Techniques - Overcoming Declining PSA Response Rates For any organization that closely monitors its public service advertising program it will come as no surprise that response rates - particularly among television stations - have been declining recently.
Several dynamics are responsible for this trend:
- PSA Overload - the sheer number of PSAs received by stations and the fact that many Public Service Directors wear several hats, leave little time for responding to detailed surveys and telephone calls.
- High Turnover of PSDs - at many stations the Public Service Director is an entry-level position with a very high turnover rate. This could mean that the person who received your PSA may not be the one who is being asked to evaluate it, thus the campaign has lost much of its identity. The path of least resistance is not to respond.
- Lack of Clearly Defined Value - the Public Service Director, or perhaps more importantly, senior station management, may not be sold on the importance of your campaign and its value to the local community.
- Improper Formats - use of 900 numbers in tags, fund raising appeals, improper dub format, lack of non-profit certification...all these and more can easily get a PSA rejected with no notice to the sponsoring organization.
These problems can be overcome by implementing four fairly inexpensive techniques when planning future TV PSA campaigns:
- Design usage reply cards in a way that makes it very easy for Public Service Directors to respond.
- Send reminder mailings to Public Service Directors
- Use pre-campaign and post-campaign mailings to educate Public Service Directors on your issue.
- Track those stations that will not use particular types of PSAs and delete them from future distribution.
Response Card Design
If bounce-back cards are the basic method for determining response and usage, they should be designed to make it as easy as possible for Public Service Directors to respond. Use simple checkoff boxes for stations to indicate frequency and duration of usage, as well as their preferred dub format. Also, to save public service directors time when filling out bounce-back cards, a second station mailing label with their name title and station address can be applied.
Reminder Notices
To help address the problem of high turnover among public service directors, a reminder letter can be employed with excellent results. Through this technique, a personalized letter and a second bounce-back card is sent to the Public Service Director, gently reminding him or her that you have not gotten a response from them.
The following data shows how important this technique can be in increasing response rates:
Pre/Post Campaign Contacts
Due to competition, it is more important than ever to inform, educate, and persuade Public Service Directors about the importance of your cause. There are several ways to accomplish this:
Send a pre-campaign alert to stations 30 days before a campaign will be mailed, telling Public Service Directors about the impending campaign. These can be low-cost letters or a full-color direct mail piece to pique the interest of gatekeepers and help cut through the PSA clutter. Sell the importance of your issue, and try to localize its impact. Using local data, maps, tagging PSAs, supplying stations with news articles, names of local contacts and having field personnel make personal 101-low- up calls are all ways this can be done.
Finally, all non-government organizations should be listed with the Council of Better Business Bureaus and the National Charities Information Bureau. These are organizations that the media will likely check to ensure the legitimacy of your cause. If you represent a new organization, it may be wise to send a copy of your IRS 501C(3) non-profit certification to the stations, a move that is particularly important with the networks.
