Client Brief: Marketing an Unpopular Library Renovation and Addition

Background:

Municipal building projects are not always popular; increasing tax burden usually drives voter decisions. In this case, the town library was too small for current and projected needs for the facility.

Challenges:

• While early focus studies indicated that a renovation project was needed researchers also discovered that there was little support for the any project that would result in a tax increase
• No marketing plan in place
• Volunteer committee
• Competing projects on the table

Solutions

A Marketing Plan was developed to promote the project and to build awareness for the need. The project was voted down the first year that it came up for a vote. The Plan was revised and included a strategy to develop materials that focused on the actual low cost to taxpayers for the project, and an intense appeal to the town's many new homeowners. The vote was later overturned and the library built.

Results were excellent. The library received $1.3 million in grants from state agencies, $400,000 was raised in corporate and individual gifts, and the library came in under budget, the result of a dedicated Committee that was committed to coming in on budget. The excess was deposited into the library's endowment for future support.