Analyse the product adoption lifecycle for Music streaming services in India
INTRODUCTION
Music streaming:
Most streaming platforms offer an astonishing library of songs, albums, and playlists. All of those songs can theoretically be played by every user on just one occasion over the web, regardless of where they’re, and regardless of what device they’re using. From a technical standpoint, streaming works by sending (or, well, streaming) information from a server to a private player. the particular song exists on the server as a raw file. Raw files are huge and detailed, so as that they need to be compressed in order to travel over the web instantaneously. When the stream reaches your device, it’ll decode the compressed information using an app or plugin.
Various music stream available in the Indian market:
They are;
- Youtube music: 1bn music users / 20m subscribers.
- Tencent Music: 657m users / 42.7m paying users.
- Spotify: 286m users / 130m subscribers.
- Apple Music: 60m subscribers.
- Amazon Music: 55m customers.
- Gaana: 60.9m users / 6.2m subscribers.
- wynk music: 107.5m users / 15.2m subscribers.
Where does the music streaming industry fit in the Product Adoption lifecycle?
Consumers adopt technology in highly predictable ways. First, come the first adopters, the tech expert who is always the primary to undertake out new apps, services, and devices, next come the first followers who supercharge growth, then the mainstream who bring the scale of adoption and eventually the laggards who adopt at a more measured pace and slow growth. The result’s an ‘S-Curve’ of adoption, with slow growth followed by fast growth, followed by slow growth again at the highest of the curve. Music services are not any exception, usually starting slowly before accelerating then slowing again once they have saturated their addressable audience. Exactly where growth peaks vary by service and are decided by the sort of service, but an equivalent shape of adoption curve plays out nonetheless, most of the time.
Profile of adopters in the music industry:
The Indian music streaming market has now reached A level of maturation where most established players have crossed “the chasm” within the product adoption curve, which in product management parlance means a crossover zone from an early stage, failure-prone product and to a successful one. Thus, the general propensity to fail is sort of low but the new players still need to conquer the first market.
Innovators: the primary set of individuals to use your product. they typically include open beta testers, tech reviewers, and internet enthusiasts who keep a tab on the music space and are the primary ones to check new products.
Early Adopters: These are usually audiophiles and music aficionados who are hooked into music streaming generally and need to experience any new product that launches during this sector. These users are typically younger in age, have a better social station, have more financial ability, advanced education, and are more socially forward.
Early Majority: These are users who usually search for tried and tested options with proven value. they’re influenced by the blogs and reviews posted by the Innovators & Early Adopters. they’re mostly tech-savvy millennials who own smartphones and audio gadgets, wouldn’t mind paying a subscription fee, and have a penchant for the newest global music trends. They form a big chunk of the user base.
Late Majority: These are people with a high degree of skepticism and who wait until a majority of society has adopted the merchandise. they have more convincing than simply good reviews of a replacement product. they will not easily adopt a replacement product until they need a true need for it or there are not any other alternatives and are convinced it’s of great value.
Laggards: These are people that are typically averse to vary and are the last ones to adopt a product. they’re mostly advanced in age, stick with old technology and traditions or have a low social station and financial fluidity.
Here are three strategies you can use.
1. Change Your Marketing as Your Product Ages
At each stage of the product adoption curve, it’s likely there’s going to be certain demographics buying your product.
For example, innovators are more likely to buy on impulse, while buyers in the late majority will do lots of research before purchasing.
And as your product gets older, it will become more well-known. So you might start out with a product no one knows but end up with a product everyone and their brother has heard of.
Here’s a classic example: the iPhone.
A commercial for the second-generation iPhone showed off a lot of the hip new features: music, email, and Internet browsing, to name a few.
[fve]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiYaLOwU2nY[/fve]
This obviously appealed to a younger, more tech-savvy audience.
Then in 2010, three years after the first iPhone launched in 2007, the iPhone 4 came out with a commercial that featured two grandparents celebrating their granddaughter’s graduation:
[fve]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKoLp_lGo14&t=36s[/fve]
Apple wanted to show that even grandparents (who may not have understood smartphones back in 2010) could benefit from the iPhone. This is important because older consumers are typically late adopters.
