Monetizing social media within the music industry
An inbound marketing perspectiveAuthor: Jip van Raalte Student number: 11122900 Date of submission: 18-08-2017
Qualification: MSc. Business Administration (track: EMCI) Institution: University of Amsterdam
1st supervisor: Erik Dirksen MSc. 2nd supervisor: Jan de Groot MSc.
Statement of originality
This document is written by student Jip van Raalte, who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document. I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in
creating it. The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.
Abstract
Artists within the music industry are vastly adapting to the influence of the internet in order to sustain their career as working musicians. These artists are forced to make strategic choices with respect to the marketing of their products through their social media channels. With the exponential growth of online content, it is interesting to study the online practices of artists within the music industry. Inbound marketing is a relatively new marketing theory that is closely related to the presentation of content on social media. This study therefore interlaces data from artists with inbound marketing theory. Empirical data has been gathered by conducting 10 in depth qualitative interviews with the artists. The reported practices of the artists are tested for the four stages of inbound marketing: attract, convert, close and delight. Evidence was found for the first and last stage of the model, while the adaptation of close and convert seemed less strongly represented in the marketing strategies of the interviewed.
Table of contents
Statement of originality 1
Abstract 2
1. Introduction 5
1.1 Research gap: 5
1.2 Research question and sub-questions 8
1.3 Research methodology 9
1.4 Structure of thesis 9
2. Theoretical framework 9
2.1 The EDM scene 9
2.2 Evolution of the web 10
2.3 Inbound marketing 12
2.3.1 Attract (phase I) 13
2.3.2 Convert (phase II) 14
2.3.3 Close (phase III) 15
2.3.4 (phase IV) 16
2.3.5 Strategic measurements (all phases) 16
3. Research methodology 17
3.1 Research design and method 18
3.2 Sample and data collection 19
3.3 Qualitative validity 23
3.4 Operationalization 24
4. Results 24
4.1 Attract (phase I) 25
4.1.1 Multi channel strategy 25
4.1.2 Digital partnerships 28
4.1.3 Viral marketing 28
4.2 Convert (phase II) 30
4.2.2 Landing pages 31
4.3.1 Email 34
4.3.2 Data and content exchange 35
4.4 Delight (phase IV) 36
4.4.1 Delighting products 37
4.4.2 Smart calls to action 37
4.5.2 Measuring brand strength and image 40
5. Discussion 40
5.1 Results in short 40
5.2.1 Attract (phase I) results 41
5.2.2 Convert and close (phase II and III) results 41
5.2.3 Delight (phase IV) results 42
5.2.4 Strategic measurements (all phases) results 43
6. Conclusion 44
6.1 Main research question results 44
6.2 Implications for practice 45
6.3 Limitations and future research 45
1.
Introduction
In the introduction the research gap regarding this thesis will be discussed as well as the motivations for this study. Secondly, the research question will be formulated and finally the structure of the master thesis is presented.
1.1 Research gap:
The existence of the internet has changed the way the world communicates on a massive scale.
Companies and brands use the online platforms available to connect with their fanbase and customers. Although the usage of social media happens on an enormous scale, research is limited on how specific business should make use of these online tools. For instance, Facebook has almost two billion users (Statista, 2017), yet academic research on optimizing an online strategy is scarce, even though a quarter of the world’s population uses this single online platform. This study will explore the subject from within the context of the music industry, as this industry was one of the fastest adopters of the online
marketing tools available (Salo, Lankinen, & Mäntymäki, 2013). This context of the music industry is also chosen, since it is a growing industry which appears to become more relevant over the coming years. In 2014 the turnover of the Electronic Dance Music Scene (EDM) market was estimated to be about 6.2 billion Euros, while the previous year it had been 4.5 billion Euros. (Doeland, 2014). Since the creative industry - and especially the music industry- is known for it's oversupply, it is important for the artist to stand out from competitors. A modern day musician is forced to make strategic decisions in order to be successful online. Therefore the artist must have an understanding of how to allocate time and
resources in order to gain maximum returns, to sustain his career als professional musicians. Although some studies have been conducted on EDM and social media, there are numerous unanswered
difficult part of studying social media is that the landscape is ever changing. Platforms that were relevant five years ago might not be popular anymore, forcing entrepreneurs to quickly adapt to the changes in the online world (Thomson, 2013) . Instead of this being a barrier, it underlines the necessity of more research on the matter, since it is expected that the usage of these media is only growing (Nisar & Whitehead, 2016).
Platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Instagram are widely used by artists within the industry, whether this is done with or without an underlying strategy. Each of these online tools has different characteristics and therefore they should be approached differently, to maximize effectiveness of the message of the artist. However, the underlying goal, which is the same for each platform, is to connect and maintain as many users as possible to the artists page on that specific platform. To ensure this, it is in the interest of the artist to create a loyal fanbase (Doeland, 2014).
EDM artists, as well as any other artists, are considered to be human brands, since they encompass similar characteristics of brands and they can be managed professionally (Huang, Lin, & Phau, 2015). In the past, a brand manager's main task was to reach the biggest audience possible with his story about the brand. However, with the rise of social media, these stories are no longer one-way traffic. Users can connect with the brand (i.e. EDM artist) through social media to make their own personal version of the story (Gensler, Völckner, Liu-Thompkins, & Wiertz, 2013). These
consumer-generated stories are even more powerful for the brand than traditional marketeer messages. Through social media, artists can continuously create and upload content related to the brand. On the consumer side, social media changed how consumers relate and interact with brands. Consumers connect with brands to show their identity to peers, while deep connections with the brand are established through constant interaction (Sashittal, Hodis & Sriramachandramurthy, 2014). Several studies have been conducted from the consumer perspective, however insights from the content creator (i.e. artist) perspective are limited. For example, Hollenbeck & Kaikati, 2012; Kabadayi & Price,
2014; Min-Sook, Jong-Kuk, & Yong, 2015) all studied what motives consumers have for interacting with
brands on social media. However, all of these studies are conducted through interviews with consumers, while the brands themselves have access to data insights about the consumers. Therefore, the data coming from the artists or managers managing the social media, could be more realistic than biased reports from the consumer perspective. Studying reports from the content creators, instead of
consumers, might lead to different views on the matter, since the creators (i.e. artists) are able to check the effects of their presented content through the insight pages on the different social media platforms.
Furthermore, research on how to stimulate these user-generated brand stories, is lacking (Gensler, Völckner, Liu-Thompkins, & Wiertz, 2013). Moreover, the different social networks, on which the brand manager can distribute the brand content, have to be approached differently, while they encompass different characteristics. Therefore this thesis will address the different social media platforms available, such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to analyse which marketing techniques suits each platform.Once a decent fanbase is established, it is vital that these fans stay connected to the artists. A maintained and strong fanbase can be seen as the lifeline of the artist within the EDM industry (Doeland, 2014). Once the fanbase is established, the artist generally seeks to monetize on their efforts online. However, academic research on how to monetize on the different platforms online is scarce.
In conclusion, it is clear that more research on social media strategies by artists is needed. An artist within the music industry, as well as any other brand, nowadays has to be active online. Brands, which artists are essentially, have to make content continuously (Doeland, 2014). This content has to be created and distributed through the channels available. Strategic choices have to be made concerning the channels that will be addressed. Musicians or managers have limited time and resources, making it vital to gain maximum effect online: balancing money and time spent on social media, while generating maximum revenue. To monetize on online efforts, artists must market their products and content through social media (Doeland, 2014). Since 2010, the importance of content marketing had increased
and is practiced by organisations from all types and sizes. Artists within the music industry produce content on a regular basis. Therefore, it seems logical that they embed some form of content marketing into their online strategies (Baltes, 2015). This statement is underlined by Gamble and Gilmore (2013), who add that fans online can contribute to the marketing message through the different social media channels available. Thus, it might be valuable to study to which extent the artists within the music industry apply these modern marketing techniques.
1.2 Research question and sub-questions
This explorative study will address the strategies that artists in the EDM scene (or managers who help with the online strategy) use to monetize through their social media channels , in order to sustain their career as a working musician. The context of the EDM scene is chosen since it has been one of the early adopters of social media and the online promotion is narrowly connected with the scene. The main research question of this thesis is as follows:
‘To which extent do artists in the EDM scene optimize their online strategy through inbound marketing in order to monetize?’
