Station Spotlight: Georgia Public Broadcasting Embraces CDP's Canvassing Program As A Multi-Purpose Marketing Tool
BOSTON, November 11, 2019 – Bert Wesley Huffman was one of the first public media station executives to witness, firsthand, the fundraising and member-acquisition power of CDP’s Canvassing Program.
Since 2013, when the Senior Vice President & Chief Development Officer at Georgia Public Broadcasting began sending teams of blue-vested canvassers to knock on Atlanta’s doors, the program has generated 14,708 one-time contributions and 12,592 contributions from sustainers (46.1 percent of the total). This has translated into $587,768 in one-time revenue and $184,000 in monthly sustainer revenue. Annually, these sustainers provide more than $2,200,000 in revenue.
There’s no substitute for face-to-face contact.
As impressive as these results may be, they are not unusual. Since CDP launched the canvassing program in 2012, it has:
Generated almost $28 million in revenue for 23 participating stations (14 stations are currently active); that sum climbs to $60 million with the value of ongoing sustainer contributions
Recruited over 370,000 new donors, 113,000 of whom (31%) are sustainers
Consistently enjoyed a conversion rate of 10 percent – i.e., 1 of every 10 prospects whom the canvassers engage in a conversation agrees to make a donation
In 2018 alone, participating stations raised more than $1.2 million in one-time contributions, and over $4.5 million in annual revenue from new sustainers.
Personalized, real-time interactions.
“One reason why canvassing has such a high conversion rate compared with direct mail,” adds Michal Heiplik, CDP’s Executive Vice President, “is the personalized and conversational nature of the interactions. Most people are procrastinators. It’s very easy for them to throw away a mail piece, switch the channel during a pledge drive or just hang up on a telemarketer. Most of the time, all these people need is a friendly face to show up on their doorstep to actually commit.”
Another strength of the program is the ability of canvassers to engage in real-time objection handling. For example, a common objection concerns the legitimacy of canvassers. Heiplik explains, “People ask, ‘How do I know you’re actually from the station?’ Which is why our canvassers wear locally branded uniforms and have I.D. badges. In addition, every station has a canvasser verification website that potential donors can visit to match a face to the canvasser.”
Guerilla marketing
Although GPB’s fundraising and donor-acquisition results are fairly representative, Huffman’s decision to harness the program for “guerilla marketing” initiatives is more avant-garde.
For example, after GPB launched its first Atlanta-based news radio station in 2014 (WRAS), Huffman and his team deployed squads of canvassers across the city to spread the word about the new NPR station. This was a ground-level effort to build a market for the “new product.”
“It was really important to have the canvassers going door-to-door, telling people that there was a new alternative for news and information in this competitive media market,” says Huffman. “Canvassing is a great fundraising opportunity, but it’s also an opportunity to knock on people’s doors and say, ‘Here’s what we we’re doing.’ Our goals extend beyond how much money comes in or how many eyeballs are on the screens. We’re in the business of building relationships, so why wouldn’t we add canvassing to the mix of relationship-building tools?”
In addition to providing marketing support for WRAS, as well as upcoming programming and special events such as the Great American Read, GPB plans to use canvassing as part of an ongoing campaign to build good will and brand-awareness for all its stations.
“One day, we sat down and said, ‘What if we invested a good amount of money into the canvassing operation outside of the development effort?’” says Huffman. “Hire a few additional canvassers to go around and just market - knock on doors and leave hangers on doorknobs to advertise the things we’re doing here? We already meet with the canvassers once a month to tell them what’s happening at GPB, so why not use them for multiple functions? That’s what we’re looking to do in the coming year, adding this new marketing function to the development component.”
Thousands of positive brand impressions
As one of the first stations to adopt the canvassing program, GPB has been in the vanguard of analyzing its long-term benefits – above and beyond donor-acquisition.
“Canvassing really diversifies a membership program,” says Heiplik. “It creates a more balanced marketing program, and helps provide a steady flow of good mission-based donors. It also has the ability to deliver thousands of positive marketing impressions for a local public media station.
For every station, every week, with their station-branded uniforms, leave behinds and thank-you cards for active donors, canvassers are making thousands and thousands of positive marketing and brand impressions for participating stations, one conversation at a time.
To learn more, contact:
Hunter Sears, Associate Director
617 300 2576