Toward a Library Renaissance, available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266476864_Toward_a_Library_Renaissance, contains a section on branding to make the point that  relationships—in other words, supply chains—are crucial to marketing. To attract users, therefore, libraries should:

• Think in terms of social capital and relationships, which requires that they plan for the long-term and build brand equity accordingly.
• Consider what deep-seated values relate to the behaviors of targeted end users and ascertain better what value and motivational attributes products and services have from the perspective of end users.
• Focus, simplify, and organize products and services by emphasizing and facilitating understanding of unique selling propositions, which demands that for all products and services they look at the why, what, how, when, where, and who of end-user behaviors.
• Bring more and different partners together to initiate and deploy synergies.
• Constantly monitor and evaluate efforts by surveying the perceptions of end users.
• Visualize marketing as change management, the success of which hinges on explicit consideration of relevant determinants of intraorganizational behaviors throughout marketing activities, institutions, and processes.
• Accept that organizational behavior is central to marketing and branding: it is a management philosophy for organizational practice; a strategy that relates to end users; an organizational tool for structuring and infusing teams; a tactic with which to drive inputs; and a measurement of the relevance, efficiency, efficacy, impact, and sustainability of activities, outputs, and outcomes.

Two other wide-ranging articles on special libraries, but of relevance to academic libraries too, cover related themes. They are Striking a Balance Between Physical and Digital Resources, available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281684470_Striking_a_Balance_Between_Physical_and_Digital_Resources, and Knowledge Collaboration: Working with Data and Web Specialists, available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281619948_Knowledge_Collaboration_Working_with_Data_and_Web_Specialists. 

Article Toward a Library Renaissance

Conference Paper Striking a Balance Between Physical and Digital Resources

Conference Paper Knowledge Collaboration: Working with Data and Web Specialists

The fist thing would be to look at where you want to be visible. 

I think 3 channels would be great for libraries: SEO, Email and Social.

SEO would entail making some of the data indexable by search engines so that the content could be ranked. Content presented should match the user's search intent. If I know as a user that there is a place that can give me the information I seek, then I will go there. No need to give away the entire information, just enough so that the user will know that they need to seek it out somewhere specific. 

Email is a channel that has higher engagement than most in terms of marketing. Emailing the existing or past user base would be a great way to promote library activities.

Social, the BNF library in France has a great community manager that engages people on social media by showing relevant content to its target audience. Scientific content is exchanged on social media so being part of this exchange would give libraries online visibility. 

I worked in a university library for years and one of the things that baffled me was that a majority of people didn't know how to properly look something up in the library catalog. It would be a great opportunity to leverage the library catalog itself to help gain online visibility. 

https://twitter.com/ActuBnF

The answer l in leveraging the advantages of e-marketing tools to enhance visibility and content in university libraries. The pertinent question is are readers aware of materials available at Libraries? Evidences have shown that viral marketing tools are effective in enhancing visibility given its social connectedness. Library must develop networks and relationship that communicate more via online. 

You can promote e-resources such as articles, journals and e-books by using QR Code.

What kind of users are you trying to attract?  Rather than trying to find a method that would attract a large number of different kinds of users, maybe create a few different strategies for specific groups.  Your own students?  World-wide researchers interested in your special collections? Librarians and staff at other institutions?

Dear Sarah, your point of view is crucial for us. I agree with you, every type of user have a particular way to connect with academic libraries. I am very interested in students. Can you recommend me some ideas, articles about it? Students have a very different behaviour and motivations when they interact with digital and physical libraries. In a successful way, how we can engage them?

Hi, Yohannis,

I don't have any articles on the topic (I'm over in public libraries, and rural ones at that), but from my own undergraduate and gradate research experience, I loved it when I found a tool that put a JSTOR search box into my Facebook tool bar.  Anything that will let the students connect to the library with one click and can be embedded into something they're already doing would be good.  For example, to get the catalog search or to get to a database, students usually have to go to the school website, find the library (which is under a drop-down menu or not even on the front page, so you have to search for that part of the site), then choose the catalog, then start a search.  Decreasing barriers online would make web access much more likely to be used.  A custom app, links and search functions that can be embedded into social media, stuff like that.

As to "how can we attract more users," I think that's more cultural: how to make students feel welcome.  Academic librarians can work to be inviting and instructive, to help students learn to find information instead of giving students the answer.  Multiple staff at desks so that students don't have to wait 10 or 15 minutes for the previous reference interview to be complete.  Identified quiet study spaces where food is also allowed, so students can spend hours working on their assignments.  When I think of the personality type or attitude commonly found in academic libraries (from my own experience) and when I think of the personality type/attitude I strive for and what I train others for in public library service, they are different. 

I feel that first you should identify student's needs and attitudes towards the library in each category. (i.e. identifying the market properly) Then you can make aware them through your website displaying what you have to fulfill their needs. As Sarah said as an initial step you can identify specific groups faculty wise and year wise and initiate your programs.