The main research question will be interlaced with the model of inbound marketing, which will be explained in the theoretical framework section. The implementation of the respective model by the participants will be studied. As a result, the main research question will be divided into five
sub-questions:
‘To which extent do artists within the EDM scene convert consumers through inbound marketing?’ ‘To which extent do artists within the EDM scene close sales through inbound marketing?’
‘To which extent do artists within the EDM scene delight their customers through inbound marketing?’ ‘To which extent do artists within the EDM scene measure strategically through inbound marketing?’
1.3 Research methodology
In-depth interviews are held with social media experts within the music industry, in attempt to answer the main research question and the sub questions. These experts are artists within the EDM scene or managers who manage the social media channels for their artists within the EDM scene. The interviews are held to investigate the implementation of inbound marketing concerning within the strategies of these social media experts.
1.4 Structure of thesis
To underline the necessity of the main research questions and the following sub questions, the
theoretical framework is presented. This framework encompasses relevant literature, used to describe the EDM scene, its connection with the internet and finally inbound marketing. Secondly, the research methodology is justified by presenting arguments. The results are presented in chapter 4, after which these will be discussed in chapter 5.
2.
Theoretical framework
2.1 The EDM scene
The EDM scene (or Electronic Dance Music scene) is one of the world’s most popular music scenes and encompasses the industry of electronically produced music. Ever since the EDM scene existed, it has been strongly connected with The Netherlands and the business has been booming. According to IMS Business Report 2016, the turnover In 2011 in The Netherlands was more than 586 million euro. The worldwide turnover of the EDM industry in 2014 was estimated to be around 7 billion euro, while two years earlier this was calculated to be 4,5 billion euros (Langdon, 2015). The statistics underline the growth of the industry. Although every generation has it's own popular music genre, the EDM scene distinguishes itself from its predecessors. The digital characteristics of EDM and its connection with the internet cannot be seen separately (Brett & Thomas, 2013). As the Babyboomers had a connection with rock ‘n roll, the Millenials (also known as Generation Y) were raised with electronic music. While other genres fought against the computer and the internet, EDM was one of the early adopters of the new technology (Doeland, 2014). As such, The Netherlands has grown to be one of the biggest pioneers in developing market growth in the legal music streaming services, such as Spotify (IFPI Global Music Report, 2017).
2.2 Evolution of the web
In the following section, the evolution of the internet will be discussed briefly. In short, the
transformation of the world wide web can be divided into three stages, which are presented below.
When the internet was introduced to the public, it consisted of mostly flat data. The information on the web could be read and was one-way traffic. The content creator posted information on the specific webpage, which could be read by the customer. It can be seen as an information portal where information was consumed passively by persons visiting the website, as content online could not be interacted with (Bigler & Sandoval, 2010).
Web 2.0
With the introduction of web 2.0 the users of the internet could interact with the information consumed on the internet. One can think of writing a comment under a post on Facebook or writing a review under a hotel booking website. The successor of web 1.0 allowed users to interact with each other, while providing tools to collaborate and share information (Bigler & Sandoval, 2010). Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are all examples of the platforms established with the arrival of Web 2.0, since people can interact and connect with each other on these different platforms.
Web 3.0
Web 3.0 is seen as an extension of web 2.0 and is occasionally referred to as the semantic web. Web 3.0 is thought to describe a more automatic process. Within 3.0, internet applications are more aligned and can communicate with each other without the help of human intervention. One can think of a more robotic web, that searches independently without input of humans (The Semantic Web, 2010). The internet learns from previous input, suggesting information for the user without the user initiating the order (The Semantic Web, 2010). However, web 3.0 is still under heavy criticism, since merely vague definitions exist. Therefore, most people believe that web 2.0 is still the most relevant term available (Bigler & Sandoval, 2010).
As stated before, the EDM scene is inherently connected to the internet and its applications. Eventbrite (2014) studied that the extensive emphasis on social media, which is based on the interactive and collaborative properties of web 2.0, is the key factor that distinguishes EDM fans from the fans of other music genres. Working musicians willing to make a living within the EDM scene, are expected to make use of these tools to connect with their audience. Social media aid working musicians to connect with their fans, who in theory, support the artist with buying merchandise, tickets, recordings and other content presented (Thomson, 2013). It is expected that the artist, especially within the EDM scene, has to be an entrepreneur paying attention to the internet in particular. Generally, the artists makes content, whether this is music or other material (Thomson, 2013). The question that arises is how this content is implemented and marketed on the internet.
