Reinventing Pledge Drives

It's looks like a very successful fall fundraising season in public radio. Most of the stations we worked with matched or exceeded last Fall's results. A few stations had record-breaking drives for dollar raised and number of givers. Direct mail and other off-air fundraising appears to be strong as well.

A few more stations conducted one-day pledge drives including WRKF in Baton Rouge and WFDD in Greensboro/Winston-Salem.

Several stations -- WSHU in Fairfield CT, and KBSX in Boise, WBHM in Birmingham -- are trying to reinvent their fundraising by conducting nothing but 1-Day drives. They are following the lead of KBBI in Homer, Alaska and more recently, KUNC in Greeley. WSHU even published its plan to do nothing but 1-Day drives. You can see that here.

One big question we had about 1-Day drives is what happens when the station doesn't meet the goal? We now know the answer as a few stations have missed their goals.

First, the station typically makes at least two-thirds of the goal. For example, a station that usually raises $150,000 in seven days raises $100,000 in one day.

Not surprisingly, there is a let-down among station staff members. That's followed by a recognition that the station just raised $100,000 in one day, blowing away any previous level of fundraising performance without having to use any premiums, sweepstakes, or challenge grants.

A series of on-air spots and eblasts over the next week further reduces the balance of the remaining goal. Then the station comes on the air to mop up. Most stations hit goal with another day of fundraising. Instead of interrupting programming for seven days, the goal is met with just two days of preemptive pitching.

Audience response to this is quite good. Listeners appreciate the transparency of the process. In time we will learn if they appreciate it enough to make future 1-Day drives successful enough to abandon longer drives for good.

No matter what happens, it's great to see so many stations trying to address that old listener question, "Can't you do something about those long, annoying pledge drives?" These stations are trying and the lessons learned will benefit all of public radio.

Best of Public Radio 2009 in the Works

John Sutton & Associates and Jay Clayton Associates, in collaboration with NPR, APM, PRI, DEI, and Public Interactive, are once again creating an end-of-year fundraising campaign for public radio stations. Last year's integrated campaign was very successful with the majority of stations earning more revenue than over the same period the previous year.

The campaign will include direct mail, on-air spots, eblasts, and of course, the three-hour turnkey fundraising special. New this year, a national toll-free number and the option for stations to do more of the pitching.

More details are here.

Questions? Please contact me at john@radiosutton.com

Fundraising Mystery

It's public radio pledge drive season and it appears to be going quite well for most stations across the country.

We know a lot about why listeners contribute to public radio, why the give when they do, and why the give certain gift amounts.

One of the great mysteries that remains, however, is why some stations get lots of contributions while offering few or no premiums while others can't meet their goals without selling a laundry list of mugs, t-shirts, gift certificates, and other stuff.

Is it that well-educated, societally-conscious listeners in some cities need more inducement than similar listeners in other cities? Is so, why would that be? Do they value the station less than their peers in other cities? Or is the difference on the station side of the microphone?

Web Giving, Interrupted

Here's a tip for public radio stations getting ready to do their fall fund drives.

When sending eblasts, it is important to put the phone number in body copy using a format that let's the user dial the number by clicking on it.

Why?

Because more people are reading emails on their smartphones, but not pledging through those devices. The opportunity to get people to act is as they are reading the email. You just can't count on them remembering to reopen the email at a later time.

Until giving via a mobile device is as easy and common as over a computer, you'll want to extend the recipient's giving options by making it easy to call in a contribution when the email is first opened.

Update: Best of Public Radio and Fall Drives

The Fall fundraising season is underway and early results are promising. Stations we talk to are making higher goals on time or with a little extra fundraising. Direct mail revenue is up in several markets. Good luck to everyone who has yet to go.

The Best of Public Radio: The Lighter Side did well this summer. About two-dozen stations have used it so far. Others are using it as part of their Fall on-air drives.

As with the 2008 End-of-Year on-air special, some stations did better than others. We're looking at the results and lessons learned and refining our plans for the end of the year special.

The 2009 EOY special will again feature 3 hours of turnkey fundraising programming. The broadcast window will be larger and stations will have more flexibility in where the special can be scheduled. There will be an option for more local pitch time for stations wishing to put more elbow grease into their broadcasts. The 2008 special focused on web giving only. The 2009 special will accomodate web and telephone giving.

As with last year, the EOY on-air fundraising special is part of a package that includes direct mail, eblasts, and on-air spots. Look for a full announcement with more details in the next week. Materials will be available beginning October 23.

Everybody But NPR...

Just about everybody in public radio but NPR is raising money directly from listeners.

PRI is doing it. So is American Public Media. Independent producers are doing it. Stations that produce national programming are doing it, including a few that are adamant that NPR should stay out of their markets when it comes to raising money from listeners.

