people in a different state of mind. If you want to utilize radio ads, or are curious about the benefits they could hold for your library, this is an episode you don’t want to miss!
“Marketing is the same thing. You’ve got to give it a chance to work. You’ve got to be committed to it, especially with something like the radio, because while it’s a big reach medium, to get your frequency you need repetition.”
-Misty Nesvick
Key Takeaways:
- It is important to have an integrated approach, use your ads on air, online, etc
- Choosing your target audience and choosing the right places to reach them
- Frequency and amount of ads
- Give ads time to work, a short trial won’t give you results
- Libraries can and should ask for discounts or perks since they are a non-profit and operate for the “public good,” just respect the group you’re working with
- Get creative with your online audience, use ads to bring them to a website or take an action
- Be authentic and focused with your ads
- Approach marketing as for-profit companies are approaching it, don’t get stuck in the industry
Key Links Mentioned in This Episode:
Read the Episode Below
[00:00:08] Tyler Byrd:
Brought to you by Piola, the very first patron-inspired digital library branch. I’m your host Tyler Byrd, and this is Library Figures. It’s a show about the people, data, and strategies behind some of the top-performing marketing campaigns in the library industry, and how they’re driving community engagement like we’ve never seen before.
[00:00:32] Tyler Byrd:
Misty, this is going to be a great episode. Thank you so much for joining me on Library Figures today. This is going to be fun, because it’s going to be an episode that is similar to a past episode with a little bit of a different take. I’m really excited to have the listeners listen and see what you’re doing that’s a little bit different. Before we get there, do me a favor. Tell everyone who you are and where you’re at.
[00:00:54] Misty Nesvick:
Hey, everybody! I’m Misty Nesvick, the community relations manager for the Anchorage Public Library in Anchorage, Alaska.
[00:01:01] Tyler Byrd:
Perfect! I’m still laughing to myself, because we had a terrible start to this a second ago, where I called Misty Natalie, and she let me restart. Thank you, Misty.
[00:01:11] Misty Nesvick:
You’re welcome.
[00:01:13] Tyler Byrd:
Misty, your library branch up there, can you give us an idea about the size and a little more information about your library? How many people do you serve? How many branches do you have?
[00:01:23] Misty Nesvick:
Sure. The Anchorage Public Library is the largest library system in the state of Alaska. We are five locations with one main hub, the Loussac Library in what we call the Anchorage Bowl. Then, we have two more satellite locations in Girdwood and Eagle River for those that are frantically Google mapping. Then, we have two locations inside the Anchorage Bowl that are also branches, Muldoon and Mountain View. Five locations serving a population of about 300,000, but we like to say the footprint of the municipality is about the size of the state of Delaware.
[00:02:01] Tyler Byrd:
Oh? Interesting.
[00:02:01] Misty Nesvick:
We’re fairly spread out. Underserving the group, we should have probably another three-four branches, like everybody, more things, more people, but we are serving a lot of folks, and we are also serving one of the most diverse communities in the country in some of our neighborhood areas.
[00:02:18] Tyler Byrd:
Yeah. Let’s learn a little bit about you. You haven’t been there all too long, right? Where were you before, and how long have you been at the library.
[00:02:26] Misty Nesvick:
I just had my one-year anniversary here back in early February, and prior to that, I worked for iHeart Media, and I was there for just about 16 years. I was doing marketing, sales, digital strategy, but that was my career path. I am new to library land. I’m not a librarian. Haven’t worked in libraries before, I was excited to take what I know and apply it to an amazing product.
[00:02:55] Tyler Byrd:
Yeah, yeah! I think you see some of the best results that way, too, which is really great. iHeart Radio, if someone doesn’t know what that is, it’s not just an app, right? It’s an entire organization with a number of things going on. Is that right? What all do they do?
[00:03:10] Misty Nesvick:
Yeah, that’s true. When I started, back in the day.