Apple’s strategy was clear: Begin by showcasing all the bells and whistles, then open up the audience to include more types of customers.
In the same way, you should think about what your marketing should look like at each stage of the product adoption curve.
For example, when the innovators and early adopters come rolling in, your marketing should clearly describe the value and benefits of your product.
Later on, perhaps in the late majority stage, you can utilize customer testimonials and reviews. This can help address the skepticism that later adopters typically have.
Think about addressing the common questions that each group has.
Innovators will ask themselves what’s so unique about your product, while the early majority wants to know what other people think about your product and why it’s useful.
Thinking like this can completely change your marketing. By sending a customized message every step of the way, you’ll battle objections and questions head-on.
2. Know How to Overcome The Chasm
In most product adoption curves, there’s a point that can make or break the success of the product.
It’s called the chasm. It’s the point between the early adopter stage and the early majority stage.
As the chart above represents, crossing the chasm means breaking into the mainstream market.
It’s one among the foremost difficult aspects of product adoption, but it’s one among the foremost important aspects to urge right.
There’s even a bestselling book on the subject — Crossing the Chasm.
Crossing the chasm is especially tough to try for a couple of reasons.
One reason is that as your product ages and grows, your audience will have higher expectations.
Specifically, your potential customers will want increasingly better reasons to shop for your product.
You have to be able to meet these demands throughout your product’s lifecycle, but it’s especially important in getting past the chasm.
As impulse buyers, the innovators and early adopters didn’t need huge reasons to shop for your product. But to urge the first majority to convert, that’s exactly what you will need.
You have to believe your branding and not just your product. you’ve got to supply value and not just features.
Another reason for the problem is that the possible necessity of pivoting.
In other words, to cross the chasm you’ll get to take a replacement angle for your campaign.
Early on, you’ll be hedging on the thought behind your product. Early adopters are cool thereupon, but the first majority wants consistency.
3. Don’t Forget The Laggards
You can’t stop after your product has hit its pinnacle and is riding the waves of success.
Remember, the second-largest adoption group is laggards, coming in at 16%.
A lot of individuals are going to be buying your product well after the hype dies down, and you cannot forget or alienate this audience.
Laggards are often skeptics, so at the top of your product lifecycle, your marketing should be laser-focused on overcoming objections.
Think about it — you’re marketing to people that resist change and should not even want to be a customer.
They’re going to wish awesome reasons to take a position in your brand. (A slew of positive testimonials, reviews, and press mentions will are available handy for this.)
Time also plays a crucial role. remember the iPhone example; sure, older folks are commonly seen with iPhones, but it has been a decade since the device’s initial release.
In terms of SaaS, this might mean that certain companies are content with the software they’re using now. it’d take tons of your time and exposure to your brand for them to vary their minds.
Finally, you’ll also get to brace for the declining sales that inevitably occur at the top of the merchandise lifecycle.
Factors and challenges which affected the rate of music streaming service adoption
- Internet adoption in India still in progress.
- Streaming Alternatives.
- Pirate services.
- Awareness
Internet adoption in India still ongoing -While the telecom revolution has opened the door for the web economy, the method of internet adoption is way from over. Current “566 million internet users” still represent just south of 40% of the country’s total population — while penetration rates across developed markets average at around 80%.
Streaming Alternatives -According to Nielsen, 94% of the web consumers in India hear music — and 71% of them say that music is a crucial (or very important) part of their lives. If that is the case, however, why the music streaming user base made up only 26% of the country’s online population back in 2018? the purpose is that streaming services are only one of the consumption channels available to the Indian consumer and not necessarily the foremost attractive one.
The most prominent audio streaming alternative is YouTube. Video-streaming heavyweight has become a huge part of the country’s entertainment landscape. Reportedly, YouTube reaches over 80% of the web users in India, and 245 million Indians are accessing the service monthly.
The reason behind the platform’s success as a music consumption channel is that the significance of video-synced music contained within the country. Shaped by a century-long tradition of film music, Indian consumers are wont to consuming audio synched to video content and built into the larger cinematic narrative.
