Three options. Only one actually works for your business.
JB Hi-Fi runs the chart LP at $44.99. You sell the deep cut.
Independent record stores compete with a confusing stack: JB Hi-Fi, Sanity, Music World and the Big W music section for the chart-topping LP and the Christmas gift purchase, and the global online marketplaces (Discogs, eBay, Bandcamp, Reverb LP) for the collector and the import. The chains run the new Taylor Swift at $44.99 with shelves of generic merch; the marketplaces own the long tail of out-of-print originals. What none of them can do is host a Wednesday-night in-store acoustic set, run a Bandcamp Friday cadence with the artist tagged, take a Sunday-morning estate of 78s on consignment, or sort the rare Australian indie shelf so the customer who walks in asking for 'something like Twerps but newer' walks out with three LPs. The shame is that almost none of that, the listening room, the trade-in counter, the Australian Idiot reissue arrival, the Record Store Day allocations, the cleaning and stylus service, lands on the website.
Good record store marketing is three things, in this order: a format and genre page library that splits Australian indie, reissues, imports, 7-inch and 12-inch singles, 78s, cassettes and the rare-and-collector wall, each with the distributors you stock from (Inertia, Remote Control, Spunk, Mistletone, Bedroom Suck, Chapter Music, Marmalade) and the new arrivals made the anchor; a Google Ads campaign on '[suburb] record store', 'Record Store Day [city]' and 'sell records [city]' that targets the crate-digger and the trade-in customer the chains have written off; and an Instagram and Facebook beat that posts the Wednesday acoustic set, the Bandcamp Friday push, the new-arrival Saturday and the trade-in find of the week. Add a turntable-and-stylus service page and you've turned the casual vinyl returner into a five-year customer.
Six agents, working in your accounts.
Account Lead, Web, SEO, Advertising, Social Media, and Content. One platform, one bill, you approve the work.
Builds your annual plan around the formats and genres the chains can't follow (Australian indie, reissues, imports, 78s, the rare-and-collector wall) and the Record Store Day, Bandcamp Friday and in-store acoustic-set calendar as the event anchor. Briefs the other agents so the genre pages, the Google Ads, the new-arrival social cadence and the trade-in counter flow all push toward the crate-digger JB Hi-Fi and Sanity structurally cannot serve.
Imports your existing Shopify or WordPress site so you stop paying for the hosting bill plus a CMS subscription, and makes shipping a new genre page or RSD allocation list a five-minute job. Builds dedicated pages for Australian indie, reissues, imports, 78s, cassettes and the rare-and-collector wall, each with the distributors you stock and the new arrivals as the anchor, to your live store in two taps.
Goes through your live site for the things that actually move local record-store rankings: '[suburb] record store' and 'Australian indie vinyl [city]' on the H1s, record-store schema (not generic store), stocked-distributor posts on the Google Business Profile, trade-in and stylus service as flagged offerings. Auto-applies the low-risk fixes; flags anything bigger.
Launches Google Ads on the crate-digger queries the chains overlook ('[suburb] record store', 'Record Store Day [city]', 'sell vinyl [city]', 'Australian indie vinyl [city]') and skips the broad 'buy vinyl online' bids JB Hi-Fi will outbid you on. Runs a Meta retargeting layer for the trade-in counter and the in-store acoustic set RSVPs. Lifts spend in the fortnight before RSD and the week of Bandcamp Friday.
Turns the new-arrival shelf, the trade-in counter and the listening room into a weekly stream of posts in your real accounts: Saturday new arrivals, Wednesday acoustic-set reminders, Bandcamp Friday artist features with the artist tagged, trade-in find of the week, the rare wall update. Builds the crate-digger trust signal a JB Hi-Fi catalogue page never will. You photograph the shelf, the agent drafts the caption in your voice, you approve.
Drafts the long-form pieces collectors and the careful new vinyl returner Google before they buy: 'Australian indie vinyl: a buyer's guide to Mistletone, Bedroom Suck and Chapter Music', 'how to set up a turntable: a record store guide', 'what your stylus is telling you (and when to replace it)', 'collecting Beatles original UK pressings: a starter's guide'. Two drafts a month, in your voice, that pull in the careful crate-digger weeks before they walk past JB on the way to you.
Your first 30 days.
- Existing Shopify or WordPress store imported, hosting and CMS bills torn down; catalogue, rare wall and trade-in counter re-wired
- Annual plan set by Sam around the formats and genres the chains can't follow, with Record Store Day, Bandcamp Friday and in-store acoustic sets as the event anchor
- Google Business Profile primary category flipped from 'Store' to 'Record Store', services expanded from 4 to 23, stocked distributors posted weekly, IMR member badge added
- Australian indie, reissues and imports format pages indexed with the distributors made the anchor; rare-and-collector wall page indexed with current stock photographed
- Record Store Day allocation page live with the queueing rules and the 'one per customer' list; in-store acoustic set RSVP flow live for the every-second-Wednesday slot
- Trade-in counter and turntable-and-stylus service page live with the per-format trade-in prices and the cleaning fee table
- New-arrival weekly social cadence live: Saturday shelf photo, Friday Bandcamp tagged-artist post, Wednesday acoustic-set reminder, Sunday trade-in find of the week
- 'Australian indie vinyl: a buyer's guide' and 'how to set up a turntable' explainers drafted for approval
Record stores don't lose to JB Hi-Fi or Discogs on knowledge. They lose because the casual returner defaults to JB for the $44.99 chart LP and the collector defaults to Discogs for the rare pressing, and the website doesn't mention the Mistletone distributor relationship, the Wednesday-night acoustic set, the trade-in counter or the rare wall. The chains rack chart titles. The marketplaces ship globally. None of them can host a listening room, sort an estate of 78s on a Sunday morning, or tell a customer why their stylus is making the high-end harsh. That is your entire moat, and it needs to be the loudest thing on your website.
Agencies are too dear to actually run the format pages, the RSD allocation lists and the new-arrival social cadence for $3.5k a month. Tools are cheap but the Bandcamp Friday push still goes up at midnight after the day is over. In-House is the third option: for $299 a month the agents ship the pages, launch the crate-digger ads, post the new arrivals and the acoustic sets, and keep your Google Business Profile beating the chains in your postcode. You stay in the driver's seat, two taps to approve, minutes a day. Stop letting the crate-digger drive past.