[Laughter]
Before social media, obviously we had Internet, but back in the early aughts, started as a radio company. It’s the largest radio group with broadcast. FM, AM, radio signal, over the air, over cars, all of those kind of things. So, nationwide. And very early on, iHeart realized that folks were listening differently, and that the power of sound is still important, but that people with the increase of your Napsters first, and then your Pandoras, and then your Spotifys, they wanted to be able to have on-demand listening experience and listen through their devices. That’s when the iHeart radio app came to be. It actually originally was Clear Channel Radio, but the iHeart brand became so synonymous, everybody understood, “Oh, I have that iHeart app, that app thing.” They changed the name of the company. That’s where they are at. They are still the leader in online and on-air listening, basically. Anywhere that people want to take their product, they can do that, and they are currently really pushing podcasts, which is great, that you guys are doing all the podcast opportunities, that they have podcasts available on iHeart as well.
[00:04:29] Tyler Byrd:
Yeah, that’s perfect. I feel like I heard them, Siri Radio was maybe the first time I learned about iHeart as a brand. This’ll be good, because we actually had Natalie on a few episodes back, and she was telling us about how they were leveraging radio locally, and just broadcast radio, to really drive database usage. I like the fact that you have a little bit of a different take, because you actually come from the radio side. With that in mind, what can you tell us about radio and the benefits of using radio at this point?
[00:05:05] Misty Nesvick:
What I used to tell my clients, so I worked with about 40-odd different clients with iHeart as well as coaching salespeople when they were working with those clients. You want to have an integrated package, and you want to be able to tell your story. We heard a lot in library land about stories, story building, tell the stories of this patron. Good story is important, but the way to get that message out there is also important. You could have the most wonderful story, the best crafted television spot, the most beautiful flyer, but if you don’t have a way to actually get it to humans, it’s not really going to do you much good. The great thing with the radio is, it’s a big reach medium. You’re hitting a lot of people a lot of ways, especially when you look at the streaming component. When I say I do radio, I’m really talking about audio. We do have commercials that run over the air, but we also have those commercials that run online through the streaming service, and we made it an integrated package. While radio is one component, the big thing that iHeart stressed and that I took away was, you’ve got to have multiple places. People aren’t just going to stay in one spot. Whether they’re listening, whether they’re watching, and so you need to have a multi-pronged approach. If you can do it all with one group, great.
[00:06:23] Tyler Byrd:
Nice, nice. That is great. Within that process, do you find that, is it usually that, let’s say I want to record a radio ad. I’m going to come into one of your stations and record that in a sound booth, or is that something where I Just jump in front of, or maybe I throw on my EarPods or something, and just record it real quick, and send you the file? What’s the process there, usually?
[00:06:45] Misty Nesvick:
Sure. I would discourage that. Often we have a lot of folks, “Oh, I’ve always had a great voice for radio.” You run the American Idol test. If your friends and family are the ones that have told you it’s amazing, maybe not. Maybe let a professional take care of it. For us, we chose to use influencers as part of our campaign. Not only did they record the spot because they were professionals, the campaign that we ran was their personal endorsement. It was these particular DJs saying, “I love the library. This is what I love about the library.” Conveying to their audience, because we tell people, if the DJ, they’re sitting next to the person in the car as they’re driving through. They’re hanging out in their living room as they’re doing their day-to-day things. They’re in their ear as they’re hiking through the trails. Letting the professionals do that spot, the things you want to have prepped before you do any campaign, obviously, is what’s your message, who are you talking to, and how are you going to measure results? What you want to avoid is the soup, salad, sandwich, kids eat free on Tuesdays, live music on Thursdays, now extended open hours on Saturdays. By the time they get to the end of the spot, do you even remember the first thing that I talked about?
[00:07:59] Tyler Byrd:
Salad?
[00:08:00] Misty Nesvick:
Salad? Maybe?
[Laughter]
[00:08:01] Tyler Byrd:
Maybe, yeah. I’m like, “Uh, yeah. I don’t know.”
[00:08:06] Misty Nesvick:
It’s a lot. Attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. We keep hearing that, and even folks who didn’t grow up in the Internet age are moving faster, doing more. You want to be true with your message. You want to be concise with it. When we look at any of their messaging, especially through last year, it was really, what are our core services? Yes, we had some cool things going on, but what are the core things of the library? We read the studies. I think it was the OCLC study that came out about voter perceptions on libraries, on how they’re just not seeing the relevancy, especially even with our super users, parents, right? Super users are parents and youth, going, “Yeah, the library is nice, but it’s not necessary.” The goal of our campaigns last year were really to say, “Hey, we are here. We are relevant. Come and use us.” Come back to your library, it’s important. That was just the same drumbeat that we went through all with everything that we did, all last year.
