Hailing from Wigan, The Lathums had established a small but committed fanbase in the North West by the time COVID-19 took away the year’s worth of touring they had planned for 2019. While the band were putting the finishing touches to their debut album, we set about implementing a content strategy to grow their online audience ahead of our album campaign.
The band had a healthy following on Twitter already, but YouTube, Instagram and CRM needed work. We began shooting as much as possible for YouTube; a regular upload schedule saw the numbers begin to move. An overhaul of the band’s aesthetic and some carefully targeted growth spend got Instagram moving. Through regular CRM drivers, like signed merch giveaways, we managed to grow the band’s mailing list by 1,900% – which we knew was going to be the key to driving album pre-orders down the line.
During this time, we also cemented The Lathums as local heroes by releasing an exclusive vinyl in support of Wigan Athletic FC who, at the time, were going into administration, raising over £4k. After that, our focus turned to a livestreamed show at Blackpool Tower during lockdown. This was only accessible via a custom website that also sold merch and captured data. The hashtag #LathumsLive trended at #4 across the Twitter platform throughout the evening of the event.
Continuing the theme, we announced the album by setting the band up with a stall at the locally famous Wigan Market and also sent HBLCB bumper stickers, banners and flags to the band’s most engaged members of our now burgeoning mailing list.
Our album roll-out was centred around an extensive D2C offering; the album was available in multiple formats and was often bundled with a ticket for a run of intimate record store performances. Our final campaign asset, the official video for ‘How Beautiful Life Can Be’ came to life after a call out to their ever-growing fanbase after the original shoot came to a standstill due to COVID-19 guidelines.
A call to arms helped rescue the video thanks to an outpouring of local talent including a Northern Soul dancer, an Elvis impersonator, a professional wrestler and his children (plus some local chickens).
• A major key to the success of this campaign was our mailing list growth – which we took from a few hundred to five figures by the time our pre-order launch rolled around. Instagram was also an area that needed work, but soon became a heartland for the band, growing their audience by 250%.
• The band were always strong on Twitter, which grew by 140% over the course of the campaign, helped along by well-timed support from celebrity well-wishers like Louis Tomlinson, as well as a Tim’s Twitter Listening Party on album launch.
• Establishing #LathumsTok with a band who still use flip phones was an uphill battle from the start. However we really started to crack this towards the end of the campaign when a few live singalong moments started to go viral. We’re really proud to have grown a following of 7.5k on the platform.
• All of this lead to the band securing the #1 chart position during week of release – a hard-fought battle that saw a four-piece from Wigan beat Drake and Lil Nas X to the top spot.
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