2.3 Inbound marketing
The 21th century is known for its increasing media consumption and oversupply of content presented. Consumers can be overwhelmed by advertising, resulting in them learning how to avoid the traditional marketing channels. However, social media channels are sought by consumers themselves, therefore the social media platforms are especially suited for inbound marketing (Kistler et al., 2010). Inbound marketing describes the marketing technique that marketeers ‘earn their way’ into the minds of the consumer, instead of invading into the attention of the consumer (Bleoju et al., 2016). According to the last named article, the definition for inbound marketing is as follows: ‘Inbound marketing is a strategy that allows potential customers to come to you. Customers find you, because you offer useful
information or services. Therefore, the potential customers want to stay in contact with you. Inbound marketing is all about deserved attention, instead of bought attention.’ The inbound marketing technique requires the marketer or artist, to change the relation between consumer and company.
While outbound marketing focuses on pushing the message towards the consumer, the inbound marketer lures the consumer into the content (Bleoju et al., 2016). Since artists within the EDM scene widely make use of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media platforms, more research on their motivations is needed. It could prove interesting to study whether inbound marketing suits digital strategies of artists, since the consumers are already seeking content from those respective artists. Thus, the consumer chooses to connect with the artist, instead of the artist pushing its way into the
consumer's mind. (Bleoju et al., 2016).
According to the definition of Halligan and Shah (2014) and Swiezcak (2012), inbound marketing basically consists of four consecutive steps. These steps are named ‘attract’, ‘convert’, ‘close’ and finally ‘delight’. These steps are shown in Figure 1. This thesis will study the online strategy of the interviewed artists, against these four stages. Each individual stage will be explained in the following section.
Figure 1: Inbound marketing model.
2.3.1 Attract (phase I)
In the attraction phase, the marketer is seeking to find the right consumers. Here the search for the ‘right’ consumer begins. The marketer seeks the attention of the target audience, by presenting the right content. Therefore, one must know what the potential customers or buyer personas look like (Agarwal & Gnanasambandam, 2014). The artist must know who is interested in the product, what his interests are and how to find him. Buyer personas are detailed descriptions of the most important customer groups, based on research. These personas give insight to the needs, wishes, challenges and goals of the target group (Seda & Burcu, 2015). Detailed information about the potential customer is thought to help create vital buyer personas. Experience is essential to creating content that responds to the needs of the potential customers.
According to Hadley (2013), it is also vital to study how these buyer personas are seeking information. The potential customers can possibly search through Google, social media, online reviews or blogs. Once the artists knows the previous information, relevant content must be presented to the consumers on the right channels. The relevant keywords must be added for a higher ranking in search engines such as Google, while the right social media channels must be addressed. However, when using multiple channels for the marketing strategy (i.e. multi-channel strategy), coordination and integration of these channels can pose problems (Rosenbloom, 2007). The last named study therefore argues that an underlying synergy between the addressed marketing channels is vital for optimal performance. When put in context of artists within the EDM scene, it seems necessary to study which channels they address for and what their motivations are, since all social media channels have different characteristics (Hadley, 2013).
2.3.2 Convert (phase II)
In the second phase of the inbound marketing model, the attracted consumers have to be converted into leads through ‘call to actions’. According to inbound marketing, the marketer has to seek contact information in order to connect with the potential customer (Hadley, 2013). One can think of examples such as: email addresses, telephone numbers, addresses and Facebook pages, by which the marketer or artist can contact the customer. According to Levchenko and Kreibich (2009) there is a negative relation between the information asked by the marketer and willingness to enter contact information by the customer. Potential customers have a maximum of contact information they want to share, before the message of the marketeer is seen as spam. Therefore, artists must find the right balance concerning the gathering of contact information.
This information gathering process can be initiated through ‘call to action’ and ‘landing pages’. Call to action refers to a specific button on a website or blog, on which the consumer is tempted to press. Moreover, this call to action has the goal to transport the potential customer to the landing page away from the original page. A landing page can be a specific website or part of a website designated for the consumers interested. To ensure consumers clicking on the call to action or landing page, one must offer something in return (Hadley, 2013). From within the context of the music industry and the artist, examples of this presented content could be an exclusive behind the scenes video or free track. The content presented must be valuable to the potential customers, since the consumers must be willing to share their personal information in return.
