Radar Report 2022: Case Study Personal Trainer

31.05.23

For anyone addicted to data like I am, ESNS Analytics is a gold mine. On a great-looking dashboard, the tool allows us to see how an artist is performing on Spotify, Deezer, SoundCloud, YouTube, and social media.

By Erwin Blom
Music professional

The tool also offers an Airplay Map, which provides an overview of active markets across the globe with insight into which international radio stations are picking up on an artist. I love it. The right data can give an artist, management, booking agency, and label invaluable insight into how they are performing, whether they are reaching their goals and which international market opportunities lie ahead. In short, ESNS Analytics gives a really useful overview.

Zooming into a few examples of Dutch artists who played at the last edition, ESNS Analytics offers visual insight into a surge in success following their showcase at ESNS. If we have a look at the statistics, we see Dutch artist Meau exploding on Spotify after ESNS of this year. Pop star Antoon and the newcomer Bob Uit Zuid can be seen to spike numbers too. Looking at those stats, it’s evident that ESNS made a difference for these artists. It’s nice for the organisers to see that they can make a difference, and for showcasing artists to see that their investment into a showcase festival pays off. But their success is of course thanks to a combination of factors. It’s about releases, media, gigs, etc. In order to spike this success, the artist teams will always need to plan ahead and organise relevant events in connection with the showcase to have the best effect. So all factors reinforce each other.

For artists and their entourage, the ESNS Analytics can play an important role all year round. Take Personal Trainer for example – who played ESNS21 online and have just been confirmed for ESNS23. It’s mid-November at the time of writing this case study. On 4 November 2022, Personal Trainer released their debut album Big Love Blanket. Every review they’ve received has been raving, they have played on Dutch radio and TV, and were on the line-up of the prestigious Le Guess Who? Festival in Utrecht, the Netherlands. In order to demonstrate an example of reinforcing factors, let’s turn to their ESNS Analytics.

Looking at Personal Trainer’s social media and streaming sections of ESNS Analytics, we can see that the only way is up right now for the Amsterdam-based rock outfit: with rapidly increasing followers on Spotify (+27%), Instagram (+14%) and Facebook (+9%). The stats also tell us that the band can definitely improve their impact on YouTube: 300 YouTube followers is a low figure compared to 4,200 Spotify followers. Considering there are two leading search engines today, namely YouTube and Google, a healthy presence on YouTube can definitely work in their favour.

Taking a closer look at the Airplay Map on ESNS Analytics, the tool visualises where an artist is doing better or worse in terms of airplay and lists which stations are playing which artists. It comes as no surprise that our home country of the Netherlands did very well for Personal Trainer with 2,370 radio plays during the past year, but it is also interesting to see how other countries fared. The band recently visited the UK and the 251 radio plays in the last year suggest that they should indeed double down on that market – there are big opportunities for them there. If they find themselves asking: do we choose to prioritise Germany and France? At the moment the biggest opportunities seem to clearly lie in the latter: with 29 radio plays in France and 2 in Germany.

Not just for Personal Trainer, but for every other artist, ESNS Analytics is a useful tool that provides insights on past data and current standings of an artist, as well as reveals opportunities for the future.

Considering that the past two editions of ESNS were digital – meaning the results were and continue to be limited due to the ongoing pandemic – we are excited to see what the future holds. How will a live edition of ESNS affect the artist results? Will we see more bookings in the summer of 2023? Will the physical showcases in Groningen bring an even larger boost to artist careers? All of this we will be able to monitor through ESNS Analytics in the upcoming months.