Last week, my local public radio station (KCFR) was holding its annual pledge drive. I love NPR and local public radio and always give to support it. But, it’s kind of annoying when they spend an entire week asking for pledges, making me feel guilty if I don’t give, and worst of all, providing just about zero value for the entire week. That’s right, in the usual 12 hours of listening that I do each week, it turned out that the local station asked for pledges about 90% of that time and provided programming that was valuable to me only about 10% of the time. So yes, I tuned out.
Now, I completely understand, this is public radio and this is how they get their funding. They have to operate this way. But you are not public radio and you don’t have to operate this way. So why is it that so many companies and organizations spend so much time asking for your money, your time, and your commitment and focus so little on providing value in return? Constantly selling to me and constantly asking me to help you makes me tune you out. You’re just part of the static.
Turn the balance around and focus on providing value constantly. The return will come when people start talking about how great your product or service is. They might even start talking about how awesome you or your company are. Word of mouth is priceless! And in defense of NPR, in reality, they only spend 5 days out of an entire calendar year asking me for pledges to keep them going. The rest of the year, they do provide incredible value on a constant basis. That translates to just over 1% of their time spent asking me to help them, while 99% of the time they’re providing valuable programming that I can’t get anywhere else. And that’s why when NPR has a pledge drive, I’m always willing to pitch in. Do you provide value 99% of the time?
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4 comments so far ↓
1 Ah, Public Radio... there HAS to be a more effective way to get money... // Jun 16, 2009 at 1:30 am
I love non-commercial radio, for the most part. NPR is probably what I listen to most on the radio in the car. I’ve always hated pledge drives, and also tend to turn it right off when those are on. I’ve never really thought about giving money to them, even though I do enjoy their programming. Yet, I just realized, if I’m ever extraordinarily wealthy, I’m going to just say, “how much would it cost for me to eliminate these weeklong borefests completely for 1 year?” and then cut the check if they’ll skip ‘em. I would not do this because I believe that NPR is the greatest good on the face of the earth, but because I like PEOPLE and I would view it as a truly noble cause to prevent some significant number of people from experiencing that pain/annoyance, for 1 year.
2 Jean Tabaka // Aug 14, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Chris,
Just a shout out to our mutual NPR station KUNC. I love them too! They provide value everyday. AND they have moved to a “One-day Fund Drive” twice a year. To your point, that means that I get 363 days of value versus 351 with normal NPR stations. AND, because I don’t get annoyed with them, I stay strongly loyal to them.
There is another NPR station in the area. I won’t mention their name. I NEVER listen to them because it seems as though they are in fund drive mode all the time. They have utterly eradicated any trust I have in them that they care about delivering value to me.
And an interesting side anecdote about these two stations. At one point, the other much bigger and much more influential NPR organization was going to buy KUNC from the University of Northern Colorado. Listeners were so outraged and so protective of the KUNC culture that they put on a MASSIVE fund-drive to fend off the sell and managed to save the station essentially buying it themselves (or at least that is my vague recollection.)
Okay I am off my NPR rant. Back to loving KUNC, the little radio station that could :- )
Thanks Chris,
Jean
3 Jean Tabaka // Aug 14, 2009 at 1:23 pm
OOoops! Just realized we were referring to two different local NPR stations. Well, my story remains. I love KUNC :- )
Jean
4 jim Wayne // Sep 25, 2009 at 9:14 am
I think that the US Government should not spend a dime in Public Broadcasting. Why shoul tax payer money go to broadcasting if there are so many private outlets out there?
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