2.3.3 Close (phase III)
In the close stage, the marketer seeks to transform the so called ‘leads’ into ‘customers’. The email addresses and other contact information are used in alignment with customer relationship management (CRM), in order to reach out to the potential customers (Philips, Huggins & Harding, 2016).
CRM is a strategy concerning the relations and contacts of a company, which generally has the goal of improving profitability of the organisation. (Kaur & Kaur, 2016). CRM systems help the artist to get insight about his customers and their behavioural patterns. A well nurtured CRM system tracks the history of the customers to detect patterns, which can be used for future marketing strategies. From within the context of the EDM artist, one can think of CRM based merchandise offerings or tickets to shows. According to Kaur and Kaur (2016) it is vital that these offerings are clear and the transaction phase is fluently, thus enhancing the success rate of the sale. By improving landing pages and payment systems, the artist, in theory, is able to monetize more efficiently through social media.
2.3.4 (phase IV)
In the final stage, all of the previous classifications of people (strangers/visitors/leads/customers) can be turned into promoters (Goldenberg, 2015). The goal of the marketer is to satisfy the needs of the customer, so that in return the customer will spread the word to his own contacts. The latter is related to the word of mouth principle (WOM). The definition of WOM according to Business Dictionary (2017) is: ‘Oral or written recommendation by a satisfied customer to the prospective customers of a good or service. Considered to be the most effective form of promotion, it is also called word of mouth
advertising which is incorrect because, by definition, advertising is a paid and non-personal
communication.’ In order to stimulate WOM through inbound marketing, marketers have to reward customers even after the sale has been finalized (Goldenberg, 2015). In theory, these promoters will
attract new potential customers, thus closing the inbound marketing loop as new visitors are included into the model.
Goldenberg (2015) also states that by delighting customers, they are tempted to consume more from products from the same business. When delighting is successful, it might result in (1) cross selling, (2) deep selling and (3) up selling. These terms refer to the selling of (1) related, (2) more of the same or (3) more expensive products (Rapp & Nikolaos, 2012).
2.3.5 Strategic measurements (all phases)
Throughout all previous steps, analysis and strategy is implemented. According to Rapp and Nikaolos (2012) it should be inherent in every action within the inbound marketing cycle strategy. The strategy influences all steps of the model, as actions can be tweaked according to the preference of the marketeer or artist. For instance, some artists value their image more than others. Therefore, one can think of artists including a specific planning in their strategy, stating the limit of commercial posts. As a result, the image of the artist is not damaged while maintaining the necessary marketing messages.
Secondly, most actions within the inbound marketing cycle can be measured and analysed. Using analytics pages from various sources, artists are able to measure the effectiveness of the actions taken. For instance, clicks from potential customers/fans on a social media post can be measured. Consequently, the artist is able to analyse the effectiveness of the content of that particular post. The information gathered, can be used for optimizing future social media efforts. Lastly, search engine optimization (SEO) is a common practice with online marketing. SEO is part of search engine marketing and can be defined as the combination of activities with the collective goal to optimize the findability of a certain webpage in search engines, such as www.Google.com. When successful, the SEO practices allow the website to appear high in the rankings of search engines, resulting in better findability.
3.
Research methodology
This chapter will elaborate on the research design and the empirical setting in which the research has been conducted. Also, the qualitative character of the study will be justified by presenting arguments. Following, the credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability will be discussed with
attention to the quality criteria of the qualitative research. Finally, the methodology for the data analysis is addressed.
3.1 Research design and method
This research focusses on how artists within the music industry use social media in order to sustain their life as a working musician. More specifically the study will address the social media monetizing
strategies of artists within the EDM scene. Because of lacking theoretical foundations on social media usage, there is a need for exploratory research on the matter (Adams, 2016). This exploratory research can instigate a basis for building theory on the online strategies that are being used. As discussed in the literature review, the marketing strategies of artists within the EDM scene look fit for the concept of inbound marketing. Therefore, the theoretical basis on which the interviews were partially based, is the concept of inbound marketing. By studying the reports of the interviewed, possible patterns can be analysed to form the basis of a theory. In total ten semi-structured interviews were held with social media experts within the music industry. All of these participants were linked to an artist within the EDM scene or the artists themselves were the experts of their own channels. The duration of the in depth interviews ranged from 35 to 60 minutes. The duration varied due to the schedules of the interviewed, the openness of the interviewed and the overall skills of the interviewer. The interviews were held between the beginning of March until the end of May of 2017.
