Calculating Your Value - Why Knowing Your Worth is a Game Changer

On Wednesday, March 14th, our very own Jarred Goldner, Director of Artist Relations, participated in a panel discussion at SXSW in Austin, Texas this year titled, “Calculating Your Value - Why Knowing Your Worth is a Game Changer.”

Be Your Own Boss

Jarred spoke on the panel alongside Alex White, Co-Founder of Next Big Sound and Head of Music Recommendations and Curation Programming at Pandora; and Roy LaManna, CEO & Co-Founder of Vydia. Natalie Robehmed, Associate Editor at Forbes, moderated the panel.

The panel focused on using streaming analytics from platforms like Apple Music, Pandora, and Spotify to help artists better manage their careers. Having direct access to streaming analytics has leveled the playing field for artists whether they are independent or represented by a label. The panel encouraged artists to be their own boss by understanding how to accurately analyze the data on these platforms.

Dig Deeper Into Data

Artists need to make their music as visible as possible and maintain an active presence across all of their platforms including their profiles on streaming services. In 2017, Spotify released an analytics app for artists so they could better understand their fans by tracking their streams, listeners, and followers. Most streaming services provide artists with demographics and location-based data like the gender and age breakdowns of their fans and where they’re listening from.

Analytics from streaming services can help artists run promotional campaigns, pick new singles, or even plan their next tour. Using the location data, artists can determine where they should be touring and how much they should be charging in different cities, based on listenership. Jarred explained this strategy further, “take La Reunion Norteña for example, they are a Regional Mexican group we worked with on a few campaigns. After looking at their fan base mapping in our platform, they were able to book their first ever shows in Canada for Norteño music fans.”

When artists look at their fan base they need to go beyond the basic demographics. The MAX Platform™ uses demographic, psychographic, geographic, and behavioral attributes to develop an artist’s profile. Most artists can say the majority of my fans are males and females ages 21-29. But how many artists can say my fans enjoy drinking whiskey, golfing on the weekend, and completing do-it-yourself home projects? Bri Bagwell, an independent country artist and Music Audience Exchange alumna, can.

Authentically Promote Yourself

Bri partnered with Music Audience Exchange for the Ford Music program in 2015. Her song “My Boots” was featured in the campaign with Ford and hit #1 on the Texas Radio Charts in December 2015.

She was the only female artist to have a number one song the entire year and was named the 2015 Texas Regional Radio & Music Awards Female Vocalist of the Year.

Following her successful campaign with Ford, Bri worked with MAX to get even more data and analytics, beyond just how the campaign itself performed, but direct data on her fans...from knowing who was engaging and how they engaged. After getting the campaign analytics and all the data on her fans from Jarred, she saw that her fans were do-it-yourselfers. She called HGTV and now has an episode coming out about her getting a tiny house and fixing it up. Bri Bagwell is the perfect example of how artists can use data and analytics to make strategic and authentic business decisions that further their music careers.

About MAX

Music Audience Exchange (MAX) was founded in 2014 with a mission to help champion incredible music and the artists who make it through strategic, data-driven partnerships with brands. MAX brings brands into the music promotional space in a way that puts engaging content into the world through a value-exchange model that drives the brand's objectives, and elevates breakthrough bands along the way. If you'd like to learn more about Music Audience Exchange and what a music promotion program would look like for your brand, send us a note.