"Businesses should concentrate on their customers’ needs, not on specific products."

"Marketing Myopia" (1960)
Theodore Levitt, Harvard Business School

What does the music customer want?

1. To easily be able to hear all recorded music

Now I’m not saying such ability should be free, but this does not undermine the desire.

If you read about a record, if a friend mentions a tune, you should be able to instantly click and sample it.  On your desktop, laptop and hand-held device.  Not jut a thirty second sample, but the whole thing.

The public hates thirty second samples.  They project an image of withholding as opposed to honest, fair dealing.  It’s like the music industry is a carny attraction behind a curtain that you must pay for, with very little advance knowledge, before you partake.

The best delivery of the ability to hear music is Spotify.  Which has been delayed in its American introduction because certain rights holders don’t believe in giving anything away for free.

Spotify is a music app, with a full catalog.

LaLa’s not bad, it’s just that you have to go to Google first, you’ve got to click a bit.

Rhapsody and Napster provide the end result, with very poor functionality, certainly compared to Spotify.  They seem to live in a land where the lessons of Apple are hidden, that usability and functionality are key.  Apple has also proven that people will pay premium prices for this usability and functionality.  Oh, here’s where you tell me it’s impossible to compete with free.  Well, Apple is competing with a plethora of computers a third the price, yet is extremely profitable and valuable.  So, rather than decry theft, the question becomes how can one make a profit by delivering exactly what the public wants?

And just a note.  The more access to music people have, the more they consume, the more tickets and merch they buy.

2. A fair shot at a good concert ticket

The number one complaint is not high prices, the big bitch is you just don’t get a chance at a good seat.  People know the value of a front row seat, they’re willing to pay for it, just give them a shot at it.

Sure, it works for the act to make a deal with AmEx, to have a fan club, to put so many layers of sale between the act and the customer that people are turned off instead of turned on, pissed instead of happy.

Yes, happy.  People may say the movie is lousy, but most concertgoers are thrilled to be able to attend the event, they fully enjoy it.  But, how do they get in?

Until all tickets are available at one time (how many credit cards and fan club memberships do you have to get to be a regular concertgoer, this works against the industry instead of for it), and are priced according to their desirability, fans will be unhappy.

If you desire to appeal solely to your fans, by allowing them to get tickets and requiring them to line up and show ID to get in…this is not a terrible strategy.  You’re satiating the hard core, while pissing off the public.  Then again, most of the public is willing to shrug and say they just don’t care that much about going to this show.

3. Access

What’s the number one thing a fan wants?

To be able to go backstage.

Not everyone can provide this, but don’t decry platinum packages that allow this, for this is exactly what the public wants.

If you want to make people happy, make yourself available.  That could be as simple as a response on a message board or as complicated as going out on a date with a contest winner.

But this is what people want.  Think about how you can deliver it.

4. Music that they want to play again and again

Note, this does not mean music that is given a thumbs-up in radio callout research, when a listener hears a short snippet.  After all, we’ve established above that thirty seconds is not enough.  If a listener does not get the urge to immediately replay your music, you’re not going to have success.  That could be playing a three minute ditty again and again, or a complete album again and again.  The form is unimportant, it’s about the desire.

5. More music by their favorite artists

Shorten the time between releases, deliver more material.  Fans want outtakes, rehearsal tapes, live tapes…almost anything and everything.  Sure, this is different from what the casual fan or the uninitiated person wants, but these are two different markets, and you make the lion’s share of your money from your hard core fans.

Don’t think about how you can placate radio, think about how you can placate fans.

This is as simple as a live album of the studio album a month after the original drop date.  YouTube broadcasts of live shows.  Downloadable content from your Website.  You can never have too much for a fan.  And don’t forget, fans are your number one evangelists, they’re the ones who spread the word.

6. More information

Where you are, who you’re recording with, the process.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, no one does this better than John Mayer.  And in the process he sacrifices not a whit of credibility or charisma.  Somehow, the public feels as if it’s in his back pocket and knows him, even though they realize the odds of in-person contact are slim to none.

7. Fewer commercials

Whether it be radio, television or a streaming music service, the public is fed up with commercials.  And unlike forty years ago, people have options.  Extended runs of commercials are abuse, never forget this.

8. A final concert ticket price

People hate being pecked to death by ducks, which is the equivalent of buying concert tickets today.  It’s not so much about the cost, as the feeling of being screwed by hidden charges that make no sense.  Print at home fee?

Come on.  That’s inane.  I’m using my own paper and ink.

We know it’s all about profits.  But why can’t it be buried in a final price?

9. A belief that the acts are in it for the music, not the money

It’s hard to sell an art form if people think it’s just a means to an end, a good lifestyle.  People won’t respect it.  People don’t respect towels, they don’t respect toilet paper.  Sure, they’re necessary products, the companies that purvey them make a profit, but it’s not art.

Art generates profits in a wholly different way than traditional industries.  Look at fine art.  The canvas may have been produced for essentially nothing, the cost of materials.  But only a few years later, it can sell for millions.

Stop calculating how to get to millions of revenue in a spreadsheet by maximizing this and that.  Just create something rawly desirable, then the revenue will come.  A great hit is more powerful than any marketing campaign.

People don’t need music, but they want it.  When it’s great.  When it speaks to them.  When it’s seen as integral to their lives.

10. Respect

In today’s connected world, the customer sees himself as equal to the purveyor.  Think of the wrath inflicted upon Wall Street.  That’s how much people hate the music industry, and that’s a problem.  Yup, fat cats who screwed us for far too long who want to continue to screw us!  You’ve overpaid for one good track on an overpriced CD, you’ve overpaid for a shitty seat, but you’d better not steal our product, we’re entitled to our income!  Huh?  Don’t make excuses, try and rationalize your behavior, just look how stupid it appears to your customer, without whom you’ve got nothing.

Record labels want to sell physical recorded product.  Or individual tracks.  Or albums.

Concert promoters want to sell food and drink.

None of these speak to the underlying needs and desires of the consumer.

The consumer wants music.  It doesn’t matter what form it’s rendered in, as long as the end result pours into one’s ears. People are not locked into vinyl or CDs, tracks or albums, they just want the listening experience.

As do they want the experience of hearing live music.  Sure, they’ll buy food and drink if they’re at the show, but those are incidental.  How can you make the show so desirable that people will willingly come and not care about parting with their dollars for extras?