Community Insight | Growing Libraries cardholder growth solution

The Community Insight™ Platform

The best outreach campaigns start with great audience data. That's why we created Community Insight™, a powerful solution that makes it easy for libraries to identify and segment their audiences and reach the right people with the right message at the right time. The platform will help you identify non-cardholding households, segment them based on demographics and interests and conduct targeted outreach via email and direct mail and monitor your progress - all in one platform.

Powerful Insights

Powerful Insights

Our advanced data analytics provides customizable reports that allow you to see your community at the household level with demographic data - including lifestyle profiles, interests, household income ranges, presence of children, and other demographic insights.

Precise Targeting

Precise Targeting

Community Insight™ presents data in easy-to-read graphs and maps, helping you identify key audiences and design focused campaigns. For instance, families with children but no library cards can be informed about the library's excellent services for kids.

Real-Time Data

Our CI-Sync™ tool can connect to your ILS to ensure your patron data and performance dashboards stay up to date. Our Community Data is refreshed daily so you are working with the very latest data available.

Direct Mail

Your community aren’t ignoring you - they maybe just don't know what you offer and don't follow you on social media. Digital overload is real. Direct mail is the antidote, offering personalized, automated and trackable postcards, directly to your target audience. Postcards stand out in direct marketing for their ability to deliver eye-catching, concise content that engages recipients instantly, making them highly effective for promotional campaigns. We manage the end-to-end fulfilment through our world-class Print Delivery Partner Network, so your mail gets out the door fast.

Top-notch print quality.
Vibrant colors, perfect trimming, and secure finishing touches–your mail arrives looking sharp and ready to impress.

On-time, every time.
We hold our print partners to strict SLAs and delivery standards, so your mail reaches its destination right when it should.

Quality control you can count on. Count on consistent results with regular audits and performance checks across our print network.

Premium Postcards. Our postcards are sure to get noticed as Jumbo 6" x 9" cards, printed in full color on both sides (1 side UV Gloss) and sent as Standard Class Mail.

Benefits of our Direct Mail Growth Programs.

Control Budgets

Control Budgets

With no minimum print runs, we offer you the ability to set maximum spends for specific campaigns to ensure you stay within your budgets. Test postcard campaigns with different designs to maximize impact.

Full Tracking

Our Dashboards let you track your campaign status from production to dispatch and delivery. With our CI-Sync™ tool, you can see how many new cardholders have joined recently.

Beautiful Design

Beautiful Design

We offer artwork guidelines so you can create your own amazing postcard designs. We also provide a variety of templates to inspire you, which you can use for ideas or replicate.

Email Marketing

Email marketing offers a fast, cost-effective, and measurable way to connect with audiences. You can personalize messages, automate campaigns, and track engagement in real time. With the ability to reach customers directly in their inboxes, email marketing supports timely communication, enhances customer relationships, and drives consistent results. It's a powerful complement to other marketing channels, including traditional methods like direct mail.

Segmenting your emails allows you to send more personalized and relevant content, boosting engagement and conversions by directly addressing your audience's interests and needs.

You can measure your return on investment on your campaigns and conduct tests to identify the most effective messaging and communication channel for your various non-cardholder groups.

You can use the email addresses with your preferred email platform or in marketing automation campaigns, engaging your targets them with services relevant to their demographics and interests.

Benefits of our Email Growth Programs.

Simple deployment

Simple Deployment

Email lists can be downloaded and used in any email platform such as Constant Contact, Mailchimp, Patron Point etc. These lists can be used in drip campaigns for each of your specific target audiences.

Data Privacy

All email addresses we provide are verified and legally obtained as all contacts have opted-in to receive third-party solicitations. They are put through an extensive hygiene process prior to being added to our database.

Compliance

Our data is GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, DMA, ISO and SISA compliant – and we are always on top of the latest regulations, proposed bills and industry guidelines ensuring that your marketing efforts are both ethical and effective.

New Movers

Welcome new community members and share the wonderful services your library provides. Reaching out to new residents within 60 days of their move is up to 80 times more effective than contacting long-term residents. The library creates the postcards and monitors campaign progress through their dashboard, just like our other direct mail programs.

Automated Weekly Postcards

Automated Weekly Postcards

We send automated postcards weekly to your new residents, so they receive your welcome message very shortly after they move in. Postcards go out to homeowners and renters too.

Powerful Segmentation

Powerful Segmentation

Crucially, you can have multiple designs of new mover cards - so your messaging can be targeted to their specific demographic profiles e.g. presence of children, seniors, etc.

New Mover Emails

New Mover Emails

What's more - we can provide segmented email addresses for new movers as part of our New Mover Direct Mail Program, so you can follow up with targeted messages via email too.

How do the Growth Programs benefit the Library?

More Cardholders

More Cardholders

All libraries strive to serve more of their communities. Increased membership and library usage directly correlates with improved literacy rates and educational outcomes, particularly among youth, setting the foundation for future success.

Increased Brand Awareness

The public library's mission has evolved beyond simply housing books. It serves as a dynamic hub for lifelong learning, digital literacy, and community connection and residents. The challenge is communicating this to your community effcetively.

Improved Sense of Community

Improved Sense of Community

Library programs and events offer numerous opportunities for residents to connect, collaborate, and build valuable social capital, thereby significantly strengthening community bonds and fostering a sense of belonging.

Financial justification and sustainability

Financial Justification and Sustainability

It is helpful for the Library to be bale to demonstrate stong, active community engagement. Widespread participation strengthens grant applications and attracts potential donors, diversifying funding streams.

How To Get Started

It is simple to get started with a Growing Libraries subscription.

1. Quotation

Get a quote for your library, and we'll email it to you with our subscription agreement. Sign it digitally to accept, and you'll receive your subscription invoice automatically.

2. Payment

Once your invoice has been paid (by ACH) you will receive an email with onboarding instructions on how to set up your Growing Libraries account.

Set Up Your Account

3. Set Up Your Account

a) Add your Users
b) Define your Service Area
c) Connect your ILS using CI-Sync™ or manually upload your data.

Community Insight

4. Community Insight™

Now explore the demographic profiles of your patrons and community. Use maps or charts to visualize the data, identify households without library cards and gain the insights you need.

5. Reach Out

Identify your target audience, review segment counts, set your budgets, create your direct mail designs, and launch your campaigns. Alternatively, download your email lists and start your outreach.

6. Track Progress

Use the dashboard to see how your campaigns are progressing from production to dispatch and delivery and track patron numbers and new cardholder registrations.

Resources

To help you make the most of your campaigns, subscribers can access a growing collection of resources on our platform. You'll find useful whitepapers, best practice guides, how-to documents, and templates to enhance your experience. Here are some examples:

Direct Mail: Postcards - the Essential Guide

Direct Mail: Postcards - the Essential Guide

This Essential Guide provides you with all the information you need to know about using postcards effectively, covering the how, when, and why in detail.

Email Templates and Drip Campaigns

Email Templates and Drip Campaigns

We provide email examples and sequences for outreach, including brand awareness, newsletter sign-ups, event attendance, and library membership.

Segmentation and Targeting

Segmentation and Targeting

We offer campaign examples utilizing both direct mail and email strategies to effectively promote specific library services to carefully targeted customer groups.

Email Anatomy

We dissect the key components of effective email marketing. From subject lines to call-to-action buttons, discover the anatomy of an email that will drive conversions as part of successful email campaigns.

10 Essential Tips for Great Postcard Design

10 Essential Tips for Great Postcard Design

How to strategically design your postcards to make them stand out in the mail and achieve a better response from your target audience.