YouTube is free, visual, and simply accessible. However, it can’t wholly substitute streaming services, since music is off-screen, on-the-go content and video-platforms aren’t cut out for that.
Pirate Services — When it involves off-screen consumption, the most important streaming alternative is pirate services. Currently, India is the first country within the world in terms of piracy rates. consistent with the newest surveys, 76% of internet users admit to using pirate services within the last three months — and far and away the foremost popular unlicensed channel are the stream-ripping websites, allowing their users to show the YouTube links into mp3 files. Then, the mp3 files are often easily “sideloaded” onto the Android-operated devices (which account for over 90% of all smartphones in India) through external SD-cards.
Monetization -Sure, “pirates” will eventually convert to ad-supported streaming users but turning them into paying customers may be a massive challenge for the local industry. Another factor that plays into that situation is that the price-sensitivity of the Indian consumer generally. Consumers in India are dubbed value-conscious — always keeping in mind the value/price proposition. However, if the music was free for the past ten years, why do you have to buy it?
The prominence of video-content, the recognition of YouTube, the history of rampant piracy, all those factors make a conversion to paid streaming extremely problematic, albeit the subscriptions are priced extremely cheap.
Growth hacks
What is YouTube Music?
YouTube Music is YouTube’s counter to other popular ad-free streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal. As of May 12, 2020, YouTube Music Premium has officially taken Google Play Music’s place in the streaming service sphere. This means Google Play Music subscribers must transfer their libraries from the defunct app to YouTube Music.
YouTube Music offers a vast library of official and unofficial music videos that populate search results alongside audio files. Previously, subscribing to an artist’s YouTube Music profile automatically subscribed to your regular YouTube account to said channel. However, YouTube has since updated the subscription mechanism to separate YouTube Music subscriptions from YouTube subscriptions. Yes, it’s confusing, as is typical for Google’s myriad of overlapping applications.
YouTube Music Premium allows you to download content and listen to it from anywhere, saving you from running over your data cap.
Like Google Play Music, Spotify, Tidal, and Apple Music, you can download music and listen to them without using all your data. This is invaluable for anyone with a limited data plan and takes just a few moments to do. YouTube Music is also directly accessible through Sonos smart speakers.
How to use YouTube Music
YouTube Music Premium provides subscribers with ad-free access to both unofficial and official music videos alongside live performances.
The mobile and desktop interfaces are nearly identical. The home screen displays a list of typical categories: favorites, recommended, new, and moods to fit your preferences. From there, you can tab over to search for a specific artist or song, check out a curated video hotlist, and peruse your library.
If you’re listening to a music video, you can switch to audio-only by selecting “song” at the top of the display. Doing so pulls up the actual audio version, instead of just playing the music video audio sans-video. This is great because it eliminates any extraneous dialogue included in a music video that isn’t present in the album edit.
You can create a playlist by tapping the three clustered, vertical dots in the playback control module. This opens a menu of options including download, add to playlist, add to queue, start radio, and more. If you’re creating a new playlist, title it and choose whether it’s public, private, or unlisted. Note: when you create a playlist, it creates the playlist for your general YouTube account, too. Hopefully, YouTube fixes this in the future as it did with artist subscription overlap.
Does YouTube Music allow for collaborative playlists?
Yes! A new YouTube Music update lets you create a playlist and then add your friends to it (assuming they have an account). Then you can both add songs to the playlist. This is something that Spotify has had for a long time but it’s good to see YouTube building out the social aspect of the service.
The desktop layout of YouTube Music Premium is nearly identical to that of the mobile application.
Unlike other streaming platforms, audio adjustments are restrictive. There is an EQ option under settings, but it relies on your phone’s sound quality options. For instance, the Samsung Galaxy S10e allows you to toggle Dolby Atmos and choose between a few dubious EQ presets. You can’t actually create a custom EQ for YouTube Music though. When the service was first announced there wasn’t any official documentation of sound quality but that has since been added to the YouTube Music help page. You can choose between a few different sound quality settings:
- Low: 48kbps AAC (uses the least data)
- Normal: 128kbps AAC (default settings)
- High: 256kbps AAC (highest quality setting)
- Always high: 256 kbps AAC (maintains this even when the connection is poor)
This is the official quality for YouTube Music whether you’re on a mobile network or Wi-Fi. It’s not great seeing how Tidal, Deezer, Amazon Music HD, and a handful of others support lossless formats like FLAC or at least a higher bitrate. In an AMA a Google employee shared that YouTube Music has no intention to exceed 256kbps, citing FLAC streaming as a cost-inefficient option. This is disappointing for the likes of SoundGuys, but if you just want to hear music and don’t care much for its quality, selecting “high” audio quality should be fine.
