What’s a reading program without participants?
It sure isn’t much.
Teachers and librarians all over the world spend a lot of time and effort creating interesting and thoughtful reading programs. However, many times, the number of people who participate and complete a reading program can be disappointing.
Participation is the lifeblood of your reading programs. When you have a lot of activity in your programs, you create positive energy in your library or school. You have great data that helps you make better decisions, and, most importantly, you are building readers and a culture of reading.
The big question is this: How can you encourage more initial sign-ups in your programs and, then, how do you keep your readers engaged to the end?
Initial Sign-up: In today's digital world, your reading programs need to be ultra-convenient to join and participate with. If a prospective reader must spend more than 3 or 4 minutes signing up for your program, you're losing participants before they even join.
Readers need the ability to join a reading program when it's most convenient for them. By providing the information about how to sign up on a dedicated web page or through social media, you will make it easy for your readers to sign up when they're ready.
Within Reader Zone, we have a tool that allows you to easily create a designed badge that contains your reading program information and makes sign-up take less than 3 minutes from creating an account, joining your program and making a first reading entry.
We also provide a suite of social media images, printable flyers and more that you can use anytime to promote your reading programs. These promotional assets are available anytime by clicking here.
Incentives and awards: An important tool to keep readers engaged is acknowledging and celebrating achievement. Creating a clear path to incentives for reader is key to increased engagement. Readers need to understand and see the path to success and what success looks like in your reading program.
Whether it be a drawing for an iPad or an ice cream from a local store, that clear path is what will keep participants reading.
Reader Zone has a robust and flexible awards system. Awards are completely customizable so you can adjust them accord to the needs of any reading group from a 1000 Books Before Kindergarten group to a reading club for seniors.
Direct Communication: Another way to keep your readers motivated is directly communication.
Reader Zone offers a tool to select a range of readers and send them direct email messages regarding news about your reading programs and, really, any news you'd like to share. This is a great way to ensure your readers have the information to stay engaged.
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