If you're a fan of public television and/or radio, the words "pledge drive" probably strike fear into your heart. Pledge drives are an unfortunate necessity for public broadcasting entities, which depend on viewer and listener support to fund their programming and day-to-day operation. Audiences don't like them because they seem to go on forever and they foul up regular program schedules; the broadcasters don't like them because they know they're trying their audience's patience as they hammer away at them to start or renew their membership. In addition, it's difficult to find new ways to beg for money year after year.For many stations, a less painful alternative or supplement to the pledge drive is the direct mail appeal. A PBS station in the Phoenix area, KAET-TV, uses a direct mail package to ask lapsed members to renew their involvement with the station. To pre-test the effectiveness of its appeals, the station late last year used MACH 2, a dial response system developed by Behavior Research Center, in four research sessions with groups of lapsed KAET members.
Like other group response measurement systems, MACH 2 allows each participant to privately give his or her response to a question by "dialing in" the answer using a hand-held controller. Marketers watching the proceedings are able to see the responses displayed in real time on a video monitor and add questions based on those responses. (See accompanying article for a more detailed explanation of group response measurement systems.)The research was conducted by Behavior Research Center-Phoenix and The Direct Marketing Laboratory, Phoenix. Arnold Schwartz, president of The Direct Marketing Lab, says he saw pre-testing as a way to improve the direct mail process, which usually relies on response rates from test mailings to measure the success of a mail package."Although you know from your mail test whether you have a winner or loser, many times you don't...