Switchability: Seven Ways to Keep Listeners from Switching

 

This is always an exciting time of the year for A&O&B stations as it’s the time when their listeners are taking part in our annual online perceptual study, Roadmap. Roadmap delivers a wealth of information about listeners: their preferred sub-genres of music, how they feel about their station’s morning show, social media and tech information, and more – including a subject we love to trend, Switchability.

 

Degrees of Switchability

In Roadmap, Switchability is the term we use to represent the percent of a station’s audience that could be stolen by a competitor.

We divide respondents into three Switchability groups:

1 – Least Vulnerable (“pretty difficult” for a competitor to get them to switch)

2 – Potentially Vulnerable (“not easy but possible” for a competitor to move them)

3 – Most Vulnerable (“Fairly Easy” for them to switch to a new competitor).

Without question, country listeners are loyal to their favorite station. Over the past 7 years, an average of 42% of 18-54 respondents have reported it would be “pretty difficult” to get them to switch to a competitor. That’s nearly four times greater than the 11% would felt it would be “fairly easy” to get them to switch to another country station.

Furthermore, even among the Most and Potentially Vulnerable respondents, less than 6% were either “Somewhat” or “Very” Dissatisfied with their country station. And, among the Most Vulnerable, 75% still said they were “Very Satisfied” or “Somewhat Satisfied” with their country station’s programming.

 

Differentiation

So what are some of the factors that differentiate Loyalists from Potential Switchers, and how can we use this knowledge to our benefit?

To start, here are five of the top reasons both Loyalists and Switchers group gave for selecting one country over another.

Importance	Most Loyal	Potential/Easy
Makes Me Feel Good When I Listen	91	83
Has DJs That Sound Like My Friends	91	77
Plays the Best Music for Me	90	87
Tells the Titles and Artists of Songs	79	75
Plays a Lot of Music w/out too Much Talk	67	74

Loyalists were more passionate (gave higher “very important to me” scores) than Potential/Easy Switchers on four of the five criteria. They also placed more importance on the emotional connections with the station (“makes me feel good” and “DJs that sound like friends”) than Switchers did. In fact, loyalists made these “one-two” in importance.

For Potential Switchers the top two in significance were “plays the best music” and “makes me feel good when I listen.” They also scored music quantity higher in importance. Comparing the two groups’ responses, “DJs that sound like friends” saw the largest difference between Loyalists and Potential Switchers. The latter group not only placed that well behind their first two most important attributes, but also pretty much had it in a three-way tie for third place.

 

Performance

Another difference was how the two groups perceived their country station’s performance in each of these areas.

Loyalists felt their stations over-achieved in both “makes me feel good when I listen” and “DJs that sound like my friends.” Potential Switchers agreed with loyalists on the DJ impact but scored “feel good” delivery slightly lower in execution than importance. In both instances though, the Switchers scored station performance lower than Loyalists.

Performance	Most Loyal	Potential/Easy
Makes Me Feel Good When I Listen	98	80
Has DJs That Sound Like My Friends	97	81
Plays the Best Music for Me	94	73
Tells the Titles and Artists of Songs	88	71
Plays a Lot of Music w/out too Much Talk	86	56

 

The biggest disparity in perceived station performance though was the perceptions of music quantity. Loyalists were far more likely to say their stations provided sufficient quantity compared to Potential Switchers.

It’s likely that at least some of these reactions are rooted in the perceived value the station supplies to each group of listeners – especially when the emotional and personality aspects are considered.

Of course what’s valued by one person or group may not be by another.

Still, increasing a consumer’s perception of a product’s value has great worth in any business, including the potential to reduce defections to a competitor.

 

7 Ways to Minimize Switchability

To that end, here are seven actions you can take at your station to help manage Switchability:

1. Align the presentation of your values with listeners’ needs; music and show audio are two tools that can provide countless opportunities

2. Communicate values clearly and in the ‘everyday’ language of listeners

3. Review the promise vs. performance in your value statements

4. Consider the strength of the personal relationship/emotional connection listeners feel they have/can have with your station

5. Give listeners a strong feeling of “They get me.”

6. Weigh everything you do against the value delivered to the listener

7. Using your value propositions, continue to find new ways to surprise and delight listeners

 

A while back I wrote a piece on “Radio Algebra” (read it here).

In it I imagined some radio-based formulae. One was:

VBP = LL (Value Based Programming Equals Listener Loyalty).

Understanding the station components that drive your listeners’ loyalty (they may include all or some of the above – or completely different ones) opens the door for opportunities to deepen the bonds with your most ardent listeners while reducing levels of Switchability.

 

It will be exciting to see what YOUR listeners have to say about this. Roadmap is in the field now. A&O&B will be presenting the top line findings at our Pre-CRS event February 5th, 10:00 – 1:30 at the Music City Center in Nashville. If you’d like to attend, RSVP to Mike@AandOandB.com or Becky@AandOandB.com.

And if you’d like to register for CRS 2018, you can do so here.

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