Overview
- Client name: Spotify
- Background: Building tools and services for artist to make Spotify a larger part of the music value chain.
- Challenge: It’s notoriously difficult to make it as an artist in the music industry – Spotify wanted to serve a larger part of the artist ecosystem.
The Opportunity
Growing Spotify’s space in the music industry
Spotify started as a distribution service for music. As I joined the company in 2016, I helped identify an opportunity for Spotify to provide additional support to the music industry. By leveraging data, insights and our knowledge of listening, we could help rights holders have additional success on our platform. I identified promotion and marketing services as a primary opportunity for Spotify.
Value Chain Insights
Understanding Customer Needs and Market Spend
To capitalize on this opportunity, I spearheaded an insights exercise to delve into customer needs and market spending patterns. By segmenting the customer base, I identified a section of artists and rights holders most in need of support to reach the next step of their career. We estimated that approximately 200,000 artists to be part of our primary customer segment for our enhanced marketing services.
Execution
Building Better Marketing Products
Execution involved a process of user research to pinpoint the needs around which to develop products. I categorized these needs into three key groups:
- paid tools,
- reporting and insights, and
- free tools.
The execution phase unfolded over several years, encompassing ideation, iterative development, and eventual scaling of the products to meet market demands.
Outcome
Driving Market Leadership and a new role for Spotify
Through my strategic initiatives, I successfully helped build a large artist promotion business for Spotify that is still scaling today. The enhanced services positioned the client as a market leader, catering effectively to the needs of the middle-tier customer segment. Overall, my multi-year endeavor resulted in improved profitability and a strengthened market position for the client in the dynamic music industry landscape.
