I wish I were better at paying attention to my LinkedIn and Facebook friend requests. Even though I use social media frequently, I often put off hitting the “accept” button on those alerts until another time. Or sometimes never.

It’s easy to do, in the same way it’s easy to put off cultivating those lists of prospects who have identified themselves as wanting to be a closer friend of your station. If you are managing staff time to prioritize renewals, lapsed recapture, sustainers, gift processing, premium management, and myriad other projects that comprise your fundraising and engagement efforts, it’s understandable that those ‘friend requests’ can sink lower on the list.

After all, converting a list of prospects to donors—even those who are ready to have a deeper relationship with the station—is time-consuming, and the effort-to-success ratio is often high.

I suggest making a Fiscal New Year Resolution to convert more of your engaged listeners and viewers into engaged members.

CDP has a free service for member stations that will take those back burner prospects off your hands, and spend a year cultivating them using proven digital marketing tools and techniques. The prospects will receive communications fully under the station brand using dynamic content developed using best-in-class practices.

• Prospects remain the property of your station and you have control whether messages are sent
• 100% of donations come directly back to the station, as does the member data
• Your station also owns the relationship with the new donors

A minimal amount of staff time is required to get your CDP Digital Prospecting program up and running.

Gather your lists from sweepstakes, events, NPR, PBS Prosper, or other engagement mechanisms and contact my colleague Brooks Heckner at CDP to make your Fiscal New Year Resolution a reality. Let us know how it works for you!

Please pardon me while I go to my social media accounts and convert those patient people to friends.