Octave Media’s Matt Jacoby
The music trade of 2026 is exploding in every single place all-at-once, with catalog investments, artistic outputs, and AI-generated mayhem a part of a pedal-to-the-metal progress enlargement. On the bottom, which means extra firms are battling an avalanche of information overload and disconnected processes, although techniques and specialists are shortly adapting and determining options.
That features Octave Media founder Matt Jacoby, who assured Digital Music Information there’s gentle on the finish of the tunnel for firms keen to overtake their processes and CRM (Buyer Relationship Administration) techniques. Jacoby, an expert drummer and music occasion producer for many years, is not any stranger to complicated music trade issues. However what’s the trail in direction of attaining ‘knowledge nirvana,’ as Jacoby calls it?
The reply to that query might begin to differentiate winners and losers throughout a variety of exploding trade sub-categories within the coming years, together with distributors, DSPs, ticketing platforms, ISP/catalog mega-owners, DAWs, publishers, and labels.
And there are large alternatives for individuals who can handle them.
On the catalog entrance, acquisitions and investments are multiplying into the mega-billions yearly, whereas DSPs and distributors are managing an onslaught of each human and AI-generated uploads. There’s additionally extra music consumption than ever throughout streaming, dwell live shows, and video content material, in additional international locations than ever earlier than. Only in the near past, Octave Media joined forces with DMN to achieve a rising variety of firms that merely want to arrange their enterprise flows higher.
So what’s the answer for managing all that knowledge?
After working hands-on with a spread of music firms struggling to handle pipelines, monitor income, and forecast progress, Jacoby started noticing the identical patterns and questions rising. Points surrounding data-management staffing, techniques (or lack thereof), workflows, and workers buy-in are recurring themes however simply solvable.
In a single easy state of affairs, the ‘mess’ takes the type of creator information in a single spreadsheet and royalty calculations in one other, with pipeline visibility nowhere to be discovered.
“It isn’t simply messy folders; it’s gut-instinct choices made at the hours of darkness, missed income alternatives, and popularity harm from payout errors,” Jacoby relayed. “I’ve seen founders and CEOs trapped in day-to-day knowledge firefighting as an alternative of scaling the platforms they envisioned.”
However for Jacoby, essentially the most thrilling half isn’t about what stops taking place when techniques are efficiently reworked and overhauled. It’s what instantly begins occurring when knowledge, groups, and platforms are correctly harmonized and elegantly interlinked.
“It’s pure freedom and unleashed progress,” Jacoby defined. “Envision a newfound tier of confidence and management – that’s what we’re going for right here.”
Jacoby famous that ‘knowledge messes’ can usually be cut up into two giant classes.
Jacoby, an authorized HubSpot knowledgeable and CRM guide with 13 years of expertise, notes that firms sometimes fall into one in all two dysfunctional buckets: one with no CRM, and one other with a CRM that he calls ‘The Fancy Spreadsheet’.
Within the ‘No CRM’ bucket, groups sometimes depend on instruments equivalent to Gmail, calendar reminders, disparate spreadsheets, and maybe a half-baked Salesforce setup. As a result of knowledge isn’t centralized, top-level assessments and forecasting change into inconceivable.
Stepping as much as the “Fancy Spreadsheet,” Jacoby usually encounters firms that pay for a CRM however haven’t configured workflows correctly, established broad-scale buy-in, or established processes. On the bottom, groups work in silos, and leaders nonetheless spend hours manually pulling stories from a number of sources.
Sadly, neither monitor ends in that ‘knowledge nirvana,’ or something near a contented knowledge administration place.
The Octave Media Self-Evaluation: How does your organization rank?
To assist firms diagnose their well being, Jacoby took issues additional and developed a fast Self-Audit Guidelines. Whether or not you might have a developed system or are nonetheless utilizing “spreadsheet magic,” a variety of core questions come up:
Information Possession: Is there a single individual accountable for knowledge high quality, or do new hires simply create their very own techniques?
System Integration: Does your buyer knowledge sync along with your product analytics, or do you manually export, import, and sync knowledge?
Business Workflows: For these participating and pitching new companions, are you able to simply section contacts by position (e.g., artist, label, or writer), and does your lead-scoring account for trade indicators like catalog measurement?
Consumer Adoption and Purchase-In: Does your gross sales workforce monitor offers within the CRM, or is the system technically arrange however principally averted by the workers?
(For these curious about wanting within the mirror, Octave’s self-assessment may be discovered right here. Jacoby assesses outcomes as ‘low danger’ (0-5 points recognized), ‘medium danger’ (6-12 points), or ‘excessive danger’ for these ticking sufficient urgent points.)
However do you actually need a full-blown CRM to resolve knowledge points?
Relating to fixing the mess, Jacoby says his steering is definitely CRM-agnostic. That may sound stunning coming from an authorized HubSpot guide, although Jacoby emphasizes that the platform is merely a car for the information.
His key message: “The platform determination comes final, not first,” Jacoby shared.
However what are some speedy fixes?
For individuals who need to roll up their sleeves instantly, Jacoby supplied a couple of fast steps to enhance knowledge administration.
Map the Circulate: Conduct a complete workflow and knowledge audit to map how knowledge flows from (for instance) creator onboarding to payout.
Standardize Early: In an outreach atmosphere, outline what a “lead” or “deal” seems to be like particularly for music tech—generic B2B templates not often work.
Audit Obligations: Guarantee a single individual or workforce is accountable for knowledge high quality to keep away from duplicate data and conflicts.
And for these whose sincere self-assessments put them within the “Medium” or “Excessive” danger class, Matt says it’s time to debate your particular knowledge structure.
You will discover him at matt@octave.media; for more information try Octave Media’s web site.
