There is more to playing music in your business than simply choosing a radio station and plugging it into the overhead speakers. The music must be properly licensed and, to be truly effective, carefully chosen to create the right atmosphere for your clients. It is a daunting task to figure out how to license music and then design dozens of hours-long playlists yourself, but luckily there are companies that are aware of this need and have dedicated themselves to supplying solutions.
SoundMachine and SiriusXM
One of these companies is SiriusXM. In addition to music for personal use, SiriusXM sells multiple business subscriptions. These subscriptions offer a variety of human-curated stations and playlists that are fully licensed for legal use by companies.
Another is SoundMachine. Like SiriusXM, SoundMachine provides fully licensed music for businesses. It carries hundreds of human-curated stations and millions of tracks. Unlike SiriusXM, however, SoundMachine was formed from the beginning with the sole mission of providing music for businesses. As such, SoundMachine offers additional services to give businesses the tools and assistance they need to create the perfect aural backdrop for their brands, including mix creation and a larger music catalogue.
SiriusXM for Business
If you purchase a SiriusXM for Business subscription ($24.95/month for the basic plan, with add-ons available), you will immediately have access to a variety of stations already licensed for use by businesses. Some of its features include:
1 ) Human-curated playlists—Choose from dozens of playlists put together by experienced professionals.
2 ) Music scheduling—Schedule what stations will play at different times of the day.
3 ) Music without ads—100% ad-free music and thirty channels with no DJ interruptions.
For an additional monthly price of $9.99, you can have access to a messaging system, allowing you to schedule business-relevant ads and messages to play at certain times of the day. With these abilities and features, SiriusXM’s service will certainly make the prospect of playing music in your business easier for everyone. However, it’s important to reiterate that SiriusXM for Business is a subscription service that came later. That means that the company is less specialized in the area of providing music for businesses.
An example of this is that of the eighty-five stations available for streaming via SiriusXM for Business, only thirty of them were intentionally made for businesses. Another example of this is the inability to make your own mixes for your business. With SiriusXM, you are only able to choose and adjust your channels from premade stations.
SoundMachine
SoundMachine, on the other hand, was created first and foremost with businesses and their music needs in mind. Each station, each feature, and each service is made specifically for businesses. A SoundMachine subscription ($26.95/month for the business plan or $31.95/month for business premium) will give you all the features that a SiriusXM subscription offers, while also providing:
1 ) A broader catalogue—Stations are designed specifically for businesses, with no ads or DJ interruptions. The business plan comes with more than one hundred stations, and the premium plan comes with over five hundred.
2 ) Importing playlists—With the premium plan, create your own playlists using other services such as Apple Music or Spotify, then import them into SoundMachine to use as a station.
3 ) Mixes—An easy-to-use system allows you to combine different stations into one mix, while determining the weight given to each individual station within the mix.
4 ) Assistance—Real-life representatives are available via email and phone to give personalized assistance for your music needs.
5 ) An integrated promotional messaging system—Messages are short ads, announcements, or promotions that you can easily insert into your daily listening schedule at opportune moments.
Your Music Provider
Choosing a music provider is something that should be decided with your business’s best interests in mind, and with SoundMachine’s different subscription options and intuitive features, there’s something for everyone. Are you looking for something simple and affordable? Intuitive and detailed? Whether it’s allowing SoundMachine to do the work of creating stations for you or using SoundMachine’s portal to import playlists and create mixes to your liking, you’re sure to find exactly what you need.
Sign up for a free trial with SoundMachine HERE