[00:09:06] Tyler Byrd:
Just really consistent message, right? That’s great. If I want to get set up, you’re thinking the best way to do that is essentially looking back and saying, “Let’s have the influencer or the host of that radio station do my ad for me.” Are there some other tips? I know there’s a ton of options. You get 30 seconds, you get 60 seconds. You get drive times, non-drive times. You can do interest or shows, all kinds of options. Is there one thing that you think that a new library trying this out should focus on more so or try, that might be a better result?
[00:09:42] Misty Nesvick:
I think frequency and length of time, one of the big mistakes that folks make is not enough budget and not enough time. You get the trial option. We’d often have people saying, “Oh, I want to do two weeks, and let me see how it works.” Clearly, I’m going to be so compelling that everybody’s going to be banging down my door, asking for, booking out my restaurant, buying all my clothes, going to all my dentist things. That’s just not how humans operate, right? You think about the gym, and you go the first week, and yeah, everything’s awesome, and then maybe the next week you skip a couple, and by the third week you’ve fallen off the wagon, right? Marketing is the same thing. You’ve got to give it a chance to work. You’ve got to be committed to it, especially with something like the radio, because while it’s a big reach medium, to get your frequency you need repetition. Having one spot per day for two weeks, you’re not going to see the results that you’re looking for, unless you’re giving away a car. Unfortunately, with libraries, we have nothing to give away. Everything’s free.
[00:10:49] Tyler Byrd:
Exactly.
[00:10:50] Misty Nesvick:
Length of time, for sure, when you’re looking for things, making a commitment. I don’t like to go less than eight or nine weeks. Really, 13 weeks to 26 weeks is your sweet spot. If you can build on things, that gives you a little bit more edge. Timing is also everything, so when you talk about drive times, everybody wants to be on drive times, right? One tip that I used to tell people was, think about when you’re on vacation. When your brain is turned off, you spend a lot more money. You make decisions differently. When are people’s brains on vacation? Not drive time. You’re thinking, “I’ve got that podcast with Tyler, so I’ve got to make sure that I’m prepped for that, and am I picking up the kid from school, or is she riding the bus?” And, “Oh, the dog. The dog needs a thing.” You’re not really open to new messaging or to making any decisions. Evenings, weekends, maybe things are a little bit slower, Sunday morning, the brain is a little bit more open to that. Typically, those rates are cheaper, because not everybody wants to be in that space, and you’re attacking the brain a little bit differently. Not to say drive times are bad. We do drive times, but one of our current influencers is actually an afternoon guy. His show is three to sixish, two to sixish, and so I am totally okay with that early afternoon spot. I’m okay with repeats outside of that prime day part, because I know that the brain is still absorbing my message, and people have a little bit better chance of doing something with what I’m telling them.
[00:12:24] Tyler Byrd:
Yeah. Duration, yeah, that 12 weeks, around that point, 12-13, what about frequency? Is it once a day, then? You mentioned once a day earlier, but is that what you’re thinking for that duration, or do you do four-five times a day, and a shorter duration, or more times same duration?
[00:12:44] Misty Nesvick:
The answer to all the things. Yes, you do. Markets vary, and iHeart, if anybody out there has iHeart in their industry, I’m sorry, or in their market, they all have very similar things, because they have said influencing is an important thing, or digital, or social, so packages look similar. But, how they build out in terms of the amount of stuff depends on market size. For us, we did have just one live, one live 60-second, and that’s because it was more of a storytelling piece. The DJ needs more time to explain all of the things that they have going on. Generally, I like shorter length, more times. If you can buy a 15-second ad and run it six times a day, super great. If you can buy a 30-second ad, and run it three times a day, that’s good. It gets expensive quickly, so higher frequency if you’re going to run for a shorter amount of time. You can do a 7-day campaign, a 10-day campaign, maybe National Library Week’s coming up, and you’ve got a whole bunch of activities going on. Go ahead and do one week, but super high frequency, that four to seven times a day, not so much that people get tired of you, but enough to where they can make a decision quickly. For us, when we’re going longer, it is okay to have less spots. In addition to that one spot a day, we had another three to five during the week, and then on the stream, we were actually running seven spots a day, because the online listening audience is a little bit smaller, but they’re more loyal, and so we wanted to hit them over the head a little bit more with the message.
