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Up until the pandemic we pitched in studio, on-air. I’ve been at the station for less than a year but as a long time WFDD listener I know we’ve tried a few different approaches to fund drives: pre recorded, rapid drives etc. But now a lot of us have gotten use to pitching and producing those shifts from their home. So, for now, we’re trying to decide if we go back to in person pitching or continue pitching from home. We’ve been playing around with the possibility of a model it seems some other stations are using; pre recorded pitches during certain times of the day. Since moving to at home pitching during the pandemic I’ve heard that we have more detailed scripts written out by the producers of each shift. I would like to see these go back to bullet points to give the pitchers a focus for each 3 hour shift but not as much word for word structure. Some people enjoy the producer’s detailed scripts and others would prefer to have bullet points. We’re trying to find the middle ground so no one feels over produced or like the pressure to create X amount of scripts for each 3 hour shift. I’m interested to hear how other stations produce on air pitching. The most common pushback we receive is about pitch lengths. For instance we have shortened the morning shift from 6-9am to starting at 7-9am with our on air host covering that first hour alone. I hear that it’s hard for people to keep their morale up during the drives while they aren’t seeing the needle jump during their shift. So hopefully shortening some shifts and adding in prerecorded pitches will help.
We’ve also shortened our drive this fall by a few days and it happens to be our biggest ask- we’re hoping it works!
We have gone back and forth about pre recorded pitches. Deciding if the time and effort it takes to create them has been worth it pre drive or should we use slightly less time during the drive and pitch live.
We use to use volunteers as well during the drives but now we use a paid call center to help with the bulk of our call in gifts.
1. Who from your station needs to be on your team? What important role does each of them play?
Almost everyone on our team is involved in the Fund Drives. Some team members are only involved in the On Air pitching or producing but others are involved in Thank You gift design, sourcing and ordering. Production helps create on air promo spots. We have people creating Live Read copy, and of course our Listener and Donor services team (of 2) executing the bulk of the planning- scheduling everyone, researching the best time, communicating with our mailing house and phone company, getting the website pages ready for launch and much more. Roles range from leadership, being knowledgeable and organized to enthusiastic and prepared on air.
2. Have you involved these team members in past drives?
Yes. All team members with very few exceptions are involved in the drive.
3. Are there any new additions to your team that you’ve considered?
We have tossed around the idea of considering someone to solely look for and create fund drive content. The concept revolves around special local stories to highlight during the drives to create more interest in giving.With people like Meagan it’s interesting to figure out how to meet them where they are. We know they listen to podcasts but how can we get them to also see that our station and shows are just as accessible online as a podcast.
Do you find that a lot of your older listeners do not care about incentives? Some of ours can’t wait to collect the yearly Love Mug (a campaign during February). We want to do a large survey soon to see what motivates people to give and one option will be incentives.
Persona 1
John, college grad, family man, homeowner, almost reaching our Major Donor level but not quite there yet-
Goal: How do I get him to be a Major Donor?
– Hobbies- Cars, computers, woodworking, takes kids to their sports events
– Values truth, Local news, community, green initiatives, kid inclusivity
– We offer local news and radio camp for kids, attempt to use local shops for our thank you items
– Continue strengthening our overall goals and improve our meetups to be more kid inclusiveJohn is not interested in global news. He really is concerned about his family so when developing talking points I need to focus on our local news and local events. A family focused program may get him to make the final leap to Major Donor.
Persona 2
Sarah, has never given, some college, mid 20s, works at a bar or coffee shop, listens to WFDD/our station at work with staff. Low income, has roommates.
Goal: To get them to give at the $5 entry level (60 a month)
– Shop Local, Community, buys organic at local farmers market, involved in the arts in our community, volunteers for art orgs around town
– Local meetups, local news, Carolina Curious (a local listener driven segment)
– Meetups/out reach in younger areas. Advertise more on social media-We need to focus on getting a marketing team with social media experience that can really speak to our younger audience and reach them where they are (TikTok/ Reels). There does not need to be a lot of crossover between our email campaigns and social media because they will target different groups. Sarah won’t want to hear about major donors because that is too far out of her reach and will alienate her.
I’m curious if you did paid ad’s with giving links when you did social media during giving campaigns? We hope to promote our favorite thank you items on social media during this fund drive and include a giving link through a paid advertisement- either by location and other tags or by targeting our followers and their friends. If you want to send me a follow up email in October I may have some data or insight to share on how it worked for us!
I agree, it’s a fine line to walk when pitching to major donors during on air fund drives. Really looking forward to hearing everyones thoughts and new ideas.
76 years is a long time! We hope to create a new and innovative approach to attaining and retaining major donors.
Alanna,
What database will you switch to? Wishing you the best of luck working out all the kinks before your Fall Drive!
-JulienI am not sure how long our station has been doing on-air drives. But like Sonsera mentioned in her response it seems like a long time and perhaps started in the 80’s. I’ve been with WFDD for about 9 months so while I have been through our Spring Fund Drive this is the first one I will have any part in planning. I should state that my part is pretty small compared to all the planning that goes in to the drives. We hope to incorporate some more targeted Social Media marketing for this drive and I can’t wait to see its effectiveness. As we plan our fund drives we need to know our potential for growth and analyze what has or hasn’t worked in the past to create a better drive each time.
-JulienDuring this course I hope learn how others pitch around the current economic situation and during a midterm election.
Lauren,
I’m curious to know how much of your staff are on-air during the drives? Do you stick with just the regular hosts/DJ’s for the pitch breaks? Almost our entire staff comes on board to either produce pitch breaks or do the on air pitching. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.Liz,
I’m interested to hear what you’ve tried during the slow hours? Have you cut out some of the on air pitches during that time or worried you’ll lose momentum/energy if you do? At WFDD, we have the same pain point and look forward to hearing what others have tried.Hi!
I’m new to public radio. I’ve been in my role as Listener and Donor Services Coordinator at WFDD since December 2021. I’ve only been through one major Fund Drive so far and have a lot to learn.It seems difficult to keep the energy going during our on-air pitch breaks as well as bring in new, first-time gifts during the fund drives.
Looking over the modules it looks like there is a lot of knowledge to gain from them as well as hearing from other participants. I hope we can learn a lot from each other during this course.
