Is your station worthy?

Applying Audience Research to Your Fund Drive

I used to do it all the time. 

I was always looking for ways to connect my on-air appeals to my listeners. Since there was a listener focus to the research, I shared it with the talent at the station and the development staff in the hope they would do the same. Did they always share that information on the air. No, not always.

I still listen to fund drives locally. Some of the talent  makes the effort to connect, but some do not. I still hear a lot of "we need," "our budget." "our reporters." The focus is on the station, not the audience. Ask yourself, how is what you're doing benefiting your audience? Then try to answer that in your communications with your audience.

Coming up with pitches that focus on listener need can be difficult, but with some work, not impossible. It just takes some work ahead of the drive.

I was reading David Giovannoni's artcle in Current from March of this year, "For their listeners, NPR News stations are the last thing worth listening to on the radio." Right there, the title pops out and screams relevancy for the listener. The gist of the article is, Public Media Listeners are back and they are more loyal than ever. More nugget come from David's commentary at the end of the article. 

The headline isn’t that listeners to NPR News stations are back. It’s that listeners are finding the programming on NPR News stations more important in their lives than ever, and by extension, more worthy of support.

They're listening less in the car and at work, but now they have returned to at home listening.

Listeners use of competitors has dropped 30% from the same period a year ago.

If loyalty to terrestrial broadcast sources can thrive in this most competitive environment, would it not be equally sturdy on other platforms? Wouldn’t the last thing worth listening to on the radio be the first thing worth finding on any new platform?

The intensifying loyalty of listeners — their desertion of competing stations and ever-increasing dependence on, even devotion to NPR News stations — cannot be denied.

Your loyal listeners, the ones that listen to you more than any other station, are the listeners that are most likely to give. Understanding what makes them loyal should inform what you say during your fund raisers. 

Feeling motivated? Give it a try. 

• Hit your key points consistently. 
• Make your point and move on. 
• Don't ramble.
• No hand wringing