[00:14:24] Tyler Byrd:
That brings up another question for me, though. With that online audience, I feel like if they’re sitting in front of their computer and listening, or their phone, and they’re not actually driving, that there might be a better opportunity to engage them and get them to come to, maybe, a website to convert, or just sign up for a library card, or check out an event, something to that extent, to be able to take an action. Is that true?
[00:14:47] Misty Nesvick:
Yes! That is so brilliant. I promise, listening people, I did not prompt Tyler to do that. Yes, actually. In fact, I remember early on in my radio career hearing an ad for, I think it was the US Postal Service. I was sitting there at my desk, doing whatever it was, and the audio comes on. It says, “Hey, we know you’re probably not working. You might be just surfing, but since you’re here, how about doing something productive, and ordering your postage? Go to,” you know, “Minimize the window that you’re working in, look at our ad, click on it, and head on over to the US Postal Service to get metered mail,” or whatever it was.
[00:15:20] Tyler Byrd:
That’s brilliant.
[00:15:21] Misty Nesvick:
I remember laughing, going, “How does it know?” Right? [Laughs] It’s general human nature. Most of us probably weren’t doing a thing. It worked out really well. There is absolutely that opportunity to talk directly to the person, to ask them to stop what they’re doing and do something for you, whether it is a, “Yes, get your library card,” or, learn more about the event, follow you on Facebook, engage in your social handles. Even changing the language from clicking to tapping, because for me, I don’t have an FM radio in my office. I can’t stream through my desktop, because it’s locked down. I use my phone. I have the iHeart app on my phone. If something came on to ask me to engage, asking me to tap, or swipe, or open another app would be something that I would be more inclined to do.
[00:16:11] Tyler Byrd:
Hey, everyone. I wanted to take a second and tell you about a project I’m really, really excited about. We’re launching a new digital library branch. It’s call Piola, and you can find it at meetpiola.com. Piola is based on thousands of hours of research on user behavior, specifically patrons, and how they’re using current websites and current technologies. Everything from heat maps, to video recordings, to focus groups, the user testing, Google Analytics reviews, content audits, and a whole lot more, to find exactly what patrons want and expect from a library website. We’ve taken all of that information, and we’ve rolled it into a single product that you can get real quick, launched in less than 30 days, at the most affordable price of any website available for libraries. If you’re interested, we’re offering some demos, and we’d love to get you to take a look. Head on over to meetpiola.com and check it out. I think that you’ll be really impressed, because there’s nothing else like it on the market. Thanks!
I like that. How about audiences? I know that a lot of stations have a more prominent audience that listens to them, and that those audiences oftentimes seem like they’re a little bit different. Do you suggest tailoring your message to maybe the listener base and that audience, that demographic?
[00:17:37] Misty Nesvick:
Yes. Absolutely. Another trap that folks fall into is the, “We want to be everything to everybody,” and very rarely do budgets allow for folks to be everything to everybody. If you’re figuring out, “Okay, we want to grow our summer reading program that is probably going to be caregivers of children of a certain age. Finding a station or an influencer who matches that demographic is absolutely going to get you more bang for your buck. That’s not saying that the dad is not going to be the one to sign folks up for summer reading. You can’t ignore men, but typically, we notice, it’s female caregivers, probably in that 25 to 54 demographic, that you find a station that works with that group. I have had competing groups or other radio stations come with me that, the DJ matches my demographic, but the station does not. In that regard, it doesn’t really work. I could have a dad or a mom DJ, but the station is incredibly hard, acid rock. May not be the best fit for my limited budget at that time. We use digital. I use digital properties to find that kind of group, where the content doesn’t necessarily match what I’m looking for, but it’s where the person I am, or my audio, I really like to narrow focus. Which means, you could have two different versions of a campaign. If you’re looking on an older station, your audio might actually say, “Hey, grandparents.” Hey older aunts, uncles, we’re talking to you, versus, “Hey moms and dads,” or, “Hey teachers,” on a younger station.