Some of these national appeals are a straight request to donate to a production such as The Splendid Table or The Kitchen Sisters or Marketplace. PRI takes contributions from listeners at its website and occasionally asks them to give there during PRI underwriting credits.

Some appeals are for money to cover new media costs. This American Life has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars using new media – emails, Facebook, and spots at the top of podcasts -- to support its podcasting service.

Good for them.

Public radio can only benefit from finding more ways to solicit listener contributions, including NPR asking for money directly from listeners. The business model, how NPR charges stations for programming, has to change to make this work. But it can be done and everyone can benefit.

This is not a popular position with stations but stay with this, please.

NPR Can Help Get Lapsed Donors Back

Public radio’s annual donor retention rate is only 60%. Put another way, the current approach to fundraising fails to retain 4 out of 10 givers each year. That’s 1,000,000 givers per year.

At an average annual gift of $80, public radio stations are failing to renew $80,000,000 in support annually. The number could be even higher when lost additional gifts are factored into the equation.

With direct fundraising NPR could help keep as much as 25% of that money in the system each year, with most of the money going back to stations along with the names of the renewing donors.

Remember, these are donors who did not to renew despite 4 to 10 direct mail letters from the station, maybe a telemarketing call, email appeals, and hearing numerous fund drives. This is found money.

NPR Can Help Get Additional Gifts

Research shows that public radio givers will support multiple stations in a market, provided they listen to and value both stations. Listeners who give to more than one station typically will give equal amounts to each station. They don’t want to hurt one to help the other. It’s one of the benefits of having a societally-conscious audience.

That behavior will play out nationally too. Many people who give to stations will gladly give to NPR without reducing their support to their station. If just one percent of NPR’s weekly Cume makes a contribution of $80 to NPR annually, in the form of an additional gift to public radio, then the industry has $24,000,000 million dollars in new gross revenues.

Yes, some givers, but not many, will choose to only give to NPR, but there are ways to compensate stations for that money and to help stations get even more donors.

NPR Can Help Stations Acquire New Donors

This is the obvious approach. NPR can leverage its brand and economies of scale to conduct direct mail and email acquisition campaigns. What seems cost-prohibitive to many local stations is very affordable on a national level. All that’s needed is a model for making sure that all boats rise together.

And that’s the crux of the matter. Public radio has the wrong discussion when it talks about who should be asking for money. That’s a no-brainer. Everyone who can ask efficiently and effectively should be asking. This American Life is proof of the power in national fundraising.

The harder part is figuring out how the network and stations work together to share in the growth. That requires new business models and trust and the new business models are actually pretty easy. It’s just math.

Trust will only come through experience. That’s why the industry must move forward with some experiments now. Any one of the above suggestions will do. Success for all will breed trust. Nothing less will.

Until then, public radio is muffling its single most powerful fundraising voice at a time when it is getting harder to be heard. There’s no sense in that.

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Note: The This American Life national fundraising effort was through the program's producing station, WBEZ, not it's network, PRI. All contributions were to WBEZ.

Grow the Audience:Defining Inclusiveness

In 1997, NPR published a major report, funded by CPB, on reaching more Black listeners with public radio. Twelve years later the industry is still trying to figure out how to do that.

One of the top goals of the CPB-funded Grow the Audience project is Inclusiveness. In public radio, that means achieving greater ethnic diversity.

It's been pointed out that targeting an audience by physical characteristics is an odd thing to do given that public radio is an industry focused on the mind. Yet that's pretty much a requirement that goes with receiving federal dollars. The problem, of course, is that physical characteristics say nothing about what people will find interesting to listen to on the radio.

The Grow the Audience project tries to address this by adding the demographic filter of college education to the ethnic demographics since education is a strong predictor of whether someone listens to public radio. That filter, however strong it is, is not a useful as it might appear.

Three decades ago, when researchers first learned that level of education was a power indicator of public radio listening, far fewer Blacks and Hispanics had college degrees. The educated "market" was predominately White and full of baby boomers coming of age.

The college educated population is very different today. It is not only more ethnically diverse, it is also more culturally diverse. This is quite evident when analyzing the educated population, particularly in large markets, using research tools like Scarborough or MRI.

College educated Black, Hispanic, and White consumers make very different media choices. They hold a different mix of jobs. Their political-affiliation profiles are different.

It is a mistake to assume that ethnicity, even filtered with level of education, is a sufficient starting point for reaching the goal of Inclusiveness. Those two demographic characteristics are not precise enough research tools in an increasingly complex media marketplace.

The listener's mind matters more.

If public radio is to become more inclusive it is going to have to address the issue of cultural diversity in its programming and management, locally and nationally. Inclusiveness must be defined by personal, social, and political interests and values.

Do that right and the ethnic audience numbers will fall into place. Stay the current course and twelve years from now Grow the Audience will look like just another failed academic exercise.