It felt odd to type that title.
ARE there lessons to be learned from the music industry?
It seems to be generally accepted that the music industry is a mess. It’s backward and perhaps among the last places one should look for lessons that would be applicable (in a positive way) for other industries. Yet it also appears to be true that more people are listening to music than ever.
This piece makes the simple case that what matters isn’t consumers owning product, but consumers listening to (streaming) music.
Focus on real actions (people listening to your music) as opposed to focusing on potential for real actions (people buying your CD which may or may not get played).
These are different strategies.
Granted, my “music industry” phrase is a bit generic… the truth is artists have gained a meaningful amount of power at the expense of record companies. Artists are doing well (focusing on getting listeners via any streaming channel and touring to support that created demand), it’s the record companies that are losing more and more power and profits.
There ARE lessons here.
One of the lessons is that which matters most is how often people are engaging with your brand, idea or product.
We know this at Surfrider. We built our current strategic plan around this idea. The single most important metric at Surfrider Foundation is getting people to engage with the foundational elements of our mission.
More than anything we want people to engage, we want people to act. We want people to see our mission, our campaigns, and our programs as something worthy enough to act on; they’ll engage with them.
Of course, not all actions are equal. If a person comments on a post that’s good. If a person shows up at a chapter meeting, that’s awesome. We know this and we weight accordingly.
The music industry isn’t broken, it’s just morphed into something different. The larger truth is that so have most other industries. We need to understand these shifts as they are happening in real time.
The last time I checked, pretty much everyone I know is listening to music. Let’s pay attention to shifts as they are happening so we can get everyone we know acting to preserve our coasts. This isn’t about trendy business shifts, it’s about maximizing impact for the protection and enjoyment of oceans, waves and beaches.