[00:19:19] Tyler Byrd:
I know in a lot of other media buy options, verticals, ah.
[00:19:26] Misty Nesvick:
Lingo!
[00:19:27] Tyler Byrd:
Right? Goodness sakes, more coffee. More coffee. In a lot of other verticals, what you have the ability to do when you buy media, is that it you’re a nonprofit, they’ll give you a discounted rate. Is that the same, do you find, with radio, or is it specific to a station, or is that just not the case anymore?
[00:19:46] Misty Nesvick:
I do find that’s the case. Things have shifted a little bit, like everybody, broadcast and any media have downsized things, and they still have to make a profit, they’re for-profit companies, right? Even public radio has to get their bills paid, but people, if you ask, there’s never harm there. As a nonprofit, whether it’s a different rate. I’ve gotten additional matching spots. I’ve gotten possibly bonus online content, where if a DJ normally blogs for me three times, they might blog a fourth time that’s outside of the contract that I’ve asked them for. Absolutely, it’s important to ask. Many stations have mandatory public service requirements. Each market handles things a little bit differently, but that is just airtime dedicated to community good. You can put in event spots. You can put in just the general, “Hey, we’re great!” You hear a lot of the health industry folks doing that, whether it’s Cancer Society or different charities. Libraries absolutely fall into that. I feel there’s a soft spot for your library and your librarians. You make the case, and you absolutely get something. Just be respectful of what the group’s trying to do.
[00:21:04] Tyler Byrd:
How about things that we should avoid? Is there anything that you see people do all the time? That it’s just like, “Hey, don’t do it.”
[00:21:10] Misty Nesvick:
Trying to be so cute. Authenticity is a big thing in marketing regardless. Thanks, Instagram, for making us all be authentic, but it’s true. Sometimes you have people think, “I want to say, I’m going to have Bob talking to Sally, and we’re going to use puns, and it’s going to be really clever.” It’s more of a dad joke, and no one thinks you’re as clever as you think you are.
[00:21:38] Tyler Byrd:
My dad jokes are awesome. Seriously.
[00:21:41] Misty Nesvick:
No disrespect to the dad joke, just maybe it’s not the middle of your marketing campaign. Time and a place for the dad joke.
[00:21:49] Tyler Byrd:
Fair enough.
[00:21:50] Misty Nesvick:
Trying to be too flashy, trying to be too clever, lots of sound effects, and trying to use stuff you’re not allowed to. There would be a lot of request of, “I want to use this song. Can’t I use We Will Rock You?” No. I’m sorry. Unless you’re Queen, Adam Lambert, you don’t get to use that song.
[00:22:11] Tyler Byrd:
Good to know. Coming back to, you implemented a campaign for your library, and it did well. Do you have some kind of data behind how, what the results were for that?
[00:22:23] Misty Nesvick:
One of the big things that, when I started here, that even I didn’t know was as prevalent, is that libraries had eBooks and audiobooks. More specifically, the audiobook angle. No offense to Audible, but they came on, and they’re the big dogs, right? I had a lot of friends, and then even one of the DJs that I knew, that said, “Hey, I’ve got Audible. Isn’t that great?” Then, I went to the library, and everybody said, “Well, you know we have audiobooks, right? And you know there’s no monthly fee for them, right?” It was like, “What!?” Mind blown! And every librarian groans, right? They’re like, “Really? No, promise. We’ve had this thing.” Nobody was talking about it. It was not a big outside of the library. That’s another thing just to scooch back. When you’re in your own head, you think things are more prominent, and you think everybody knows about it, when out in non-library land, that’s not really the case. When we took on this campaign, we said, “We want to tell people who are not already visiting the library, and seeing our bookmarks, and speaking to staff, who is not here that we can talk about our audiobooks and downloadables?” That became the focus of that campaign, because that particular DJ loved the audiobooks, and so he has been, this year, speaking on it, since January. We’re just finishing up our last week here in March. We have seen great results. We’ve seen increase in downloadables. Even when, I believe our traditional circulation has been down a little bit over the last couple months, our download eBooks and audiobooks have really, really gone up, especially even looking year over year. We’ve seen increases on that.
