Editor’s Note: This article focusing on SoundMachine as a leader in cloud-based streaming offers extensive details about partnership opportunities, including the SoundMachine Partner Program.
The modern entertainment landscape is fundamentally powered by streaming services, which have rapidly become omnipresent across the globe. Traditional cable television has been largely replaced, and CDs and MP3 players are now technological relics. A result of this transformation is that the days of businesses manually creating playlists or cycling through pre-arranged CD soundtracks for in-store background music are long gone.
SoundMachine: A Leader in Cloud-Based Streaming
The good news is, this evolution has paved the way for SoundMachine to become a leader in cloud-based streaming, delivering high-quality sound and music worldwide. That means businesses can now access a limitless array of background entertainment options. And, indeed, SoundMachine serves businesses of all sizes and types, boasting well over 24,000 locations across the world and with customers running the gamut: flagship retail, hospitality, restaurants and coffee shops, and businesses of all kinds. The streaming service is easy to use: simply choose from one of 500 stations or import a playlist from a music service and press play. Multiple users can control the music across different locations and on various devices.
Commercial Integrator spoke with Matteo Luppi, co-founder and CEO of SoundMachine, to learn about the company’s mission and how it has evolved since its founding in 2008. For Luppi, it comes down to delivering an expansive music library at a reasonable price while maintaining industry-leading customer service. It’s a formula that has powered SoundMachine’s global expansion, with the company now operating across 115 countries.
According to Luppi, one way that SoundMachine has set itself apart is by offering the largest music catalog in the entire B2B music streaming space. To do this, SoundMachine is licensed with all major collecting societies in the U.S.: the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP); Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI); the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers (SESAC); and Global Music Rights (GMR)
Thus, with SoundMachine, the content possibilities for businesses and their customization options are nearly limitless. Ultimately, businesses leveraging SoundMachine reap the benefits: more than 500 curated stations and unlimited customization options.
SoundMachine: Quality at Every Tier
To ensure that businesses of all sizes and at all resource levels can benefit from SoundMachine, the company offers tiered pricing, with the most affordable plan, “Business,” being $26.95 per month. This tier ideally suits smaller businesses, allowing them to create and customize mixes, schedule promotional content, program tailored messages and manage multiple users while accessing 100-plus stations. For larger businesses wanting access to more stations, the Business Premium Tier ($33.95/month) upgrades the station capacity to 500-plus stations. Moreover, customers can import stations from other music services like Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music.
Recently, SoundMachine launched another tier — Business Premium HD ($35.95/month) — that offers all the benefits of the other tiers along with the best sound quality of any B2B service on the market. “When it comes to the HD, in terms of sound quality, it’s unmatched in the market at the moment,” Luppi declares, alluding to 320Kbps sound quality.
For Luppi, it comes down to a basic belief: When businesses invest in exceptional equipment, those speakers should have the opportunity to produce the best sound available. Business Premium HD enables exactly that. As Luppi puts it, “If you have fantastic speakers, and you use SoundMachine Business Premium HD, you will have fantastic speakers and fantastic sound.”
Partnership: SoundMachine Partner Program
The other piece of this story is partnership in the form of the innovative SoundMachine Partner Program, which caters to AV integrators and installers and enables them to generate a lucrative recurring revenue stream through subscriptions they facilitate. The Partner Program includes a dedicated partner portal through which integrators can sign their clients up. Signup is simple, and payments are sent to SoundMachine, which promptly pays the integrator and installer partners.
Highlighting the Partner Program’s significance, Luppi says, “In many cases, the dealers, historically, have been focusing more on selling and installing the hardware and not focusing so much on suggesting what goes through the hardware…what is being played from the hardware.” He continues, “So, our Partner Program was really about putting these two elements together and, at the end of the day, making sure that money is not left on the table from the dealer side.”
Luppi elaborates further, saying, “Dealers are already installing hardware. They already have a relationship with the end customer. And what we give them is an opportunity to extend that revenue stream.” Indeed, 10% of the service subscription fees are paid to the partner for life. SoundMachine’s commitment to serving the integrator channel helps explain why the company already has 2,000 active partners in the U.S., as well as a few thousand installers across Europe.
SoundMachine Partnership Attracting Excitement
Feedback from the dealer community on the SoundMachine Partner Program has been excellent — and not only because of the opportunity for perpetual recurring revenue. Luppi explains that providing easily managed, legal background music yields a complete, turnkey system that doesn’t need further work. Plus, the client can rest assured that they’ll never face unexpected hefty fines stemming from unlicensed music. Ultimately, the integrator is the “hero,” providing a one-stop-shop solution.
Notably, the partner portal offers the ability to connect one-on-one with SoundMachine experts for any technical questions that arise, giving integrators and clients alike peace of mind. The average response time via the centralized ticketing system is about 30 minutes, ensuring that customers aren’t left with unresolved issues for an extended period. According to Luppi, the large, dedicated support team is ready to provide one-to-one attention to resolve any issues.
“The dealer now has the opportunity to make more money and leave with a happy customer,” Luppi enthuses. It’s the perfect recipe for integrators looking to cement a strong bond with their client so they can earn future business.
What’s more, SoundMachine has embraced integrations with industry leaders like Crestron, Bluesound, Control4, Bogen, Savant and others. While each hardware manufacturer offers specific benefits from its SoundMachine integration, some common denominators include integrated hardware and control systems. This allows businesses to manage and play licensed music effortlessly through a unified infrastructure, while also offering more streamlined music management, customized playlists and multi-location control.
SoundMachine’s Crestron and Bluesound Integrations
A prime example of how SoundMachine believes in partnership and can be part of a comprehensive system lies in its Crestron integration, including Crestron DM NAX Audio-over-IP products. According to Luppi, “We are basically the only B2B service that is available through Crestron NAX.” The benefits are numerous: the ability to access SoundMachine playback controls directly from the Crestron app on Crestron devices, mobile devices or tablets; the ability to add zones to the listening stream for seamless transitions from one area to another; and the capacity to play multiple streaming sessions throughout a business from the same SoundMachine subscription.
Bluesound, meanwhile, offers BluOS, a multi-room audio technology that empowers users to manage their music and stream it on any BluOS-enabled player. The BluOS-enabled range encompasses streamers, streamer/amplifiers and networked speakers, including PoE IP65-rated indoor/outdoor speakers. Notably, BluOS plays extremely well with the Business Premium HD tier, which SoundMachine developed in partnership with the company.
For integrators whose clients are looking for a hardware-based plug-and-play option, SoundMachine has a hardware player that facilitates easy management and vertical control over what plays at every location on the site. As Luppi explains it, “It is basically a simple box, so to speak, which can be connected easily to any sound system.” He elaborates, adding, “It needs power, of course, and then an Ethernet connection, so that it connects to our servers for updates and remote control.”
SoundMachine: Audio Solutions for Everyone
SoundMachine provides audio solutions for every vertical market your clients might represent. From the most economical to the most feature-rich, the company’s tiers meet businesses where they are and level up the audio experience. Meanwhile, the Partner Program offers a lucrative passive income stream to dealers when they register their clients through the intuitive partner portal. It’s just another way to ensure your clients get a complete solution…a solution that will keep them coming back to you for years to come.
