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Reaching a New Audience

Reaching a Greater Audience By Shifting its Annual Conference Online, Greater Public Set a New Path to the Future

Associations in every industry are well-known for their ability to balance the diverse needs of their members against technological and financial limitations. This is especially true of Greater Public, an organization that has served a broad range of U.S. public radio stations – currently about 250 member organizations from the Alaskan wilderness to New York City – for the past 30 years. When COVID-19 forced the cancellation of Greater Public’s annual Public Media Development and Marketing Conference (PMDMC) in July, the association decided to flex its virtual muscle and develop a free, 10-week Summer Series to present content online and connect with additional members who would not usually attend the conference in-person.

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“The virtual summer series was an exercise in seeing how far we could reach when travel was not an issue,” explained Andrew Leitch, Greater Public’s vice president of operations. “The technological capacity was already there, so it wasn’t a stretch to pull it together.”

Hosted by Greater Public with technology that was already available to the organization and fully supported by sponsors, the series illustrated how many additional people could participate when all they had to do was enter an email address and go.

Even though Greater Public has served the public radio ecosystem for decades, the PMDMC Summer Series helped elevate its profile to a new level. Leveraging its existing credibility, the organization was able to build additional thought leadership and set a new path for the future. Greater Public’s small staff of eight full-time employees and an additional eight part-time employees used the experience as an opportunity to learn how to better work with each other and their members.

Before 2020, Greater Public operated in a way that many associations do: provide teaching and training opportunities, maintain an extensive resource library, conduct benchmarking, and host a large conference.

They worked hard to identify what was essential across the different contexts of their membership. Then they segmented services and benefits to match the cost of belonging to the organization, all while evolving to remain relevant to their small and large members alike.

When their new CEO joined Greater Public a few years ago, a renewed focus emerged to raise the organization’s profile and reach audiences beyond the public media ecosystem. Early this year, the organization began making preparations to go completely virtual by Halloween, after operating mostly virtual already for more than a decade, with staff spread around the country. Those plans took on new urgency as the pandemic unfolded through the spring and summer.

The PMDMC Summer Series was a step in that direction and allowed Greater Public to strengthen its virtual footprint. It was a chance to maximize attendee experience, reach more members, connect with sponsors, and test what the organization was capable of. “The number of unique online registrants reached nearly 3,000 compared to approximately 1,100 attendees who normally attended the in-person conference – an increase of 273%.”

After the closing keynote on September 16, Greater Public analyzed the metrics and were blown away by the success of the PMDMC Summer Series. The number of unique online registrants reached nearly 3,000, compared to approximately 1,100 attendees who normally attended the in-person conference – an increase of 273%. The number of classroom hours also jumped from an average of 7,000 hours at the inperson conference to around 12,000 hours delivered virtually.

“The PMDMC Summer Series turned out to be a fantastic way for us to make new connections and emerge as a stronger leader for our industry,” Leitch said. “We were able to maintain an equilibrium and bring down barriers to participation and inclusion.”

Despite having to change plans due to COVID-19, Greater Public was able to pivot and experiment with what they could accomplish and how far they could reach.

The PMDMC Summer Series helped them to connect with their enormously diverse membership, including by adding 600 new contacts who were already part of the public radio industry but who weren’t aware of Greater Public before.

“The PMDMC Summer Series opened up doors for us to be a leader in the conversation,” said Leitch. “It was good timing for us, and it will help us get out there further and reach new heights.”

To learn more about Greater Public and its PMDMC Summer Series, visit www.greaterpublic.org and www.pmdmc.org/ about-pmdmc20-summer-series.

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