[00:24:14] Tyler Byrd:
Awesome. Any chance you know what those numbers might actually be?
[00:24:17] Misty Nesvick:
Right? I don’t, but I’m going to say, if you look down here, in the story, you will see a graph that shows what that number looks like.
[00:24:28] Tyler Byrd:
Very true. You sent over some visuals and some information to Patty, and Patty’s going to include those in the transcription and the information so everyone can see. Cool. This is perfect. Actually, I think that problem, I’ve been thinking a lot about that problem lately, about how our patrons don’t know all of the services that libraries offer now, and they keep going back to physical branch, and the physical book, and I really, honestly believe that a big part of that problem comes back to branding. The fact that, when a patron comes into a branch, they pick up a physical book. They’re inside the library. Everything inside the library is branded for that specific library, and they know where they’re at, and they know what they’re getting. When they go to a website, and what we do is, we just refer them off to every vendor, and every vendor is branded for that vendor, with that vendor’s domain name, and logo, and information. We are educating them about the vendor, not us. When people share, “Hey, I got an audiobook or an eBook,” they’re not saying, “I got it from my library.” They’re saying, “I got it off Libby. Go check Libby.” We’re teaching our patrons to not understand us, but to understand our vendors, and I think until we start changing that, we continue to run into that same problem.
[00:25:42] Misty Nesvick:
Yes. I would 100% agree. I don’t feel it’s necessarily the fault of library folks. When I got here, all of the librarians fessed up and said, “Oh, we’re so excited to have somebody with marketing experience, because they don’t teach us that in library school.” The basics of branding, of saying, “We want credit.” If there’s a cool program out there, our library offers linda.com for our card users. The people that know Linda is think that, that’s amazing. We’ve been doing it, but not getting any credit for it. Somebody goes, “Oh, yeah, I’ve been using Linda for free for months. That was a library thing?” Yes. You logged on through the library portal, but you forgot that we did it, or you forgot that it was available from us. Making sure that we get credit, making sure that our brand is everywhere, whether it’s a summer reading, or a Libby, anything like that. I agree with you. Having that good website presence, having everything be cohesive, is important. That’s another thing we’ve really worked on, is if it exists on social, it looks like it does on our website, which looks like it does in our building, so that people start to connect those dots a little bit more, of what Anchorage Public Library really is doing.
[00:26:52] Tyler Byrd:
Brand consistency. It’s crucial. Misty, is there anything else you’d like to share with our guests and our listeners today?
[00:26:59] Misty Nesvick:
I’m sure there’s amazing stuff that I’m going to remember as soon as we hit closeout, right? The biggest thing is marketing your library like anybody would market a business. Keeping your audience demographics locked down, frequency. Making sure you have budget. I know that none of us have enough money for collections or staff, but a marketing budget truly is something that should be held sacred and should be used to help promote up those folks. Then, educating yourself, and not being afraid to get out of the library track a little bit, into what marketing looks like. Taking a Linda course, grabbing a book. Not every system can afford to have a marketing department, or a director, or something like that. Taking it upon yourself to really look at those real world marketing things, and get some trusted partners. I talk a lot about iHeart. There are a lot of other great, trusted partners out there, whether it’s web development, social. If you don’t know, grab a partner that does.
[00:28:03] Tyler Byrd:
Awesome. Thank you so much for that advice, because I couldn’t agree with you more, and the more we hear that from people inside the industry, I think the more people will start doing it, and grabbing onto it, so thank you. Let’s jump into our speed round, here. Are you ready?
[00:28:17] Misty Nesvick:
Oh, gosh.
[00:28:19] Tyler Byrd:
No? Yes?
[00:28:19] Misty Nesvick:
No.
[Laughter]
Is anyone ever?
[00:28:22] Tyler Byrd:
I don’t know. [Laughs] I just think [Inaudible 00:28:26] answer the questions. Good to go. Give me a source. Where do you stay up to date on new marketing trends, and techniques, and practices?
