Super Consumers

It's all about the passion

Even in the highly fragmented media of the United States, most stations want as big and broad an audience as they can get.

Typically, the more passionate and vocal the fan, the less radio stations pay attention to them.

We have derisive names for them -- "contest pigs" or "groupies" -- and internally we cringe whenever we see them at station events or remotes. We create rules to keep them from winning our contests and games more than once a month. In short, we do everything we can to drive them away.

Why?

As you can see in this Harvard Business Reveiw article, in almost every product category, these "super consumers" account for more than 50% of the profit, even though they are only about 10% of the target.

"Many managers assume that their super-consumers are a unique species whose extreme appetites say little about what more casual consumers might go for. They also figure that their super-consumers are already sated so there's no point in probing them further. That is a mistake."

In other words, stop trying to turn your P2 listeners into P1 listeners, and start super-serving those P1 listeners who already love you.

Find out what it is they love most about your station, and give 'em more of it.

Give them a reason to be passionate about your station.

Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck don't care if they insult liberals. They try to insult liberals, because that's what their P1s love. Same for FOX News. It's become the #1 cable news channel by super-serving conservatives and not trying to be "fair and balanced."

They're focused like a laser on their super-consumers.

Are you?