Turning 'cold sellers' into 'must haves': marketing unsought library products

According to marketing theory unsought products are those that consumers do not know about, do not ever consider buying or have negative attitudes towards. Goods and services such as life insurance, pre-paid funerals and encyclopaedias require significant, ongoing marketing efforts if they are to be successful. This paper argues that many goods and services in academic libraries fall into the category of unsought products. Perhaps the most notable of our unsought products are the aggregated databases of journal articles. Their relative inaccessibility compared with public search engines, the complexity of use, and the sheer number of choices discourages many students and leads them to prefer competing information sources. The meaningless names of many databases have no brand recognition or equity likely to entice a browsing student to explore them further, and the search techniques needed to uncover the wealth of information within are often beyond the skill and motivation of the student. Many librarians are familiar with the concept of the marketing mix: the 4 Ps---Product, Price, Place and Promotion. Over the years we have made considerable adjustments to two of these elements, place and promotion, in attempting to reach our clients. There has been, for example, a concerted effort to take advantage of emerging technologies to engage the interest of the current generation of students. Most of our first year students have survived 12 years of education without using EBSCO. Why start now? What marketing strategies can librarians employ to turn 'cold sellers' into 'must haves'?