Our customers wishes

Envato Authors Audio Authors
1

Hey friends, I’ve some questions to the AJ authors. But let me explain before my situation.
I am an AJ member since 2020 which is a short time in comparision to long term members here.
In this time I’ve created round about 80 audio items to different genres except SFX.
Every time I start a new project I consider “What could a customer need?”. The result is an audio project with my own meaning of customer needs. But I get more and more the feeling, that I compose my audio files “into the blue” (german: Ins Blaue hinein) which means: I do something without any request or external criterias and hope: anyone will need it.
It’s clear - we’re here on a stock music market but my impression is. It is a grabbing table for music. I hope this is the right english word for it (in german we have the word “Grabbeltisch”). If I go in a warehouse, then I’ll find a lot of grabbing tables, mostly in the first floor. And if anyone of you grabbed a bit on that tables, you’ll mostly find out: “That’s all cheap and sometimes sensless and useless stuff of poor quality”. That’s the danger of that philosophy of grabbing tables.

Now to my questions.

  1. Is this philosophy still the future of stock music markets?
  • If yes, how do you see the development of quality and variety?
  • If no, what could be an alternative?
  1. Would you like to know, what are the real customer needs?
  2. Would you like to know, how the customers think about our work?
  3. Would you like to know, if the customers buy our work, because
  • they really like, what they hear or
  • if they buy it, because there’s no alternative and our work is the best “compromise”?
  1. Would you still prefer to produce music without any request or criteria?

I am interested in your opinion. Is it better to come closer to the customer needs or is it better to go ahead without any questions and customer opinions?

3 Likes
2

In answer to your question I can only offer my personal experience whilst on this marketplace. At the start I was uploading cinematic tracks which when I listened to others such as @martijndebont and @skyproductions there was no way I could be as good as them. Slowly I diversified and found that strange, horror, comedy and cartoon tracks worked out for me. I am far from the best but I cannot do corporate tracks but watching tv commercials and youtube videos with their advertising you get a feel of what is needed.
If you keep listening to the bestsellers on this marketplace then you really are not paying attention to a wider market and you will end up with the same old track. Trust your gut instinct and be different whilst producing top quality music. The boutique libraries really are top quality and the standard is so much higher than here. Do your homework and be realistic to what you can offer and make sure that you have a diverse portfolio on offer.
Having worked a lot on UK terrestrial television, you do not want a director breathing down your neck with insane deadlines unless you can cope with the endless necessary changes. I like the “what am I going to do today” kind of approach.

8 Likes