At Finney Media, we’ve started doing something called Listener Advisory Panels for our Christian media friends. It’s like a focus group, but the leaders from the ministry are in the room to listen and talk to people.
Part of what we ask is listeners is to talk about their life, their family, their work and their church. And what we hear is helpful in crafting the station’s content to focus on who she is, where she is and how she uses us.
Check out these two listener stories:
One gal said: "I've been married for 25 years and I have a daughter who's 23 and about to graduate from nursing school. I used to work in finance. I've been disabled for 14 ½ years. My church is a CCM station and I support it every month. Because of my disability, it's hard for me to get around, so I consider the CCM station my church."
Another person said: "I've been married for 18 years. We saw foster care as a ministry. And God provided the opportunity for us to adopt a son from the system. So now we have a 15-year-old son who has eight different disabilities and it's a full-time job taking care of him. I stay at home and homeschool him. When we can go to church, we go to a church just north of us. It can be hard for us to go because of my son's disabilities, but it's important to us. This is why we love our radio station."
These stories reflect what we hear from listeners. People with difficult circumstances choose us because of the uplifting spiritual encouragement they receive.
But we would not have heard the details and seen/felt the emotion if we hadn’t gathered to take time and listen and take notes.
It’s been so valuable to the ministries we work with who want to hear and then craft their sound toward meeting these listeners where they are.
It’s something your ministry can also do. And we can show you how. If you would like to know more, reach me at chuck@finneymedia.com.
