New PPM and Fund Drive Study in the Works

DEI, NPR, and John Sutton & Associates (JSA) are conducting a study in PPM markets of audience response to fund drives.

This is the first comprehensive study on listening patterns before, during, and after fund drives. JSA conducted the first PPM and Fund Drive analysis along with Paragon Media Strategies in December 1997. That study was limited to just a few stations and analyzed top-line audience response only.

The new study also aims to establish on-air fundraising benchmarks for PPM stations. These benchmarks will help stations you evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of their fund drives.

Stations subscribing to PPM data in Fall 2009 are being asked to participate. We plan to release our reports in two parts later this Spring.

Part One will study listening patterns and overall fund drive results. The objective is to quantify audience loss (if any) around fund drives, determine how quickly listening levels recover, find out if certain demographics or dayparts are affected more than others, and if there is a relationship between overall fund drive results and audience gain or loss during fund drives.

Part Two analyzes contributions and dollars received by dayparts and hours during the fund drive. The results are analyzed against the actual listening in those dayparts and hours. This information will be used to calculate each station's efficiency at turning listening into contributions. National benchmarks will be established and stations will be able to analyze their results against the national benchmarks. This is very practical research that will help stations develop better strategies and tactics for getting more listeners to give more quickly.

DEI is contacting potential participants about the study. Please forward any questions to John Sutton, john@radiosutton.com or Jay Clayton, jayclayton@comcast.net.