As newsfeed marketing continues to flounder, having hit an all time low of 2%, those in music marketing are looking for fresh innovating ways to catch up with fans. In this interview we hear from Tim Heineke of POP on the value storytelling and the future of communication between fans and artists. And if you want to join the Messenger bot revolution, we’ve go discount codes.
______________________
Guest post by Harry Willis of Messenger solutions provider POP
With newsfeed reach at an all time low of 2%, marketeers have been left looking for new and innovative ways to communicate with their fans. We caught up with Tim Heineke, founder of of Messaging service POP (previously FUGA and Shuffler.fm), to get the latest on fan messaging, the importance of storytelling, and what the future holds for 1:1 communication.
Tim, firstly, why should artists be messaging their fans? And is this something for all artists to use? Or is it mainly for larger mainstream acts?
Well I think to answer that question you have to consider why we are indeed on any channel to start with – engagement! There is no channel that drives more engagement than messaging. It’s broadcast messaging, one message to many fans, with no newsfeed algorithm blocking content, so 90% average open rates with 60% click through. Every single artist, whether you have 10 fans or 10M, needs to reach their fans. When used right, this channel is unparalleled for driving streaming, direct sales and video views, anything.
So what are the most powerful ways to use messaging? What are the common pitfalls?
To put this simply, if you’re not broadcasting messages to your fans, you’re missing out on 99% of the benefits. Many of the first movers in this space focussed on elaborate chat bots which were easy to break and essentially only ever used once by the fan, driving minimal ROI. The real power here lies in reaching fans on a regular basis (perhaps once every month, once every two weeks) with some killer content: regular broadcasting vs a one and done chat experience.
Do you see this being a replacement for the traditional email newsletter? And what are people sending?
No, this is supplementary to the newsletter. But with click through rates of 60%, the results driven are night and day. In 2016 we saw artists starting to replicate their email strategy in Messenger and we thought to ourselves – wouldn’t it be interesting if you could do more with this channel. So we started to write more and more customisable interactive stories for broadcast messaging, we called these ‘Flows’. We have flows for quizzes, track voting, gathering feedback on a release, encouraging pre-saves, anticipating every single need of the modern artist. It’s really the natural next step from the newsletter.
Which artists are leading the way in this space of interactive storytelling?
You Me At Six customised a ‘Track announcement + reaction’ I AM POP Flow to announce their latest single ‘Back Again’ and drive traffic to other content from their EP. By tracking how fans reacted, they could then re-market to each segment with further content via another message broadcast.
Digital Agency: CYOA via Claire Higgins
Label: AWAL.
Nina Nesbitt customised an ‘Interactive Quiz’ I AM POP Flow to promote a new single via a narrative fans could guide themselves through, promoting her latest single ‘Loyal To Me’.
Digital Agency Be-Hookd via George James
Label: Cooking Vinyl
You can test out these templates and try out I AM POP for free up to 100 subscribers via iampop.in. Enter coupon code hypebot via account settings for a 20% discount on your first 3 months thereafter.