Don’t have unlimited data? Download over Wi-Fi and listen anywhere
You can download a music video, song, or playlist by tapping the three vertical circles and selecting download from the pull-up menu. If you intend to download music videos, make sure your phone has the space for it or pick up a microSD card if your phone supports it.
You can even take extra precautions to prevent streaming over data. Go to the homepage, tap your profile avatar, and select the cog icon labeled “settings.” Then slide the option to stream via Wi-Fi only. From here, you can also choose to limit mobile data, adjust mobile network quality, and more.
How does the YouTube Music Premium subscription work?
YouTube Music Premium charges $9.99 or $4.99 per month depending on if you enroll in an individual or family plan, respectively. Regardless of your plan, you are charged directly from your Google account. You can use YouTube Music Premium features on a maximum of 10 mobile devices. Once you go beyond that, the oldest authorized device is revoked. You’re capped to four devices per year, presumably to prevent you from sharing it with different friends.
This is the official quality for YouTube Music whether you’re on a mobile network or Wi-Fi. It’s not great seeing how Tidal, Deezer, Amazon Music HD, and a handful of others support lossless formats like FLAC or at least a higher bitrate. In an AMA a Google employee shared that YouTube Music has no intention to exceed 256kbps, citing FLAC streaming as a cost-inefficient option. This is disappointing for the likes of SoundGuys, but if you just want to hear music and don’t care much for its quality, selecting “high” audio quality should be fine.
Don’t have unlimited data? Download over Wi-Fi and listen anywhere
You can download a music video, song, or playlist by tapping the three vertical circles and selecting download from the pull-up menu. If you intend to download music videos, make sure your phone has the space for it or pick up a microSD card if your phone supports it.
You can even take extra precautions to prevent streaming over data. Go to the homepage, tap your profile avatar, and select the cog icon labeled “settings.” Then slide the option to stream via Wi-Fi only. From here, you can also choose to limit mobile data, adjust mobile network quality, and more.
How does the YouTube Music Premium subscription work?
YouTube Music Premium charges $9.99 or $4.99 per month depending on if you enroll in an individual or family plan, respectively. Regardless of your plan, you are charged directly from your Google account. You can use YouTube Music Premium features on a maximum of 10 mobile devices. Once you go beyond that, the oldest authorized device is revoked. You’re capped to four devices per year, presumably to prevent you from sharing it with different friends.
What’s the difference between YouTube Music and YouTube Premium?
The difference is in what you’re afforded when you subscribe to the former versus the latter. It’s similar to how a square falls under the rectangle umbrella: YouTube Music falls under the YouTube Premium umbrella.
YouTube Music Premium’s main features include access to albums, live performances, music videos, and remixes. You benefit from YouTube’s discovery algorithm, which increases in accuracy as you “thumbs up/down” songs. You can play music with your phone screen locked as well as download music, something not allowed with the free, ad-enabled version of YouTube Music.
Remember YouTube Red? That’s now called YouTube Premium. Confusing, right? YouTube Premium, compared to YouTube Music Premium, takes a more broad approach to streaming. All videos are ad-free, not just music-related ones. You can download any video directly to your device, whereas YouTube Music Premium limits download functionality to songs and music videos. Another great feature is background play whereby you no longer need to remain in the native YouTube app for a video to continue. Instead, by exiting the app, a small window is overlaid in the corner of your device’s screen.
YouTube Premium demands $11.99/mo ($6.99/mo for students). If you’re an avid YouTube consumer, it makes sense to shell out the extra $2/mo for YouTube Premium. The free version of YouTube with ads still exists, of course.