[00:28:36] Misty Nesvick:
I love Social Media Examiner. They’re a great blog. Social Media is kind of a big sea of all the things, and they seem to be ahead on the trends, and that’s the one that I will look to if something’s changed. I’ll look for their video vlog to explain to me what changed, and what do I do with it?
[00:28:53] Tyler Byrd:
That’s a really good source. I actually use that myself. Great, great recommendation, thank you. Give me a book. What’s a book that you haven’t read yet, but you would like to?
[00:29:03] Misty Nesvick:
There’s two books sitting on my read shelf right now. It’s a parenting book about stressed out adolescent girls and then a book about, it’s a space detective. He’s on Mars. Not marketing related at all.
[00:29:20] Tyler Byrd:
[Laughter]
That’s good. That’s a good assortment, there. Do you prefer print content or digital content?
[00:29:28] Misty Nesvick:
Why do you got to ask that?
[Laughter]
[00:29:32] Tyler Byrd:
It’s key. It’s fundamental.
[00:29:34] Misty Nesvick:
Yeah. I’m going to go digital, only because it’s portable. Recently reading Trevor Noah’s book, Born a Crime, sent it to my Kindle, left my Kindle at home, was out somewhere. Had 10 minutes. Pulled up on my phone. Had my Libby app synced. Was able to keep reading my book. I just really love the portability and accessibility of digital. With that said, new book smell is still great, but I’m going to go digital.
[00:30:02] Tyler Byrd:
It is. Very. That’s awesome. How about your favorite library service?
[00:30:07] Misty Nesvick:
It’s supposed to be fast, right? Probably the electronic resources, and then our hold service. For our library, I love that any patron can go on to our catalog, request a physical item, and have it sent to the branch closest to them. Because our catalog serves 90, I think it’s 96% of the state, even if that item is in Sitka, or Juneau, or somewhere outside of APL, we can get it for them. I love that we can provide that customer service for patrons.
[00:30:36] Tyler Byrd:
Cool. Thank you. Last question. If our listeners wanted to reach out, get more information, pick your brain, how can they get in touch?
[00:30:43] Misty Nesvick:
They can absolutely send me an email, because I’m old school, and if it’s not an email, it does not exist. I’m assuming there will be contact links down below, but if you’re listening, it’s misty.nesvick@anchorageak.gov. You can follow me on Twitter, not super active, or you can connect with me on LinkedIn, or follow me on Facebook.
[00:32:19] Tyler Byrd:
Before we head out, just a couple more quick things. If you know somebody that you think would be a great guest on this podcast, and you’d like to hear us interview them, I’d love the opportunity. Send me their name and their contact information, at hello@meetpiola.com. That’s hello@meetpiola.com. I’ll do all the hard work of reaching out and getting them scheduled, so that all of our listeners will have the opportunity to learn more from them about the great marketing strategies that they might be using. We’re constantly looking for new guests and great guests on the show, and I would really appreciate the opportunity to meet with your connections and get them up here to learn more. Second, if you’re enjoying the podcast episodes, and so far you like what you hear on Library Figures and the content, head over to iTunes. You can subscribe to the podcast to get future episodes, and while you’re there, if you could give us a five-star rating, that’d go a long way in letting us know that you like the content, and you like the show, and we should continue doing it. Until next time, all, I look forward to being on the air again, and the next great interview we’ll have up. Take care. We’ll see you next time.
[00:31:07] Tyler Byrd:
Thank you very much. I appreciate it. As always, the content, head over to meetpiola to get the transcript, but we’re going to have all the visuals there, too, so you can check those out and get some more information. We’ll have all of Misty’s contact information as well as the links available in case you want to see any of those resources, as well. Then, in addition to that, we have put up some really cool campaigns that our team has built out. We designed really great-looking, holistic campaigns, where you get the source files as well as the final documents. You can edit them and change them, but every campaign includes social media, it includes posters, includes bookmarks, email headers. It’s really holistic. You can download them free at meetpiola.com, just look for the banner at the top of the site if you’re interested. With that, I have to say thank you again. This was a really great episode, and I love how it built off of the last episode, because it really filled in some of those blanks, and I’m hoping some people out there in the library world will give some radio a shot, because I think it’s worthwhile, and I think they’re going to see good results based on everything I’m hearing. Misty, thank you so much. I appreciate it.
