Last week was my local NPR station’s semi-annual pledge drive. For those not familiar, they spend a week interrupting all their programing every 15 minutes to talk to you about giving them money for 10 minutes. It’s not a model I feel has a lot of merit, but they and PBS seem to be sold on it. I bring it up though because last week they ran a promo with one of the nationally syndicated show hosts. He ran a spot on his show (apparently, I didn’t hear it so I’m assuming here) asking for people to turn in their friends and family who listen to NPR but don’t pledge. It’s a fun idea and breaks up the local DJs asking me for cash. So, “what’s your point?” you may be asking. Well, that spot had a nugget of gold in it, and it appears they’ve ignored it even though they produced it. The spot went more or less like this: Ira Glass (the host) calls this girl who has turned her mother in for not pledging. After some set up from the daughter the mother is put on the phone. Ira questions the woman about why she’s listened for a decade and not given them any money. She doesn’t know. He asks her if she’ll pledge now. She says yes. He’s shocked. Totally blown away. He sums it up like this “If we had just called you 6 years ago, you would have pledged?” Her response was simple. “Yes.” He remains to be shocked. I am also shocked at what I just heard and what I hadn’t. The listener, the one they’re trying to get, the one who listens but never gives money just gave them the answer… and they continued to keep doing it the same old way. The pledge campaign has some number of volunteers sitting at phones, waiting for people to call. Why not do a campaign where you set up a phone call with your listeners, and have a conversation with these people? Ask them to go to the website and set up a call time. Send out a post card with the web address. Talk to the people, discuss the programs they love, and why they love the station. Instead they’re still using the old “We talk, you listen” model… and they spend 7 days doing it, annoying their listeners by cutting into their programs to ask for money. Taking away the value of NPR for a week in an attempt to fund it. This model can apply to anything people are passionate about. Your fans want you to succeed, and they want to share their love for your product, so let them share. As we continue moving into the 21st century the old models of one way communication in advertising are becoming less and less effective. The space is becoming more and more cluttered and it’s getting easier and easier to ignore what advertisers are demanding of us. But people love to talk about something they love. No matter if it’s NPR or Sharpie markers, and when you let them do the talking suddenly they’re much more interested in listening to you. Tom Martin wrote a fantastic article on this subject last week. Check it out at Positive Disruption by: Tom Martin, I highly recommend it.