How to get a YouTube Music Premium family plan
Technically there isn’t a standalone YouTube Music Premium family plan option. If you want to share with your family, you’ll have to sign up for a YouTube Premium family plan. This costs 17.99/mo and allows you to add five family members (six accounts total). As a family member on a plan holder’s account, you can only switch families once every 12 months. Family members are afforded the same benefits as the original YouTube Premium subscriber.
Why you should use YouTube Music Premium
YouTube Music Premium is an excellent option for anyone who likes to watch music videos or live performances.
YouTube Music Premium has great features for general music listeners. If you’re a music video fanatic, YouTube Music is hands-down the best subscription service currently available. Its expanse of unofficial, official, and lyric videos give it the edge over more limited platforms like Tidal.
What’s more, Google Play Music is already out the door. If you were a GPM user and want a subscription service with a similar design language and broad content spectrum, YouTube Music Premium is it. Thankfully, the service lets you transition your music from Google Play Music to YouTube Music with a helpful transfer tool that allows users to migrate libraries from the former to the latter with a single click.
Why you shouldn’t use YouTube Music Premium
The Apple Music app has a better user interface and design than YouTube Music.
Aside from that, YouTube Music has some other pitfalls. Its “New Release Mix” and “Your Mixtape” selections fell into one of two camps:
- they were songs I already had in separate playlists, or
- they were songs I wouldn’t make the conscious effort to listen to.
I was a bit disappointed. After all, isn’t the algorithm supposed to know everything about us individually and collectively? I guess what I’m saying, YouTube Music, is that I’m hurt you don’t know me better. Oftentimes, the recommendations felt myopic and cyclical. This would likely improve as I continued to use YouTube Music, but that’s what happens within the first few weeks at least.
Its suggestions didn’t allow for much music discovery and often repeated songs I already added to playlists.
On the whole, YouTube Music isn’t the best option when it comes to sound quality and falls short with its user interface. If you want something that offers lossless streaming with an intuitive UI, look into the competitively priced Amazon Music HD: it streams FLAC. Alternatively, Deezer and Tidal HiFi both support lossless streaming and have more attractive UIs than Amazon Music HD. That said, YouTube Music is slowly maturing and getting better with time. While it isn’t quite there just yet, it will likely stand as a much stronger competitor to Spotify and Apple Music in the future. If you’re thinking of getting a YouTube Music Premium subscription, I highly recommend investing an extra $2/mo for YouTube Premium. That way, you can enjoy all that YouTube has to offer ad-free and from anywhere.
How does YouTube Music compare to Spotify?
Both YouTube Music and Spotify offer free, ad-supported versions, but Spotify free offers less control over music playback than YouTube Music free. However, there are definite downsides to free YouTube Music as well, such as an inability to exit the app and keep the music playing. If you do choose to pay for either streaming service, you can play music on-demand, in the background, and over higher bitrate files, though neither have high-fidelity audio.
The largest differences between the two streaming services are that Spotify offers podcasts whereas YouTube Music offers videos including live performances, covers, or original songs recorded by a band in their basement. You can find a lot of underground music on Spotify because they accept submissions from pretty much everyone, but in general, more people upload their music to YouTube than to Spotify. For an in-depth comparison of the two streaming services, check out our YouTube Music vs Spotify article.
[Source: https://www.soundguys.com/youtube-music-premium-review-25622/]
Conclusion
The product adoption curve is one of those concepts that’s tricky to master but incredibly rewarding when you do.
It requires a lot of attention to your customers — a lot of listening and changing. It’s not for the faint of heart. But creating an awesome product and having a successful launch isn’t exactly a walk in the park, either.
If you’re going to try to make a mark, you might as well go all the way. Knowing when, why, and how your customers adopt your product can revolutionize the way you see your product lifecycles.
You can plan ahead for each stage of the curve, and you’ll be better equipped to adapt to any unforeseen changes. Like I mentioned at the beginning of this article, understanding the product adoption curve is ultimately about knowing your customers and catering to them.
You need to meet your potential customers where they are at every stage of the product lifecycle, whether that means exciting the innovators or convincing the laggards.
It can mean the difference between an okay product and an outstanding product.
