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1. For a number of years, because of the small size of our staff, we have cut back live-pitching on M-F to 7-9am and 4-6pm (during ME and ATC; we also pitch several hours on Sat.). We have done this because, again…very few of us to pitch, and because the “payback” during non-drive time was low. We have run pre-recorded pitches (between :29 and 1:29) between these times, and :29’s from 6pm – 7am.
2. I have been thinking, and hearing, more about the idea of “readying” our audience to give by extending that pitch time…so that even if we aren’t getting a big response, we are “prepping” the audience for what’s to come. I think we could see improved results if we had more aggressive pitching from 6-7am and 3-4pm.
3. I completely understand the push-back: everyone is doing their regular job PLUS pitching, and it is exhausting. I also hear pushback that we would be causing audience to tune out prior to our highest listening hours.
4. I think I can find a middle ground here, at least while our staff numbers are so low: We insert pre-recorded pitches in the 6-7am hour of ME during every available break, and we EITHER do the same during Fresh Air/3-4pm OR we live-pitch from 3-6, instead of 4-6. (Alternately, we could extend PM pitching from 4 – 7pm.). This would require a heavier life in the afternoon, but I think we would see a bump in pledges. We can test this this fall during a couple of afternoons to see what results we see.1. Everyone is involved in our on-air fund drives in some way. Of our eight staff members, three of us are experienced pitchers, and I am working with another staff member to help prepare her for pitching. These same people, plus News, record pitches that are used pre-and-post drive and during drives when we are not live-pitching. Our engineer is closely involved in the technical side. (We do NOT use a pledge producer because of our very small staff size; wish we could.).
2. Yes. It’s an all-hands-on-deck situation. ;o)
3. A couple, yes. I have been very leery of using non-staff people to pitch, because the volunteers the station used prior to me all came with their own agenda and were not focused on our listeners and our goals. I’m slowly adding in a few volunteers, as I find people who will understand their role, and who are articulate and passionate. I also hope in the future to use some of our news staff to live-pitch. We have experienced some turn-over in the last few years, and the previous news staff did NOT want to pitch.So, we didn’t really discuss personas during the webinar today, but I did create two: The first, Meagen, is a 36-year-old attorney. She has a moderately high income, and enjoys travel, yoga, and outdoor activities. She is an introvert, is married to an engineer, and loves her dog, a goldendoodle. Meagen is a registered Democrat who leads a very active life. She’s a foodie who likes to explore, and she loves cities. Meagen values her family, her independence, her community, self-awareness, and information. I imagine Meagen as a listener to KWGS, our NPR news/info station.
The second is Andrew, a 55-year-old English professor at a local university. Andrew has a Ph.D and is married, and he and his partner have a 14-year-old daughter and two dogs. His income is moderate, and he enjoys dinner parties with friends, learning about wines, and hiking, and has taken a number of trips to U.S. national parks to hike and spend time in nature. Andrew values nature, the environment, and beauty. He values his tight-knit community of friends and family. When he was younger, he was more invested in current events and politics, but as he has matured (and over the course of the pandemic), he finds himself more drawn to things that bring a sense of calm and joy to his life. I imagine Andrew as a listener to KWTU, our 25/7 classical music station.
I think both of these personas think of themselves as independent thinkers, and will want to know that the action they take is making a difference. They’ll need to understand why it’s important to give. I think Meagen might respond to incentives (a cool thank-you gift, a big challenge), but not Andrew…so will need to make a strong case for him. I think Meagen is a big podcast listener, so will need to gently call to her attention that (HELLO!) she’s also listening to the station regularly as well. I think both would find the case that each station strengthens the community powerful.
Ohhhh, Kate…the trials of being a university licensee! (HR, reduced funding, a job title that includes everything including taking out the trash…). I believe in you!
VPM, I’d be interested to hear more about how to structure your challenges/matches from your major and mid-level donors, and how you solicit them. And for everyone: How do you word your challenges, when the money is either already in-hand or is guaranteed? I’m also curious about how other mid-market stations like ours use challenge money. For example, we typically use our challenges in two-hour blocks (7-9am or 4-6pm weekdays), and only sometimes as all-day challenges. We used to do some challenges for sustainers only or new members only, but found that overall giving was suppressed, so this drive, we are focusing ALL our pitching on new/sustaining, and not limiting our challenges. And finally, our challenge goals are nearly always for a certain # of pledges, rather than a dollar goal. Anyone else? What works for you???
OMG, WAMU, I also would love to see the obsessively-detailed spreadsheet! I have several spreadsheets that I use to track several different elements of our drives, but have never been able to put together a big, overarching one that allows me to see everything in one place, and that auto-dates based on drive dates.
How long has your station conducted on-air fundraising? Since forever. Like some of you, our station is celebrating a milestone anniversary this year (75 years for KWGS), and I know we’ve been on-air fundraising for at LEAST 40 of those years.
Have you been involved in the planning process? Yes, and as my job is formatted, I am the primary fund drive planner.
What other elements of fundraising do you need to be aware of at your station as you plan your on-air campaign? Goal-setting (increasingly challenging, as our economy wobbles), social media and email strategy, direct mail strategy, and our on-air focus. Having listened to Jay’s webinars for several years now, and being a big fan of Anne Ibach/OPB, we try to focus our pitching on sustainers and new members, remembering that the ultimate pledge is from a new sustaining member pledging by EFT.
Those of you who are moving to radio drives with exclusively pre-recorded pitch content, I would be very interested to hear how you do this, why you made the change, and how your results have compared to your results when you did live-pitching. Are you still getting the percentage of new members you want? Do you feel hampered because you can’t pitch out of a particularly compelling report/story/segment? (THANKS!)
Sarah, that is a powerful point (never apologize for asking for support of something great)…and while I think those of us in development know this, sometimes our co-workers on staff who are pitching aren’t all-in on this.
Hi, all! This is Judith Nole, and I’m the Development Director at Public Radio Tulsa, which is KWGS (NPR News/Info) and KWTU (24/7 Classical). I’ve been the Dev Dir here for seven years, but have worked in and out of public radio my entire adult life, in both news and development.
BIGGEST pain point? ***sigh*** Staffing is a big one. We have a full-time staff of only 8, and of those, only three of us pitch (with one more newbie making her debut this fall). We only live-pitch during drive time on the weekdays, and very select hours on Saturdays, but it’s exhausting. I’m very reluctant to bring in community voices, because they typically have their OWN soapbox to stand on, not ours. Another pain point: Improving our pitching. Since I began we are using much more scripting and are being MUCH more careful about planning our pitch breaks, but we still struggle to find the right mix between “quick and snappy” and actually telling a story. Looking forward to discussion about this!
I hope to get a fresh perspective on our pitch content, and to better learn how to put together pitch breaks that work and are good programming. I also hope to learn from others who support classical stations how they reach their classical audience: ours has been growing, but we struggle getting responses. Is it because these listeners are turned off by talk in general, or is it our pitching? I would love to learn ways to engage with this audience more effectively! And, of course, just basically EVERYTHING. I want to learn from all of you, and appreciate all of you so very much.
