As every good marketer knows, the real value is in the upsell: it's much easier to sell something to someone you've sold to already. So if you get people 'sold' on the basic music service - which must be free - then you can try to leverage that audience. But if you try and offer a lower-quality basic (free) service, the audience will either leave or not come in the first place - because there are sites already out there that offer a great user experience without the user having to pay a dime.
Music Downloading Sites - What Will People Pay For?
It has been previously noted that despite the huge volume of traffic to sites such as Yahoo! Music and Rhapsody, subscription revenues in this arena remain remarkably low. But why is this? The casual listener might point out that the main advantage sites like Pandora and Last.fm have over Yahoo's Radio Stations is the absence of ad breaks. There is a huge difference between having even one short ad every half hour and no ads at all. So you have to ask - which one would the consumer choose? Which one will help to grow audience share?
An added-value premium subscription could succeed if a number of important criteria are fulfilled. What would it need to provide?
The person who buys the most albums per year is the one who is seriously into their music, the one who seeks out new and interesting work by obscure (or less-than-mainstream) artists - not the one who gets their tunes from the top 40. The fact that the dedicated music-listener often buys a single album (and almost never buys singles) from a huge number of different artists means that none of these artists tend to sell enough to attract industry attention. However, the combined spend of these dedicated music fans is probably much higher than many people think. It won't touch the short-term cash influx of a major chart hit, but this is a valuable audience nonetheless, and will not be inclined to use a music site that has Britney Spears videos and Shakira gossip plastered over its home page.
Music Downloading Sites - What Will People Pay For?
It has been previously noted that despite the huge volume of traffic to sites such as Yahoo! Music and Rhapsody, subscription revenues in this arena remain remarkably low. But why is this? The casual listener might point out that the main advantage sites like Pandora and Last.fm have over Yahoo's Radio Stations is the absence of ad breaks. There is a huge difference between having even one short ad every half hour and no ads at all. So you have to ask - which one would the consumer choose? Which one will help to grow audience share?
An added-value premium subscription could succeed if a number of important criteria are fulfilled. What would it need to provide?
- - value and perceived value ($6 a month isn't much, but why not $4.99?)
- - access to additional artwork
- - access to higher-quality downloads
- - plus some unique promotional angles - for example...
The person who buys the most albums per year is the one who is seriously into their music, the one who seeks out new and interesting work by obscure (or less-than-mainstream) artists - not the one who gets their tunes from the top 40. The fact that the dedicated music-listener often buys a single album (and almost never buys singles) from a huge number of different artists means that none of these artists tend to sell enough to attract industry attention. However, the combined spend of these dedicated music fans is probably much higher than many people think. It won't touch the short-term cash influx of a major chart hit, but this is a valuable audience nonetheless, and will not be inclined to use a music site that has Britney Spears videos and Shakira gossip plastered over its home page.
Dan Foley is an author, musician and editor who regularly posts on the Podcomplex Music Technology Blog. Here you can also read more about Music Downloading Sites and the development of the music industry, as well as links to pages where you can currently listen to music free.
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