1. For a number of years, because of the small size of our staff, we have cut back live-pitching on M-F to 7-9am and 4-6pm (during ME and ATC; we also pitch several hours on Sat.). We have done this because, again…very few of us to pitch, and because the “payback” during non-drive time was low. We have run pre-recorded pitches (between :29 and 1:29) between these times, and :29’s from 6pm – 7am.
2. I have been thinking, and hearing, more about the idea of “readying” our audience to give by extending that pitch time…so that even if we aren’t getting a big response, we are “prepping” the audience for what’s to come. I think we could see improved results if we had more aggressive pitching from 6-7am and 3-4pm.
3. I completely understand the push-back: everyone is doing their regular job PLUS pitching, and it is exhausting. I also hear pushback that we would be causing audience to tune out prior to our highest listening hours.
4. I think I can find a middle ground here, at least while our staff numbers are so low: We insert pre-recorded pitches in the 6-7am hour of ME during every available break, and we EITHER do the same during Fresh Air/3-4pm OR we live-pitch from 3-6, instead of 4-6. (Alternately, we could extend PM pitching from 4 – 7pm.). This would require a heavier life in the afternoon, but I think we would see a bump in pledges. We can test this this fall during a couple of afternoons to see what results we see.