Next to the in depth interviews, data was inspected by researching social media. The Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages of all interviewed artists were examined, in order to analyze whether particular sales tactics were not reported. Moreover, by inspecting social media channels first hand, some quantifiable data was gathered, such as the amount of page likes.
3.2 Sample and data collection
This study explores the online strategies from artists within the music industry in order to sustain a life as a working musician. These artists perform as DJ’s in live shows and produce EDM music. In order to gather the information needed, artists and managers were interviewed about the subject of digital strategy and social media. Managers were included in the pool, since some artists are not responsible for their own online channels, since they pass the task on to the manager. The number of ten qualitative in depth interviews was chosen, with respect to the transferability to other situations and contexts.
The participants were contacted through several different ways of communication. The search was narrowed down to the urban agglomeration of The Netherlands. Firstly, this was chosen since Amsterdam is often described as the centre of the Dutch music scene . Therefore it seemed logical that this area was searched in order to find artists within the EDM music industry. Secondly, it would take the least time to travel to the participants in order to take the interview. As a result, most of the interviews were held in Amsterdam, while some participants were visited in other parts of the conurbation. Most of the participants were contacted through their email addresses, which were found after a brief search on Google. Relevant artists with active social media channels were searched by ‘artist name’ AND ‘management’. While a response of around 33 percent was expected, in reality it came closer to around 10 percent. A possible explanation for the low response rate might be due to the fact that these
limited time for thesis interviews. However, all companies that did reply the emails, were willing to participate. In no cases a second email had any effect on response. Some of the participants were contacted through Facebook, which proved slightly more successful than through email and lastly one participant was contacted through telephone communication.
Table 1: Overview of interviewees and their popularity on Facebook
Artist name Likes on Facebook Artist/manager
AIZY 7.744 Artist herself
Oliver Twizt 25.981 Manager
Hardwell 8.761.651 Manager
Joop JR 23.414 Artist himself
Boris Werner 25.121 Manager
Bakermat 269.591 Manager
Sam Feldt 525.502 Artist himself
Feest DJ Ruud 24.708 Artist himself
The Tailors 14.679 Artist himself
ReinandVZR 8.672 Manager
Source: the author To ensure basic knowledge of digital strategies, only participants with at least 5000 likes on Facebook were contacted. The range of likes on the previous mentioned platform varied between 7.744 and 8.761.651, indicating a diversity in popularity (see Table 1). In the following section a brief description of the artists will be given.
AIZY is a young female DJ who is gaining in popularity quick. She has been in the EDM scene since a couple of years and is performing internationally for small to medium sized crowds. She does most of the work by herself, while occasionally being helped by her booking agency.
Oliver Twizt is an older male DJ who has been in the music scene for a decade and had most of his success around the years 2010/2011. He performed all around Europe and has a management and agency.
Hardwell is one of the world's most popular DJ’s. He has been performing for more than a decade in all places around the world. He has a full management team, digital strategy team and is flown around the world in a private jet.
Joop JR is an established name within the underground techno EDM scene since about five years ago. Most of his tour destinations are in Europe or South America. He has a management and booking agency.
Boris Werner is most popular in the area of Amsterdam, where he has grown his fanbase in a decade. The DJ performs mostly in The Netherlands, with occasional tours in other countries. He has a
management and booking agency.
Bakermat is a popular Dutch DJ focussing on the market in the United States. The producer/DJ had some radio hits in The Netherlands as well in 2011. Bakermat performs since the last five years and has a management and booking agency.
Sam Feldt is signed at the same management and booking agency as Bakermat and his career follows a similar path as his colleague. However, this DJ focusses more on the South American market and has had more recent success in The Netherlands as well.
Feest DJ Ruud has retired recently and was known for his approachable party music performances. He performed almost mainly in The Netherlands and did most of the work by himself. He did have a management before he quit.
