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What makes a listener? 7 tips from station community engagement research

hfriedlander, 24th January 2018
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The Station Community Engagement Survey is an affordable, do-it-yourself listener research option designed for all community broadcasters.

The results can help broadcasters with planning and programming activities at a station level. McNair yellowSquares, responsible for designing the survey and producing individual station reports, has looked at the trends found across the 60+ stations who participated in the survey in 2017.

The 7 top tips are:
  • Results show that committed listeners tend to be older, i.e. 55+. If this is true for your station – don’t try to flip this. For growth, go for age 45+;
  • Remember what you do best – research clearly shows that for most stations this is being local (75%), well ahead of any other factors; except
  • Special interests – such as music – as long as it is ‘special interest’, your station becomes the go-to place for the followers of that music community (55%);
  • Community involvement is vital. Open the doors to your listeners to influence your agenda, and tell them how they are influencing it by providing feedback;
  • Information that is specific to your community of interest (71%) is deeply valued; as well as providing experts on a specific topic (57%);
  • Don’t ask for commitment – establish a two-way relationship. On average there are TWICE as many listeners willing to donate than have donated, which also means there is double the donation opportunities. There are also 4x as many listeners who would consider leaving a bequest to a station – but less listeners considering membership than are actually members, which means that the commitment to membership will transition to voluntary donations.
  • Stations that best fulfil listener needs are trusted stations (60%).
Remember, it's all about trust. Or in two words: be yourselves.

If you want to get listener data specific to your station, sign up for the Station Community Engagement Survey now.

This article was written by Matt Balogh at McNair.

Research
Community Management
For Broadcasters

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