Finding Out Who is New in Your Community

Reaching out to new people in your community is a proactive way to increase support for the library. Instead of waiting for new patrons to walk through your door, you can take a few extra steps to increase the likelihood that they will visit by inviting them. Here are some steps for identifying new people and making contact with them.

Option #1 - Contact your County's Real Property Tax Office and ask for a list of new homeowners within a specific period of time. (the last year, the last 2 years, the last 3 years etc...)

• Use this link to find contact information for the Real Property Tax office in your county. (Scroll down the list to find your county.)

- There is a fee for obtaining the list. (This usually includes a setup fee and a charge per number of labels run.) The cost varies based upon the criteria you select, but it likely to be between $50 - $100.
- You may wish to get more than one set of labels to use for future mailings. They might be used to announce the library fund-drive, summer reading program, community events etc.

A few things to consider:

• This method is not 100% guaranteed to reach only new residents as it identifies people who bought a new home within a certain period of time. While the majority of people listed will be those that bought a house and recently moved into the community. Also listed may be folks who rented locally and just bought their own home, or those who lived with family members in the area and just purchased a home.
  
• Renters are very difficult to target. While rental buildings can be searched as "multi-family dwellings," the names associated with that building are usually the owner/s, not necessarily the renters.
• Any method used to target new residents will have a margin of error. However, the effort itself is still worthwhile as it spreads the message - the library has resources for new residents.

OR

Option #2 - Identify new residents by purchasing a list from a list brokering company.

- Search online for a mailing list company, such as AccuData.
- Purchase a list of "new move" addresses based on zip codes associated with your area.

Note - You have to purchase a minimum number of records when purchasing this kind of list, otherwise it is not cost effective. For this reason, it may be worthwhile for a group of libraries or the County Director's Association to purchase the list as a group buy.

Use the list to mail a personalized letter.

-You might wish to compare the list to your patron database, in order to weed out people who have already obtained a library card.

- Send a Welcome Letter from the Library Director. Here is a sample to get you started. Be sure to print it out on your library's letterhead. Consider including a library card registration form, upcoming program announcements, Friends information, a request for volunteers, flyer for Helpful Links for Living in the Hudson Valley website, a Get Out of Fines Free card etc... If you'd like to send along a small gift with your letter, here are a few to consider.