Chief Marketing Officer

Since the emergence of streaming, the music industry has once again been on the rise. This goes for nearly all music genres – except for classical music. Due to its limited range and the suboptimal listening experience with existing streaming services, this genre barely gets streamed. The promising scale-up Primephonic changes all this with their exclusive streaming service for classical music. The new Chief Marketing Officer knows how to find classical music enthusiasts worldwide and brings them into the new digital age of classical music.

About Primephonic

Turbulent years in the music industry

Until the late nineties the music industry’s growth seemed never-ending. However, the digital revolution also meant the rise of illegal downloading, which cut the music industry’s market in half in no time. Now, after fifteen years of declining revenues, streaming services are the answer. Globally, streaming has become the most popular way of listening to music and since 2015, the music industry has begun to show growth. This means more financial means have become available for the development of new talent, and artists are being compensated more fairly for their work. Nearly all music genres worldwide are profiting from this trend. Except for classical music.

Primephonic: classical music in a digital age

Until now, classical music has been the great absentee in the streaming revolution. While the genre makes up about 5% of the total market, it only has a market share of 1% in the streamed music market. This doesn’t just hurt the genre and its artists – it also causes great frustration among the enthusiasts. Because current streaming services are predominantly focused on pop music, the classical music on offer and its user-experience are lacking. The audio quality is often subpar to classical music enthusiasts, and the search functions as well as the algorithms for listening suggestions don’t work as well as they should.

While enjoying are nice glass of wine, three young classical music aficionados came up with a solution: a streaming service focused on classical music. Driven by their mission to stimulate the genre and have artists be fairly compensated, they went to the drawing board. Primephonic was born: a platform with an extensive range of classical music, better search functionality, more relevant suggestions, and more background info. Backed by 10 million Euros in funding from loyal investors committed to the mission, Primephonic has grown into a scale-up and a small multinational at the same time. From two beautiful office buildings in Amsterdam and New York, a young, international team of passionate professionals is working on their mission to propel the genre into the digital age. The diverse team consists of a former BCG consultant, a former ‘Young entrepreneur of the year’ in Singapore, and a former employee at the London Symphony Orchestra.

The product’s initial version has been validated and is now live. Which ushers in the next phase: scaling up internationally. The Chief Marketing Officer plays a crucial role in this phase. He/she makes sure each and every classical music enthusiast knows of Primephonic’s existence – and joins the revolution with a membership. Here, the scale-up mainly focuses on the true fans of classical music: about twenty million worldwide.

Vacancy: Chief Marketing Officer

The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) develops an omni-channel marketing strategy to identify and activate the target group. Through a result-oriented, data-driven and agile approach, the CMO decides on the marketing strategy for the various channels, target groups, and (geographical) markets. He/she also works closely together with bureaus and partners and creates a successful tandem between both on and offline marketing channels. Primephonic introduces potential customers to the product through partnerships with relevant partners, such as the Concertgebouw. For the roll-out, the CMO manages the international marketing department (currently 4 ftu) and expands where necessary. He/she also travels to New York regularly.

Backed by market research, Primephonic currently focuses on the Dutch and the American market. The latter is interesting because of the sheer size of the market and its consumers’ willingness to pay for music. Because of the product’s scalability, in time many countries will be added to the mix. The CMO focuses here on a coherent marketing strategy, adapted to and rolled out in various countries. This requires the CMO to be sensitive to cultural differences and he/she will need to build a strong relationship with the stakeholders through a collegial style of leadership.

Besides generating traffic, the CMO also ensures an optimal CRM- and conversion strategy. In order to do this, he/she is in constant contact with internal counterparts about the development of the product, the website and the content. Based on data from A/B tests, they’ll decide on the best strategy to convert leads to a free-trial and to the premium version.

The CMO is part of the Leadership Team and reports to CEO Thomas Steffens. He/she, on a strategic level, has a say in the future of the organization.

Candidate’s profile

Experience

• Minimum of 7 years of all-round experience in digital performance and/or e-commerce
• Of which a minimum of 2 years in managerial capacity
• Hands-on experience with setting up and rolling out an omni-channel marketing strategy, ideally across different (geographical) markets, including Performance Marketing, Direct Response and CRM
• Experience in a fast-growing international start- or scale-up is preferred

Personality

• Both strategically minded and hands-on
• Thinks outside the box and is action oriented
• Strongly data-driven
• Inspiring team player
• (Classical) music aficionado

Primephonic works with Top of Minds to fill this vacancy. Contact Suzanne Goedhart-Limmen at suzanne@topofminds.com for more information.