Alireza Kafaee Fanaee Pour

ID : 31465218

Word Count : 1614

Tutor’s Name :

Teresa Lee

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Introduction:

Simply Piano is a mobile device app that teaches and supervises Piano learners developed
by the private, Israeli company ‘JoyTunes’. The main purpose of this relatively young
company – founded in 2011 - is that “Whether you want to learn piano on your own, or
you’re starting from scratch, Simply Piano will guide you … to make your musical
dreams come true.” This article will closely analyse JoyTunes targeting strategies and
target market which identified using a range of segmentation variables. Furthermore, the
article will shed light on the product positioning of JoyTunes through a concise look at
the market that they are operating in and their competitors. In order to serve this purpose
a perceptual map has been employed showing the relative stance of each app in the
market. Ultimately the article endeavours to offer a deeper understanding JoyTunes
marketing strategies and their perspective for their main product : SimplyPiano app.

Target Strategy :

Before the introduction of the Simply Piano app, the market of online piano tutorials was
already replete with similar or even nearly identical products. Given the situation of the
market, JoyTunes adopted a differentiated marketing strategy and attempted to arrange its
marketing mix of subtle elements that are missing from the basket of its competitors.
Online lessons on theory and different songs are plenty online and for free, but these are
the crucial elements that only a human instructor can offer such as, instant feedback on
rhythm and playing techniques and etc, that no video could offer that Simply Piano
pursued using cutting edge technology that gave JoyTunes its desirable product mix.
These unique elements enable Simply Piano to pursue a ‘mass marketing’ strategy beside
their mainstream ‘target marketing’ plans. This is evident in their recent ads in which
instead of the app being a complementary resource to piano learners, the app is depicted
as the main and mere source of music lessons for children, which further consolidates
JoyTunes aspiration to go beyond the music learner’s circle and hit the mass market.

Further elaborating on the details and features of the app reveals more details about the
marketing strategies adopted by JoyTunes. A close look at the theory behind the entire
course structure shows that they can only take one from no experience level to the
intermediate level at best, this illustrates that the company’s focus is more on the new
starters who embody almost the entire mass marketing target. Meanwhile, there are clear
signs that JoyTunes wants to continually expand their specific target market of piano
learners through a close collaboration with piano teachers, to whom they have announced
to offer free access and special features to monitor their students. finally, as Simply Piano
keeps growing among piano students, the company’s ultimate goal seems to be
relentlessly developing their technology to the point that it can replace a human instructor
and become a mass market product.

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Target Market and Segmentation Variable :

The market for music lessons, like many other educational branches, is to a great extent
homogenous. At the end of the day all the learners must understand and master a
traditional array of theories and technics, even though it might be through slightly
different paths. The two main missions of JoyTunes perhaps should have been first, how
to engage the best target group, and second, how to prevent learners from dropping out.
Studies on Australian music players show that around 37% of music learners are aged 5-
17 and a further 24% aged 18 – 34 (2). This explains the course design of the app, where
very little theory is placed in lessons and mostly the focus is on playing songs and
keeping the environment as playful and ‘fun’ as possible. Another important demographic
factor is household income as piano is one of the most expensive musical instruments
widely used, the main focus of JoyTunes has been Western developed countries in which
more people can afford the cost and space of a piano or a keyboard at least.

As mentioned before, perhaps one of the most common ends to the music learners is that
they drop out relatively early on. The chart below shows a variety of reasons why it is so
common to discontinue music learning paths;

Ref : https://gb.abrsm.org/en/making-music/4-the-statistics/

Simply Piano’s interactive design and light theory content are attempts to minimise drop
out due to ‘Lost Interest’ and ‘Busy with school/work/others’. On the other hand, the
monthly fee of $10/month when compared to $40/hour average rate of piano instructors

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characterise SimplyPiano as a far more affordable choice than a conventional tutor, which
means a feasible choice for the majority of western societies’ members to learn piano.

In terms of behavioural factor, Simply Piano users are divided into 2 main categories.
First, the price sensitive group who use the app as an alternative to human instructors, and
second, the group who seek receiving benefit from the app by using it as a complement to
human instructors. The relatively low price of the service makes it reasonable for both of
these groups to use Simply piano.

Product Positioning :

Even though Simply Piano started as one of the very few startups in this field, the
globalattention that it received and the various award that the company has won since, has
attracted a number of serious competitors and made the market significantly more
competitive. This can be seen in the pricing of companies such as FlowKey, Melodics
that have the exact same annual fee as Simply Piano, a similarity that more than being a
mere accident uncovers the competition based pricing strategy adopted by the firms in
this market. However, JoyTunes still has the lead of the market ( to comprehend the
advantage of Simply Piano against its competitors refer to the perceptual map provided ).

