Selling to the drummers who already own a kit

A complete kit is a once-in-a-decade purchase made by someone who has never bought one before. That was the brand's entire proposition: four kits, aimed at first-time buyers, in a market where every competitor was aimed at the same person on the same day.

Meanwhile the people who buy drums repeatedly were searching for something the brand did not sell as a listing. A drummer upgrades one piece at a time — a snare, a single cymbal, a better pedal — and searches accordingly, usually with a replacement or upgrade word attached. The brand made most of those components; they existed only inside a kit's bill of materials, so they were unreachable by anyone who did not want the other nine pieces.

We opened the kit up and sold its parts to the people asking for them.

• Components listed individually, starting with the three the brand's own support inbox was asked about most.
• Keyword research on the upgrade vocabulary — replacement, upgrade and “better than the stock one” phrasing, which barely overlaps with the beginner kit terms.
• Copy aimed at someone who already plays, leading with what changes about the sound rather than with what is included in the box.
• Campaigns separated by buyer — kit campaigns and component campaigns given different budgets, targets and success criteria, since one is acquisition and the other is repeat business.

Revenue more than doubled to $206k a month, and single components went from 3% of revenue to 54% — more than the kits they were extracted from.

ACoS fell eighteen points, because an experienced drummer searching for a specific component arrives with a decision mostly made, while a beginner shopping for a first kit compares for weeks. The brand also acquired something it had never had: customers who come back, since a player who upgrades one piece tends to upgrade the next one within the year.