Your hosts, your content, the teams in development, membership, major giving and more all share the burden in fueling your next “OAF” (on-air fundraising). That said, if your Image Production isn’t carrying its fair share of the weight while we work to finance our future as Public Media, here are a few pointers on how it can.

  • Take the evergreen pitch, “How do I make a gift,” for example. Instead of just relying on your hosts, produce a few of these for every drive. You can be as creative as you want and the pitch will lack unforced errors, it will be concise, precise and can be executed in thirty seconds or less.
  • Consider using different hosts voices during different day parts in your drive production. Not that our listeners don’t love every one of our hosts but there may be a case or two where they do have favorites. Mapping out the many voices of your station will help you expose them in day parts they are not normally heard, which could cut down on pitch burn, listener fatigue and maybe, just maybe affect listener favoritism.
  • Use sound effects. Before you start thinking lasers and explosions, think about incorporating organic sound, foley sound effects, even sound you record yourself around your community or at your events. Whether you are writing around a specific sound effect, i.e. a dog barking, the sound of your public transport, a concert announcement or an actuality from a listener or a political figure, sound effects are amazing tools to help your listeners absorb your message.
  • Production is movement. I’m not saying that dry audio or actualities are without merit inside our membership drives.  Liners that contain direct copy writing, that are rich, emotional and tight can be dry, but producing these same messages without losing “the message” creates forward momentum and keeps the overall sound of the station moving. It lends inertia, musical format and in many ears can create a less jarring feeling of cold start, cold stop.

Collaboration seems to be happening between stations, but collaborating inside your station with ALL departments is also important. Creative imaging production heard during OAFs or year-round can weave station benefits together with fundraising objectives. They don’t have to be boring! Imaging production that defines your station’s personality and rings the cash register at the same time is an important part of a public radio’s sustainable future.

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