3 New Rules for Radio Pledge
An esteemed colleague recently proclaimed, in so many words, "the death of pledge." That day will come, but today is not that day. Or the year after that.
It's no secret that listener behavior is shifting. Recent data shared by NPR shows that there are now about as many NPR-only content listeners as there are broadcast-only listeners. There are as many as 14 million people listening to both. Listeners’ preferences for accessing content will continue to shift. And as listener preferences shift, so too will the in-car experience. NPR and CDP are collaborating with local stations to find new ways to bring in donors. You’ll be hearing a lot about that in the coming months.
Pledge itself isn’t going anywhere for a while. But because most listeners don’t fall into the “broadcast-only” camp, pledge desperately needs to evolve. More and more listeners expect a different kind of experience from public radio than what they hear during pledge. It’s no wonder drives are bringing in fewer new donors. It’s time to up our collective approach.
I’ve been talking a lot with stations about this. Gone are the days when we can give out the phone number every 30 seconds. Gone are the days when we can expect the listener to see us as the only game in town from which to hear their favorite programs. Gone are the days when the only calls to action during pledge are asking the listener to give (more on this last point in a future post).
One approach I’m interested in is making pledge breaks sound more like podcasts.
You: "What the heck does this sound like?”
Me: "I’m glad you asked!"
Think about it as taking things away.
I was producing a drive recently, and the pitching got my attention (more than the typical leaning-in one does as a producer). The sound was personal. Conversational. Intimate. Genuine. Human. All those things that make for a compelling story. A lot of it had to do with chemistry. But some of the magic was that they weren’t doing the same old, same old. They weren’t hammering the listener with calls to action like you’d hear in a typical pledge break. And even though it was the last part of the drive, and we had deadlines and goals, they pitched without the typical sense of urgency. And it worked. The fundraising results were as strong as they needed to be for that time in the drive. And they were creating an experience that drew the listener into the circle and invited them to be part of conversation. We focused on developing this sound during the rest of the shift. It was rad.
I like to describe the sound as “small-casting.” It's one of the things I help teams develop as a consultant.
Here are three of the rules to help achieve the small-cast sound:
Don’t give out the phone number every 30 seconds. Doing so isn’t natural and gets in the way of connecting with the listener.
Don’t pair people just because they’re available. Think about chemistry. I know it’s not always possible to schedule pitch teams this way, but do what you can.
Don’t wing it. Go into each break with a structure and lean into that structure.
There’s more to it than these three rules, but this is a good place to start if you’re looking for a new sound for radio pledge at your station.
There’s another rule I’ve written about: experiment. We’ve got a tool stations are using for drive planning called Prompli. Prompli was designed for stations to experiment with messaging and break structure, as well as share successful techniques with other stations. We’re using Prompli to test new ways to design drives as listener behavior shifts towards digital, and we’re on the lookout for the best ways to leverage pledge as an important source for new donors and new sustainers.
Getting started with Prompli is free. I’d love to see how your station uses the tool! For more information, contact prompli@cdpcommunity.org