The Challenge
Distant, a metal band on Unique Leader Records, came in with a hard deadline: a new EP announced for March, a surprise full-length album close behind it in April, and a legacy site on tooling that was never meant to carry a launch. The homepage was a wall of links, every product sat in one undifferentiated pile, and the shipping and fulfillment tools were minimal.
There was no marketing machinery either. No email automation, no ad tracking, no upsells. Every fan the music brought in landed on a site with no way to capture them, follow up, or convert. The store had to be rebuilt and the plumbing installed before the first announcement went out, not after.
The brief was two sentences: we need a store that will not fail us, and we do not have a real marketing system. The project was both halves, on the release calendar's schedule.
