Christian P. Pewitt Blogs: Bandcamp Grew Fan Signups 4X By Making A Very Simple Change

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Bandcamp Grew Fan Signups 4X By Making A Very Simple Change

By any yardstick, Bandcamp is on a roll. Not only is it growing rapidly, as measured by both new artist and label signups and transactions, but the indie music site also experienced an exponential jump in fan growth after it made a single, simple change.

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The number of fans creating a Bandcamp account grew 4X after it dropped a requirement that users make a purchase before they could get a ‘fan account’ on the site.

Previously to use any of the popular community features like following and artist or adding to a wishlists required that the user prove they were a serious customer by buying something. “Someone who put their money down to support an artist is serious about music, and that was who we wanted in our community," Bandcamp COO Joshua Kim told Music Ally. "And that model has managed to grow our fan community to become huge and very robust.”

“Eventually, we decided that our community was large and defined enough, with the foundation of quality that we want, that we didn’t think that was going to change. We decided to bring all those people out there trying to use this functionality into the community,” Kim continued.

"double-digit conversion rates

for signup-to-purchase within 30 days"

“The goal was still to make sure they became quality members. We’ve been tracking that, and signups essentially increased by four times once we allowed more of those people to join, which is really cool. How long does it take for those people to become paying customers? So far we’re seeing double-digit conversion rates for signup-to-purchase within 30 days.”

Earlier this year, Badcamp also made a series of improvements designed to accelerate sales growth.