Why Jay-Z’s launch of streaming service Tidal really sucks

In this short article I will explain my thinking behind why their product and marketing efforts were not aligned for success.

Today, Jay-Z announced the release of his new streaming service, Tidal.com. With a star studded promotion video and major press / social marketing efforts, I believe the launch will not be nearly as successful as it could be because of one reason, requiring a credit card for the 30 day free trial.

Spotify, iTunes, Rdio and the other services have a strong hold on the market already. Getting consumers to change is going to be difficult, even with a starstudded promotion video.

I wonder if there was a specific reason to require credit cards at the start of their trial?

If they were focused on growth I find it hard to believe anything would more valuable than getting real users in your system trying your product and giving them space to be upsold.

Keeping the paywall at the trial may make sense if they were focused on different goals or objectives with the Tidal platform. Perhaps they want to create a new direct sales channel without much care for growth, or to appeal to a high end crowd (with the lossless music for HiFi).

I personally was excited to try Tidal but not even two clicks into the signup (after giving them Twitter details) was still forced to give a credit card to start my free trial. I bailed, closed the tab and came to write this. If they are focused on growth (which they may not be) there’s no reason to have so much friction to getting the public engaged with your product, especially at launch. Show me (and everyone else) your value before asking for money.

Why Tidal shouldn't require a credit card for a trial if they are focused on growth.

Testing / Measuring — With a huge influx of users, the existing marketing promotions provide a chance to test your user experience, design, and technology, at scale. The data Tidal would be collecting could allows them to build a better product than Spotify/iTunes and have a competitive library of music.

Upsell with Drip E-Mail Campaigns — Requiring email would allow Tidal to ‘sell’ people over 30 days on why they should upgrade to paid. At the end of the trial Tidal would have a great chance to upsell them, if their product actually provided value.

30 days of music releases / marketing — Knowing you have people a part of your trial for 30–40 days after your launch date would allow Tidal to leverage that star studded launch video with timed releases across those 30 days. Giving signed up users a reason to come back over and over.

Demographic Data— By cutting the scale of signups down, Tidal lost a chance to collect valuable demographic data. Understanding what people were willing to try out their service and remain retained. Questions such as: What was the most popular music genre by the most active users? Was there a certain age or location that was common? How about mobile device or desktop preferences?

Losing out on referral engine — Tidal could provide similar referral bonuses that Dropbox and other SaaS services have provided. Providing a referral engine would help with increasing a viral loop between networks. Give discount, get discount. Or give a month free, earn a month free.

I wrote about the concept of filling any holes (drop offs) in your bucket (product) in a recent article about how you should optimize your advertising efforts and think this is a prime example of failing to do so.

If you liked this article please reccomend it on Medium!

Have opinions of your own, love marketing, or just love music and tech follow me or reach out on twitter @realscottmcleod