After scrutinising technical reviews and customers’ comments, the secret to the
exceptional popularity of Simply Piano is revealed : sound recognition technology.
Almost the entire course content and teaching style of SimplyPiano could be found in a
competitive app with the very same price. Added to this, free piano tutorial videos are
plenty on the internet for easy pieces and also could be on the competitor’s apps.
However, SimplyPiano has succeeded to distinguish its note recognition technology far
ahead of its competitors. This is not simply another exclusive feature such as quick theory
quizzes or etc. The note recognition and prompt feedback system is the central reason
behind hiring human instructors. Simply Piano utilises advanced algorithms and
computational models capable of learning and improving, in order to address the greatest
need of anyone practicing a musical instrument : having an expert instructor always at
hand.

Perceptual Map :
- Due to the majority of the companies in this relatively small market being
privately owned, there is very little reliable information on the growth rate, change
in revenue and etc. Hence, an alternative way of evaluating each company’s
performance is used on the grounds of some basic economic statistics.

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 - ‘Popularity Index’ is the metric used in the following perceptual map to compare
the performance of each of the app in the market.
- Popularity index takes into account the number of reviews of each app ( indicative
of the spread of the app ), multiplies it by its average rating on app store of US and
Australia ( indicative of customer satisfaction ) and finally in order to normalise
the data, the result is divided by the number of years that the company has been
operating. (Minimising any bias against younger companies).

Name Price Popularity index

( per month )

Flow Key $10 21.8

Simply Piano $10 148.64

Yousician $21 28.174

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Conclusion :
Overall, Simply Piano has been a success in the field of mobile applications and thanks to
the company’s comprehensive marketing plans, continues to be known as one of the most
successful apps in education. However, at this stage the company has a long way to go to
bring their vision of ‘simply’ learning piano into the reality. As an instance, even though
the app has been downloaded over 10 million times globally, yet less than %2 of these
downloads have turned into active users of the app. This proves that the company has
many steps to take in order to hit the mass market and make their program a reliable
teacher for “Simply [learning] Piano “.

References :

Text Books:

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 Elliott, G., Rundle-Thiele, S., Waller, D., Smith, S., Eades, L., & Bentrott, I.
(2017). MARKETING (AU) 4E HYBRID. [Place of publication not identified]: JOHN
WILEY.

Armstrong, G., Adam, S., Denize, S., Volkov, M., & Kotler, P. Principles of marketing.

Journals :

Schivinski, B., & Dabrowski, D. (2014). The effect of social media communication on
consumer perceptions of brands. Journal Of Marketing Communications, 22(2), 189-214.
doi: 10.1080/13527266.2013.871323

de Vries, L., Gensler, S., & Leeflang, P. (2012). Popularity of Brand Posts on Brand Fan
Pages: An Investigation of the Effects of Social Media Marketing. Journal Of Interactive
Marketing, 26(2), 83-91. doi: 10.1016/j.intmar.2012.01.003

Kübler, R., Pauwels, K., Yildirim, G., & Fandrich, T. (2018). App Popularity: Where in
the World are Consumers Most Sensitive to Price and User Ratings?. Journal Of
Marketing, 82(5), 20-44. doi: 10.1509/jm.16.0140

Websites :
Australian Attitudes to Music | Australian Music Association. (2020). Retrieved 18
September 2020, from https://australianmusic.asn.au/australian-attitudes-to-music/

Free for Teachers: The Partnership Continues. (2020). Retrieved 18 September 2020,
from https://www.joytunes.com/blog/music-innovation/free-teachers-partnership-
continues/

he 7 Best Piano Learning Apps for Total Newbies (Comparison). (2020). Retrieved 18
September 2020, from https://promusicianhub.com/best-piano-learning-apps/

(2020). Retrieved 18 September 2020, from

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/joytunes

Sproule, G. (2020). Simply Piano review: An In-Depth Look at the Platform (2020).
Retrieved 18 September 2020, from https://www.pianodreamers.com/simply-piano-
review/

Music Education Startup JoyTunes Raises $25 Million. (2020). Retrieved 18 September
2020, from https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3769058,00.html

https://apps.apple.com/au/app/simply-piano-by-joytunes/id1019442026

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https://apps.apple.com/au/app/flowkey/id1020357408

Ads :
https://www.joytunes.com/simply-piano