The Importance of Challenging Assumptions With Radio On-Air Drives

I hear a lot of assumptions about what works best in on-air drives. I’m sure you’ve heard some too. Here are some I’ve heard recently…

Assumption #1: The best length of a pitch break is 3–4 minutes. 

Assumption #2: The best pitch break strikes a balance between case (why give) and close (how to give) messaging.

Assumption #3: The best pitch break explains what public radio is all about.

Assumption #4: My listeners behave differently than yours.

I could go on. All of these are assumptions. They feel correct. But they’re really untested. Untested in the truest sense of the word. 

As an industry, we have it within us to innovate our way out of this situation. We’re smart. We’re creative. We’re passionate. And we share.

And as the last 18 months have shown us, something’s got to change in the way we conduct on-air member drives.

On-air drives allow us to experiment and pivot. If you’ve ever produced or helped plan a drive, you know it’s not uncommon to see if you can get better results by switching things up (adding a new thank-you gift/incentive, changing up how you use matches and challenge grants, etc.). This is all part of the natural rhythm of the drive.

But one thing we haven’t been able to look at (until now) is measuring the impact of pitch break structure. We’re missing out on learning what’s working during on-air drives—and why—from a statistical point of view.

Prompli was created to help local stations to do just that—to conduct your on-air radio drives the way you want to, to learn from other stations like yours what’s working in their drives and to apply insights to your own drive (in real time, ideally, or later in the drive when you’ve got a chance to breathe).

For example, what are the shared characteristics of pledge break messaging that correlate with more new donors? How does story selection during Morning Edition impact fundraising results? Is there a message mix that seems to be working at generating more sustainer gifts? You can measure these things now with a tool like Prompli.

Prompli was not built in a vacuum. We got input from 25 stations and also tested the platform at 3 stations before making it available to the system. Because I help stations with their drives, I also wanted to develop an efficient way to build and rebuild break messaging plans with just a few clicks. Because stations are networked together through Prompli, we can also measure the impact of pledge break messaging and structure.

CDP and Prompli have recently partnered to encourage conversations about addressing the decline in public radio donors seen across the system. It's time we begin to experiment as a constellation of local stations to see what works (and show the data to support how we know this). 

Prompli is available for free to a limited number of stations this fall. To schedule a demo for you and your team, send an email to prompli@cdpcommunity.org.