Relevancy - A Theme Echoed in Several Sessions pt.2

In Community Engagement Session on Thursday, Jake Shapiro from PRX said - “We aren’t that relevant online right now. We need to become more relevant. We need to make our online communications authentic and geared to the audience.”  As an example he said people think of Craig’s List as “Ours” and Time Warner as “Theirs”

David Freedman, GM from WWOZ said, “You must be both unique and best. If you are generic and mediocre you’re dead!” We need to think about how we can be more unique, what we want to be best at, and how we can connect more with the communities we serve. The community engagement session very effectively addressed some of the issues surrounding community engagement that all stations, companies, and organizations struggle with. Where are the boundaries? We will need to evolve some whole new ways of thinking about how we do what we do if we are going to truly engage communities.

In the opening session for the conference Alisa Miller, President of  PRI also addressed that community engagement can be uncomfortable and we need to get past that. We need to take some risks.

In the Community Engagement session Gabe DiMaio talked about WBFO’s 2 Cents sessions in which they invited members to their studios to give their 2 cents about how WBFO could better serve them and become more relevant to them. WBFO really listened to their feedback and the members appreciated being asked. WBFO then posted the questions that came up in the session and how their management team answered them on their website so this involved community engagement both online and offline.

Jake suggested reading The Cluetrain Manifesto - The whole book can be read for free online here http://www.cluetrain.com/book/index.html

Jake Shapiro created a Wiki for the session organizers to use leading up the the conference. There are numerous links to articles and examples posted on the wiki. Visit the wiki here http://prdmc.wikispaces.com/ Lets keep the discussion going! Nobody can give you just one answer about how to engage your community but it’s clear that community engagement is key to making ourselves more relevant and to building more one to one relationships with listeners, members, and donors that will lead to increased revenue!

-Betsy Harman, DEI Online Fundraising Advisor - Principal, Harman Interactive

Relevancy- A Theme Echoed in Several Sessions - pt 1

 

Betsy Harman & Mandeline Stanionis 

In every session I organized, and I suspect in many of the other sessions at the PRDMC, there was a recurring theme. We must be relevant! In the session entitled Telling Your Story in Print and Online, Madeline Stanionis, author of “The Mercifully Brief, Real World Guide to Raising Thousands (if not Tens of Thousands) of Dollars with E-Mail” talked about the need to focus on who your donor is and what his or her needs are. Have a very clear picture of one person you are talking to. Madeline’s example was a very busy woman named Anna.

Anna may be on 8-10 e-mail lists for causes she cares about. Plus she receives work e-mail, e-mail from family etc…Successful organizations need to find a relevant way to connect with Anna so she opens and reads the e-mail they send. These organizations will make Anna feel a part of something, and will use good writing to tell their story in a way that lets Anna get the message even if she only skims the website or e-mail.

In Madeline’s presentation she talked about how writing for the web and for e-mail is different than writing for direct mail. She discussed the importance of having a good subject line. She addressed the importance of timing - sending the right message to the right person at the right time (otherwise it isn’t relevant.)

Other tips from Madeline included utilizing campaigns rather than just one off messages, integrating online and offline communications, and the importance of being creative. She said, “There’s a lot of noise out there and you have to be loud to be heard!”

I also asked Madeline what one tip she might give to public broadcasting. She said to leverage the personalities. “There are huge opportunities for public radio to use personalities to be personal with listeners and donors in creative and compelling campaigns.” Buy the CD from her session! Download the ppt presentation here - http://www.madelinestanionis.com/speaking.html

-Betsy Harman,  DEI Advisor for Online Fundraising - Principal, Harman Interactive

The most important PRDMC in 30 years?

In this morning’s opening session, Patricia Harrison,  President of CPB referred to an email set by Mark Fuerst, Executive director of the integrated media association www.integratedmedia.org  remarking this could the most important the PRDMC in the 30-year history of our industry.  If you missed it, the text is below:

Dear Colleague,

I’m writing to you as a co-registrant at the upcoming DEI conference, which, I think, will be one of the most important conferences in the thirty-year evolution of our industry.With that introduction, I can imagine your reaction: “You must be kidding. What’s could be so important?”

 My answer is this will be the first PRMDC of the “New Realities era.”

You see, between December 2005 and May 2006, NPR conducted a series of regional meetings, mostly involving station managers, under the title ”The New Realities.”  The aim was to determine if public radio executives–station leaders in particular–were ready to deal with some of the disruptive and potentially destructive challenges posed by broadband Internet, podcasts, audio-enabled cell phones, WiFi, MySpace, Google News, satellite radio and a slew of things that are still over the horizon.

The answer came back ”Yes.”  And that led, in turn to a set of policy discussions and initiatives within NPR that are already in motion.  

