Where's Your Community?

Too often, radio stations are "all about me" - the station.

Listen to me. Pay attention to me. It's all about me. Positioning, after all, is designed to differentiate one radio station from others - one me from all the other me's.

We don't advertise for you, Ms. Listener, we advertise for me. We want you to know me much more than we want to know you. Knowing you requires some audience research. Knowing me requires only some Nielsen ratings.

It always amazes me that stations are willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for marginally accurate ratings which tell them nothing whatsoever about their audiences beyond some rudimentary and sketchy demographics. Never a why or why not.

But asking real people questions about who they are, what they want, why they do what they do, etc. That's sometimes perceived as too pricey, even at pennies on the dollar of what Nielsen charges.

It seems to me - especially if you are a non-commercial station and not financed by agency-sanctioned ratings rankers - that understanding fans is the key to attracting more of them with more devotion and for longer.

See, here's the shocker:

Our fans care about themselves much more than they care about you.

They want to know how we reflect them - their own "story world," their own "story identity." And cheesy decades-old "listen and win" contests and snappy Madison Avenue slogans just don't do the trick.

"Survival, connection and status are the ultimate subjects of virtually all human stories."

So says story guru Will Storr.

Survival is why Aesop's Fables have survived for centuries. We learn lessons about right and wrong. How to live. Christianity itself is a recipe for how to live, and its lessons pack the punch of our message. Do potential listeners understand that this is what we do?

And what about connection?

Does the fact that your studios are around the corner and that your promotions team shows up at local concerts and festivals mean that listeners are connected to you? I doubt it. And it certainly doesn't mean they're connected to each other. Connection is a human need and radio remains primarily one-to-many. If people are listening together but in different places then that's not community, it's isolation.

I like to tell the story of the KPBS Producers Club. It's a special group of donors to San Diego's NPR station, and it's literally a "club" - a place for club members to connect. Each member pays at least $1,200 per year and together, they "are the station’s most invested and engaged supporters, they are our ambassadors and counselors. They enable KPBS to expand its vision of excellence, develop new programs, and serve our communities."

They are a social group - where it's all about connection. They meet in the real world together for events. They are a special group and they know it (i.e., status). And they are proud to have their names published on KPBS's website (did you know that only a tiny minority of philanthropy comes from "anonymous"? Again, status). Even the Producers Club has five tiers of membership levels at different price points (more status). And if you count the names and multiply by $1,200, you quickly realize that this "club" is the source of hundreds of thousands of support dollars for the brand, delightfully and gratefully given.

Them, not us.

Survival, connection, and status.

Or you could just buy some overpriced Nielsen numbers, and become bewitched by the random up-and-down trends reflecting an imaginary world without Pandora or Spotify or YouTube or TikTok or Podcasts.

A world with dragons and unicorns and rainbows.

But not our world.

Mark Ramsey Media does audience research for Christian Media - Perceptual research, digital studies, donor studies, music studies, etc. Learn more here. Call Mark at 858-414-4191 or email markramsey@mac.com.

And if you want a strategy to solicit major donors to pay for your research, look here and download this Listener Impact Study solicitation for donors from WAKW-FM.

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