"Know Thy Listener" by Mike Becker, Planet Jam Media

You probably know that your P1 listeners contribute upwards of 80% of your total TSL, but do you know what their names are, where they live, where they work, who their favorite artists are, what they do in their spare time or how about just which days and times they tune in? Learning more about your P1s is critical to almost every aspect of your station’s programming, and it's easier than you may think.

The first step is to motivate as many of them as you can to join your database. That will give you at least a name and an e-mail address. But don’t stop there. After they have joined, ask them to tell you more about themselves through surveys. You can create custom surveys easily with your StickyFish program.

There are several areas of information about which you should be asking. To make creating surveys easier, we’ve prepared some initial survey questions for each of these areas. If you’d like to add surveys in one or more of these areas to your program, just contact us.

Tuning In – Learn more about each member’s listening habits – what days and times they listen, and how long they are listening.

Spare Time – Ask questions about your listeners’ hobbies, causes, and passions outside of their work and family.

Music Interests – Gather information about your listeners’ tastes in music, including the different types of music they listen to and who their favorite artists are.

Around Town – Learn more about where your listeners go when they head out for a night on the town.

9 to 5 – Learn more about what your listener does for a living, where they work, and details about their daily commute.

Shopping – Ask questions about what they spend their hard earned money on and where they typically spend it.

The more you know about your listener, the more you can target the right information, the right offers, and the right contests to the right people.