Solsta Records

Creative Direction | Social | UX & UI Design | Marketing

Overview

Vinyl is alive and well in the Twin Cities! Solsta Records opened a new storefront to sell new and used records on a busy intersection, but didn’t receive much foot traffic. A new real-time online inventory was developed and the website needed to align with in-store sales. An afternoon shopping for records, started to a creative opportunity to help a new small business.

Goals

  1. Brand the current storefront with new window treatments to draw the attention of motorists and increase foot traffic.

  2. Refresh the website design to promote the new online vinyl inventory, Record Store Day exclusives, promote in-store shows and YouTube channel to expand audiences.

  3. Incorporate a name-change and new location with multi-channel marketing to make Solsta Records the destination to buy, sell and hear great music.

Identify & Discover

The new record shop needed help promoting their upcoming events including Vinyltine’s Day, Record Store Day, upcoming in-store performances, and the new online vinyl library. The store was on one of the busiest streets but traffic didn’t notice the store in time before they were already past it. And the in-store vinyl and online sales were not accurate without extra work to align the two. The sales needed to be reflected both online and in-store in live time to be more agile for a small staff.

Define & Deliver

To address the street traffic, two signs were created. One for the big 10ft window on the front of the store with a window cling of a giant record and several 45’s flowing down a historic wave of vintage record labels. And a vinyl 8 ft outdoor banner was attached to the bricks on the side of the door highlighting the website url to allow driver’s to see marketing for the store in plenty of time before they passed it by. Record Store Day posters, gift bags and Instagram banners were created to engage customers and market the new store. Mimicking the new window cling, the first Record Store Day posters were placed all over the Twin Cities and posted on the store’s Instagram account.

New window treatments and signage helped to bring in more traffic of music lovers who didn’t know they were there originally when they drove by. Using both the front and side of the building to promote the store increased foot traffic.

Working with a web developer, a custom built online inventory system was designed and provided an agile process that allowed for the live inventory to merge with the in-store inventory in real time. Each time a record sold, it would be removed automatically from the online store. Wire framing designs for a website refresh with new iconography for each music genre were created and new photography incorporated vinyl in wooden bins to provide an authentic feel for the online store.

And a new branded intro was also created to introduce online performances on the store’s YouTube channel.

Deliver Solutions

Record Store Day in-store sales doubled the first year and regular instagram posts helped to drive up online sales. The new store signage helped to bring in more traffic of music lovers who didn’t know they were there originally when they drove by. And the name change from Solid State to Solsta Records was successfully introduced during the next Record Store Day marketing across multiple channels. Using a volcano erupting vinyl records helped launch the new name and a new store location seamlessly to customers.