Making a Big To-Do With Drive-By Truckers’ Pre-Order

Drive-By Truckers, an alternative southern-rock band with a dedicated following, wanted to run a direct-to-fan pre-order campaign for their eighth studio album (2010’s “The Big To-Do”).

Multiple Formats: The band chose to release their album in three formats – digital, CD, and vinyl. They offered the album in four different packages:
• digital-only* ($9.99)
• CD + digital ($15.99)
• Vinyl (w/bonus track) + CD + digital ($29.99)
• Deluxe package ($74.99) with vinyl, CD, digital, and artwork including a set of postcards, a 52-page book of photos, and a limited-edition signed, numbered print by the band’s longtime album-cover artist Wes Freed
* (available in DRM-free 320kps MP3, FLAC, or Apple Lossless)

Pre-Order Incentive: To give fans an incentive to pre-order, the band offered an exclusive t-shirt for $15 that was only available as an add-on to pre-orders of the album. Pre-order customers also received instant downloads of two tracks.

Landing Page: Drive-By Truckers worked with Topspin to create a landing page that displayed all the various packages. The band’s homepage redirected to this page during the pre-order, so anyone going to drivebytruckers.com was taken straight to this page. The Deluxe package was highlighted near the top of the page (“above-the-fold”) so visitors saw it immediately. Each package’s “Buy” button included an option to add the exclusive t-shirt before adding-to-cart. The page also featured a streaming player where fans could listen to selected tracks from the new album and a widget which let visitors download a free track in exchange for their email address.

Email Collection & Testing: The band initially imported a list of email addresses into the Topspin App. Before the pre-order began, they posted a Topspin Email-for-Media (E4M) widget on their official website and Myspace. When they launched the pre-order, separate email blasts went to their “imported” and “E4M” lists so they could compare the response rates. Four weeks later, they followed up with another email reminding fans about the pre-order (as well as tour dates and a TV appearance).

• Total revenue for the six-week campaign topped $80,000
– $32,500 of revenue was generated in the first 48 hours of the pre-order.
• Over 2,300 pre-orders were placed.
- Pre-orders accounted for 13% of the album’s first-week sales total
• Average transaction was $35
- The Deluxe package accounted for 23% of all pre-orders and 56% of total revenue.
• 38% of all orders included the exclusive t-shirt upsell.
- 17% of total revenue ($13,500) came from these t-shirts
• The E4M widget collected about 3,300 email addresses. For these addresses…
- 99% of emails were successfully delivered (compared to 82% of the band’s imported list)
- 47% of delivered emails were opened (imported = 33%)
- 45% of those who opened the email clicked-through (imported = 34%)

(click a graph to enlarge)

• Direct-to-fan pre-orders made a significant contribution to overall first-week sales, which boosted chart position.
• By offering a variety of formats at different price-points, Drive-By Truckers were able to let their fans choose the package that best fit their needs.
• The Deluxe package offered a unique product with a high value, and a large segment of fans were willing to pay a premium for it.
• By offering the t-shirt for a limited time through an exclusive channel, and by bundling it with music packages, the band leveraged their fans’ desire for merch to sell more music
• The new fans collected through Topspin’s E4M widget were far more likely to receive, open, and click the email than the fans who had previously joined the band’s list.