Well, once the New Realities discussion reached its initial consensus, it became evident that agreeing to change (in a general sense) is the easy part. The hard part is deciding what to change and how and when.

I suspect that if DEI polled its members, the results would be similar to what NPR found: lots of people coming to New Orleans would say “Yes, definitely, we need to change.”  But even among the development professionals there would be much less agreement on the details or even on the direction of change.  For example, should CPB be encouraging stations to share infrastructure to provide state of the art customer service?  Or should CPB just lay back and leave that decision to individual local units (most of whom can’t afford state of the art CRM)?  Should we begin to plan for paid content that would be available only to members? Or alternatively, will we do better by keeping everything free and open? Should we take full advantage of the boom in online advertising, or do we keep our sites pristine?

See what I mean: discussion of the details can quickly get ugly. 

Which brings me to my main point: the upcoming PRMDC is the first time many of us will get a chance to talk about these issues face to face, in a real-world operating context with the people who will actually “do it.”

The challenge before us, the conference attendees, is this: how do we balance the need improve the performance in our traditional disciplines with the need to invest in some new practices?

Looking at the schedule in very broad terms, I think DEI got it right. 80-90% of the sessions are focused on legacy operations, from promotions to membership, organizational management to underwriting and major gifts. But the new things are on the map, properly allotted about 10% of the conference time.

As you plan your days in New Orleans, consider splitting your time between legacy support and innovation, and even in the sessions on traditional disciplines, keep you eye open for new ways of doing old things.  In my opinion, we need greater efficiency and more output from our core development function even more than we need to invest in new media applications–because our ability to do anything new requires we do the “old things” with excellence and effectiveness. 

Still, if you have time, please consider taking in a few of the sessions devoted to new media applications, management and revenues. (I listed most of the sessions below.)  I think you will be very surprised to see how that “getting your money back on new technology” is no longer the big issue.  Instead, the question is how fast can we adapt to the changing environment. 

Mark Fuerst - Executive Director
iMa | Integrated Media Association

Welcome to New Orleans - We’re glad you are here!

It happens every year.  If I don’t meet a familiar face in an airport on the way to the PRDMC, I will inevitably see someone on the shuttle to the hotel.  This year was no different.  Kay Masko, of Memsys (previously of WXPN) was sitting in the front seat!

It was great to reconnect with her, and also to share with a familiar face the trip into the city center from the airport.  Everyone on the shuttle was peering out, trying to identify the remains of devastation and rebuilding efforts in New Orleans as we passed landmarks like the Super Dome and the Convention Center that were burned into our memories in the days following when hurricane Katrina hit this spirited city.  I kept thinking, “I am so glad we (the PRDMC) are here this year.”  I’m glad we can help with our dollars and donations this week.

So far everyone New Orleanean I have met today is nicer than the last.  They are realistic but still hopeful.  Their warm welcomes and hospitality are infectious.

This city is the perfect backdrop for our conference this week.  While public radio development by no means is recovering from a disaster, change and renewal are in the air.  New technology and more conduits by which we serve listeners are expanding, and also is the potential for re-thinking how we raise the money needed to support it; All the while staying focused on our mission of providing programming and content vital to our listeners. 

I hope you find lots of inspiration, new ideas, and some challenges to tackle this week.  Please share them with us in the days to come.

-Melanie Coulson

DEI Advisor

Welcome to DEIdea Lounge

 

Colleagues, 

Welcome to DEIdea Lounge, the Development Exchange’s foray into the blogosphere.  We are excited to provide this new virtual “exchange” of the latest thinking in all areas of fundraising and marketing within public radio, and beyond.   

More than ever, change is afoot in our field.  Technology is creating new ways for us to cultivate listener and donor relationships,  move people along the giving path and develop sponsorships .  Plus, we need to anticipate the expectations of younger donors  and change the way we work to meet those expectations.  

In addition to the many formal learning opportunities  that DEI provides to member stations and to the system at large  - PRDMC, Webinars, E-report and benchmarking for public radio , there also seemed to be a need for a centralized place for the DEI team to share thoughts, interesting articles and the latest research on a more frequent basis with the entire system.   We also wanted to have a place for that information to be archived and easily accessible by topic. And so the DEIdea Lounge Blog came into being. Our hope is that DEIdea Lounge will become something akin to the valuable, informal learning that comes through conversations in the hallway or over coffee with peers at PRDMC. 

The key to the success of the DEIdea Lounge will be you.  Your feedback will be critical, not only to respond to posts, but also to tell us what topics we should be addressing. 

On behalf of the staff and advisors of DEI we welcome you, and thank you for all your efforts each day on behalf of the supporters of public radio.

Sincerely Yours, 

Doug Eichten

President