You may be heading into New Years planning and vision casting with a little dead weight this year: your target listener. Before you accuse me of outright radio blasphemy, let me explain. We’ve all been targeting that one key demo for so long. We’ve data mined her nearly to death. And many of us are pretty confident we know her better than we know…almost anyone. But do we?
How well we actually know what I like to call our station Avatar is the linch pin on which every brilliant plan and creative idea will either easily surpass all passed years or potentially fall very short. And as powerful as data is, it’s not all we need in order to actually move from knowing who to target and actually building a lasting bond of loyalty with them.
GAMIFY YOUR LISTENER PROFILE
Before you get married to the tone and language you’ve chosen for your target listener, your station Avatar, wouldn’t it be nice to know if you’ve gotten her right? Here’s a fun way to find out:
At your next meeting go around the room and ask everyone to name one thing they know about your core target listener, or station Avatar. Have someone write them all down and keep going around until everyone’s run out.
This little game will tell you more than just data. It will reveal who you’ve really been programming to for the last year, years, or maybe even decades.
If you did the Q4 quiz in last month’s article that dry erase board will also be filled with proven, detailed traits about the target listener that data could never tell you. You’ll already have a better idea of if your target listener has shifted due to economic changes in your area or businesses relocating. (If you didn’t, go find it and try it now)
In a world where a 35 year old mom in the suburbs of Sacramento may little in common with a 35 year old mom in a small town in Arkansas, the data alone won’t tell you how your avatar likes to be communicated to, what they find irritating and what really makes them lifelong fans that will take you with them, even if they move.
In my Creative Core coaching I help stations narrow down everything they need to know, not just to hit the target, but to know exactly where to aim to get the exact result they hope for. And there’s a lot more you can know about your stations avatar than you think.
KNOW WHERE TO LOOK FOR DISCONNECTS
Once you get that dry erase board filled up, take a minute to compare what you see along with your data and ask these questions:
- Is the avatar we’re targeting the avatar we’ve been serving? (you may not know this if you didn’t do last months quiz)
- How does the listener on the board differ from our documented avatar/core audience?
- Why does that difference exist?
- Has our market shifted who our avatar is today?
- Do we know our avatar well enough to guarantee results?
THE LITTLE KNOWN SECRET TO LISTENER LOYALTY
Your target listener, that core audience…they know you’re targeting them. And how we do it: in every carefully chosen sentence on air, in every thoughtfully written line in your copy, will determine where we land on the fine line between cringe factor and trusted friend.
It’s not in how nice you say it, sometimes it’s not even in the words you use. Your station avatar needs to feel this in everything you say: they’re not data. They need to feel that you have been put in their life to serve them. And in order to do that consistently requires taking the time to know when they’ve changed.
The more we know who we serve, the easier it is to know how to serve. The more we know how to serve, the more guaranteed the results. It’s just good business sense. But the unique beauty of Christian radio is that the more we serve those God has entrusted to us the more we are all changed for the better, and for His glory.