A recent study published by Pew Internet American Life Project has determined that the internet plays only a minor role in influencing music purchasing decisions.

They discovered that:
83% of Americans discover music through terrestrial radio, movies, or television
64% found out about music from friends and family, while
56% used online sources to find music.

Not only that but even for respondents that used the internet to research music, only 12% said the internet had a major role in what they purchased.

While the internet did not play a major role in how respondents determined what to buy, the study showed that post-purchase, 53% of music buyers went online to engage in some way, such as going directly to the artist’s site or myspace, looking for live performances online, reading blogs about the artist, sharing with friends on sites like facebook, or rating/reviewing the music online.

CDs aren’t quite dead.

With all the hubbub about the decline of the CD it’s interesting to note that 82% of music buyers say that all or most of the music they buy is CDs. Only 15% said at least half their purchases were individual digital files.

So while CDs may be on the decline, relatively speaking, a lot of people are still buying them, and based on this survey, I’m guessing most of those CDs being consumed are issued by the major labels.

So this would all seem to paint a pretty grim picture for the digital music marketer and indies without access to mainstream media eh?

Well, maybe, maybe not. Here’s my take on it.

What About The Long Tail?

Let’s look first of all at the folks that were surveyed – a random sampling of about 2000+ Americans. In other words, more than likely the participants skew toward mainstream music fans. If they are buying music they hear on radio and TV, and relying on these sources to find out about new music, they are most likely not buying underground hip-hop or cutting edge electronica for example. They are buying pop music because that’s what those outlets expose them to. So what need do they have to go online to discover or be influenced by the internet? Everything they need is directly accessible to them via mainstream media in their everyday lives. They are buying mostly CDs – again, easily available in your local Target, Best Buy etc. No need to go online for that. But if you are looking for something outside of the mainstream, the first place you are going to turn is to the internet.

I’m guessing if you surveyed a sampling of people that primarily buy music online, or are fans of niche genres – the long tail, if you will – the numbers would be radically different. For this type of audience I’m guessing that the internet plays a very different and more crucial role.

This may seem like stating the obvious but surveys like this are really only useful if you are interested in what the mainstream is doing.

I’m not really ;)

Consumers do engage online after purchase.

Although majors love to complain about online bootlegging, in my opinion they shouldn’t be worrying so much about that. It seems pretty clear to me that it’s not really their target audience that’s doing most of the bootlegging. Those people are hardly even using the internet to find music, never mind trying to figure out how to get it for free. I’m guessing that these people that buy cds and don’t go online till after the fact are NOT on BitTorrent looking for the latest Britney album. I’m not suggesting that online piracy is a non-issue, but I think the major labels are placing undue attention on it when instead they should just be re-tooling their strategies to make the most of how their consumers are behaving pre and post purchase.

The report points out:

“Post-purchase online activity can encourage additional buying. Overall, 26% of internet users who bought music in the past year said online resources led them to buy more music. Among internet users who bought music in the past and who did at least one post purchase activity online, 40% said online resources led them to buy more music.”

Since, according to this report, this audience is looking to engage online post-purchase, majors should stop fussing so much about what happens online pre-purchase and focus on more engaging websites for their artists and developing the customer relationship from that point – collecting email addresses, giving consumers reasons to keep coming back and eventually buy more from that artist.

Indies could learn a lesson from this too – engage your consumer whenever possible to earn future business. This is also another reason why you need your website to be well optimized so that when your fans Google you up after buying your music, they will easily be able to find and engage directly with you.

To me the lesson here is that once you get the consumer engaged online, it’s easier to encourage them to purchase again. So it’s all about cultivating that relationship with the buyer directly, which is so much easier to do online, even for indies and very hard to do offline.

So the way I see it, this report may be not so encouraging to the new media departments of major labels, but indies should still be confident that in this digital age, you can have direct access to your potential consumer and can develop direct relationships with those who are more than likely actively searching online for music like yours!

Internet is for the indies!

Phew, guess I still have a job ;)

Also see Coolfer’s take on this report