The Tailors is a DJ duo from The Netherlands who had some success in 2013 when one of their songs become a hit on a YouTube channel. This opened the opportunity for them to perform in the years after
that. However, they have dropped in popularity since the last few years. They do most of the work by themselves.
ReinandVZR is an underground DJ mostly known in the Amsterdam EDM scene. He has been rising in popularity since the last few years and performs in clubs around the city. He has no management or booking agency. However, he is interested in internet marketing because of his study.
Nine participants were male, while only one participant was female (AIZY). The artists that the managers were representing, were exclusively men. This does not seem coincidental, considering only three acts of the top 100 DJ’s in 2017 are female (DJ Mag Top 100, 2017) . For that reason, the limited amount of females in this study, could still be representative to the real world context of the EDM scene.
With all managers, merely the biggest artist on social media was chosen as a subject of the interview, with the result that the interview topic was focussed exclusively on the digital strategy for that specific artist. The age from the respondents varied from 20 to 35 years, which underlines the relatively new characteristics of the EDM scene.
The semi-structured interview consisted of several main question, with additional sub questions. The amount of questions varied depending style of the interviewee and the depth of information given. Part of the questions were related to the inbound marketing theory, in order to explore the similarities between the theory and actual practice of the artists/managers. Questions unrelated to the theory were also asked, to ensure openness to other strategies chosen. Secondly, the additional questions open the possibility for the interviewer to further understand the context from which the interviewee is giving it's answers.
An open and comforting style of interviewing was chosen, with the goal to extract as much information as possible from the respondents. The interview was started with broad and general questions about their background and initial thoughts on the topic, as these were unrelated to inbound
marketing theory. The interviewees were allowed to switch topics, when they felt they needed to elaborate further on the matter. As the interview progressed, more in depth questions were asked concerning inbound marketing theory. The feedback of the respondent decided which part of the subject would be discussed more thoroughly. By doing so, the respondent itself decides which topics are of importance to them. However, the interviewer intervened when the topic drifted too far from the original question. During the course of taking the interviews, several questions were added, as participants regularly delivered new perspectives. All interviews were audio recorded using a dictaphone, to ensure that no information would miss due to lacking attention of the interviewer.
3.3 Qualitative validity
Credibility refers to the need of the participants to feel that the results of the qualitative research are believable from the perspective of the interviewee. Qualitative research describes the process from within the eyes of the participants. In order to meet this criteria, the answers of the participants in the interviews have been repeated to the interviewees, to ensure consensus between interviewer and interviewee about the information reported.
Transferability was ensured by conducting interviews with ten participants. Note that no generalisations can be made as neither conclusions can be drawn, since the nature of the research is qualitative (Fletcher, 2014). Though transferability is limited, the findings might be applicable in other contexts. Furthermore, the output from the respondents can be used to build new theory concerning social media strategies. (Fletcher, 2014).
Lastly, this study has accounted for dependability and confirmability. The vast changing
environment of the study has been mentioned in several occasions. Moreover, the entire process of the study concerning data collection, research method and processing results, has been documented with
full transparency. This transparent process allows peer researchers to narrowly replicate the process of this study.
3.4 Operationalization
The implementation of inbound marketing with respect to attraction, conversion, closing and delighting has been operationalized through the interview questions. For example, when investigating whether the artists delights its consumers, the interview question is as follows: ‘After you finalize a sale, do you delight the consumer? And if so, in what way?’. The questions are related to all four steps of the inbound marketing model, including questions concerning strategic measurements.
3.5 Qualitative data analysis method
All recorded interviews have been transcribed into word. Afterwards, the Dutch interviews have been translated into English, with respect to the relevant context. By doing so, minimal or no information is lost due to language barriers. After the transcripts were finalized, these were coded with the aid of the computer programme Atlas.ti. This qualitative analysis tool was used to implement codes and constructs from the raw data, helping to discover patterns from the data the interviewees delivered. Atlas.ti was used to zoom out from the interviews, as the data from all participants was intertwined to form the basis of this study.
4.
Results
In order to maintain anonymity of the participants, the input of the interviewees was tagged with numbers ranging from 1 to 10. Each of these numbers was randomly assigned to one of the participants. After each quote, the number corresponding to that particular participant, is presented. The numbers matching the specific interviewees are not visible in this file, however they are available on request.
