BandPage CEO J Sider On The State Of The New Music Industry

(Hypebot) – 2013 was a year when the full scale of the Internet became increasingly useful for the music industry. The collected engagement across dedicated music services, including streaming and entertainment platforms, now rivals that of social networks. Hundreds of millions of fans are interacting with musicians through these services and represent a powerful audience for musicians to engage with. Moving forward, it will be just as important to engage your fans across these music services as it is to engage them on social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

Additionally, 2013 saw the music industry adapting many of the established targeting tools that are available and enabled including retargeting and interest-based targeting. We are at the very beginning of what is possible. As we are able to reach musicians’ fans across these platforms we will be able to learn more about them.

Because of these targeting techniques, musicians will not only be able to reach millions more fans, but reach the “right” fan more effectively than ever before. This will lead to more money in musicians’ pockets and a better ability to grow a musician’s fanbase.

All of this creates a huge opportunity for the music business in 2014 to build on these trends and hyperfuel revenue. It starts with musicians being able to reach their fans across music services with their content and commerce. The next step is displaying the right content and commerce to the fans depending on if they are a passive, active or superfan. As musicians better understand the LTV (lifetime value) of their fans, they will be able to reach them more effectively through their marketing efforts. We’ve already seen Rhapsody, Spotify, VEVO, Xbox Music and a few others take initial steps in this direction, and I expect this opportunity to increase across all music services.

To this end, I believe music services in 2014 will take an increasingly inclusive stance towards working with artists to develop new and meaningful revenue streams. It has already proven to be beneficial to the musicians, their fans, and these services. These new trends can generate a very tangible impact as it relates to increasing musicians revenue. As our main goal at BandPage is to help musicians make more money and grow their fanbase, these are the innovations that will make conversion rates grow in a significant way. We are looking forward to advancing these initiatives with the music industry in 2014.