Aurora Libraries is seeking to partner with more local and independent businesses this summer to offer refreshed deals and freebies from around town to library card holders who participate in the city’s free library rewards program.
“This is something to help both the library and local businesses in Aurora — at no cost to us or them,” said Steve Wasiecko, Aurora Library operations manager. “We’re going to re-push the program because we want to have a lot more on there for our library customers to choose from this year.”
The library rewards program launched in 2014 to leverage the web traffic that Aurora Libraries gets in order to cross-promote local businesses and encourage more people to get library cards.
Anyone can go to to get a yellow rewards card sticker on their library card. With that sticker, library-goers can visit one of the participating businesses of the program and present their card to redeem the discount offer..
“We get over two million web hits a year from people who use the library to look for books and put books on hold, there’s a ton of usage for people going to the website,” Wasiecko said. “We’re always trying to find ways to bring people into the library, and this seemed like a creative way to do that.”
But for as simple as the program is, many of the businesses that were part of the pilot have said that they received little to no response from anyone with a library card and that small yellow sticker.
“I don’t know if people just don’t know about it, but I haven’t had a huge response,” said Becky Kolbe,a hairstylist at Creative Cuts, 13692 E. Alameda Ave. When the program began, Kolbe offered up buy-one-get-one haircuts to library rewards members and discounted highlighting services for $40.
“In three years, I’ve only had one person take me up on those offers,” she said. “It was actually just a couple of weeks ago. A brother and sister came in with their cards to get cuts. It was pretty cool.”
And Robyn Roth, co-owner of Pitchers Sports Restaurant at 1670 S. Chambers Road said she’s pretty sure that no one took her up on her offer for a half-off lunch deal on weekdays with the purchase of a regular lunch.
“I remember setting it up a few years ago, but I don’t remember that anything came from it. I don’t think anyone took advantage of it,” Roth said. “We’ll probably renew our offer with them anyway though because we’re willing to try anything to get our name out there and get people in the door, especially when it’s free.”
Free marketing is the central — and only — promise to business owners.
“We also have Aurora Honda and Spa Brokers on there, for example,” Wasiecko said. “Well, we know that not everyone is going out and buying a motorcycle or a hot tub all the time. So it’s not going to triple their business, but it’s a way to show that they support the library and maybe some customers will come in. It’s a win-win for everyone, it’s just not necessarily a huge win.”
The owner of Lotus Spa Salon at 15200 E. Orchard Road threw in a pack of deals for the rewards program: $25 off any hair, massage or skin service of $70 or more; or buy one fitness class, get the second free; or a free hand spa treatment with any nail service.
“I participated for a couple of years, but no one saw it or came to us because of it,” spa owner Camie Bolaski said. “But that’s all right; we would absolutely do it again because we support the library.”
That’s what Roth and Kolbe said too — despite the low levels of business generated from the partnership, it’s really more about affiliating their businesses with the city and the library.
“I love the library. I can be there all day,” Kolbe said. “I heard the city is trying to pump up the rewards program, and I think that would be great, but I’ll do it either way. I think I’ll change it up and offer something different and see if that works out better.”
For the city, the program has been working. Branch employees say that residents routinely come in and ask for the stickers all the time, and the door count for users to the library is up from last year, though not necessarily for the rewards program.
Many of the offers for the rewards program that are currently listed online have expired as of last year, but Wasiecko said this year’s push for different partnerships and new offers will hone in on more local businesses with a better array of services up for discounted grabs. The refreshed list of offers should be available this summer.
“What we’ve found is that people really like the restaurants. They’re perfect for this,” Wasiecko said. “We’re hoping to break into the locally owned restaurants with this next push and see what kind of support we can get and provide from the rewards program.”