The LIS Web team – Dan Frostman, Jess Isler, Richard Jenkins, Matt La France, & Barbara Merz – has been conducting a publicity blitz for chosen features of the LIS web presence. The selection was done in consultation with other LIS staff, with the aim of drawing attention to underutilized good stuff available to the Middlebury community. The features we advertised were:

• Searching: the Midd Google search & special Helpdesk Google search
• Training: Lynda
• Drupal: documentation and new editing interface
• Self-service PIN and password updating
• Media services Event Recording & Film Screening forms
• Middmedia

The tools we used were chosen with the target audience in mind:

• an LIS eNewsletter to reach faculty, staff, & students who actually read e-mail
• advertisements in “The Campus” to reach students as well as faculty & staff
• posters to reach students
• creation of more “go” links for easy access
• use of QR codes to attract the attention of mobile device enthusiasts

We’ve also been trying to assess the effectiveness of our marketing efforts – here’s a summary of our metrics:

eNewsletter – special edition. Sent 10/5/11.
Caused a small peak in blog hits – normal background approx 30 per day, peak 196. Some of the eNews links weren’t to blog posts & as you can see below, there were spikes in the stats for featured wiki & web page URLs too.
Top posts on 10/5 – all featured in enews:
Home page 71
All About MiddMedia 16
Lynda in the Limelight 12
What is GO? 12
Searching is new and improved! 11

Unique pageviews /wiki/LIS/Main_Page (Sent Oct 5th, blue)

Unique pageviews /offices/technology/help/ (Sent Oct 5th, blue)

Unique pageviews /offices/technology/help/mediaserv/Recordingrequest (Sent Oct 5th, blue)

QR codes

Perhaps it was the content, or perhaps people in general aren’t following QR codes around here, but the codes we included in our posters & “Campus” advertisements weren’t used much! 3 hits on MiddMedia posters and 1 hit on a “Search” poster.

Changes in use of advertised features

• Self-service PIN and password updating.
  Frequency of Helpdesk HEAT tickets for PIN reset. The decrease in HEAT tickets after the marketing effort indicates a possible, though transitory, effect!

• Training: Lynda.com
  With the help of Pij Slater, we were able to gather statistics about lynda.com use, but it was difficult to assess for sure whether our advertising caused any spikes in new-user accounts (posters around campus, bookmarks, LISblog posts, and an ad in The Campus on Nov. 3.) However, we can chart the number of new users from the time the service was officially rolled out in July,and we see that at least word is getting out:
• July: 30
• August: 103
• September: 107
• October: 80
• Nov. (as of the15th): 46

Overall, it seems as though the strongest tool in our marketing kit is still the LIS eNewsletter, in addition to the MiddPoints News & Announcements blog (also shared as an email digest).