Book Review: Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine
And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung
Would you hear my voice come through the music? Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn from the Most Iconic Band in History
Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me . . . What a long, strange trip it’s been.
And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung
Would you hear my voice come through the music? Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn from the Most Iconic Band in History
- The Grateful Dead didn’t follow the normal musical path. Rather than focus on selling albums, they concentrated on generating revenue from providing fans with a live concert experience.
Action: If you are going to have a unique business model, you need to do something three times better than everyone else. Find out what that is. If not, then you won’t be unique enough to break out. - Ignoring conventional wisdom is the key to creating uncontested market spaces.Where would you put the Grateful Dead in iTunes? Rock, folk, country, blues or none of the above? By creating a new sound and experience, they defied classification and created a whole new space.
Action: In addition to thinking about your industry competitors, what are the “alternatives” to your product? Can you find ways to erase the traditional “boundaries” of your industry
by incorporating or subsuming or competing with some of the alternatives? - Build a community, but remember it’s the community that will define you. This is a lesson companies are learning with social media–better to embrace the fact that you can’t control your brand once the community grabs hold of it.
Action: Remove made-up, gobbledygook-laden mission statements, boilerplate press releases and other top-down messaging from your materials and website. Instead, point people to your community: the conferences, forums, chat rooms and blogs of the people who talk you up. Then get out into your community and interact regularly. - Put loyal customers and fans first. The Grateful Dead always made sure that their top fans had the best seats and were in the know.
Action: Identify your most loyal customers and add them to a database so that you can reach them. What can you offer them that would be valuable and not available to the general public? - The Grateful Dead removed barriers to their music by allowing fans to tape it, which in turn brought in new fans and grew sales.They taught us that when we free our content, more people hear about you and eventually do business with you.
Action: Create free content: e-books, iPhone apps, blog posts. If this content your create is remarkable, it will draw visitors to your business in a far more dramatic way than the product or services page on your website will ever do. - Most bands prohibit the sale of merchandise in parking lots in favor of their “official” merchandise. Not the Grateful Dead. They helped others make money from their brand, and in doing so helped build their own brand and create a lively concert experience in the parking lot.
Action: Find entrepreneurs who stand to profit from your business. Help them help you.
Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me . . . What a long, strange trip it’s been.
If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine
And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung
Would you hear my voice come through the music? Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn from the Most Iconic Band in History
Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me . . . What a long, strange trip it’s been.
And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung
Would you hear my voice come through the music? Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn from the Most Iconic Band in History
- The Grateful Dead didn’t follow the normal musical path. Rather than focus on selling albums, they concentrated on generating revenue from providing fans with a live concert experience.
Action: If you are going to have a unique business model, you need to do something three times better than everyone else. Find out what that is. If not, then you won’t be unique enough to break out. - Ignoring conventional wisdom is the key to creating uncontested market spaces.Where would you put the Grateful Dead in iTunes? Rock, folk, country, blues or none of the above? By creating a new sound and experience, they defied classification and created a whole new space.
Action: In addition to thinking about your industry competitors, what are the “alternatives” to your product? Can you find ways to erase the traditional “boundaries” of your industry
by incorporating or subsuming or competing with some of the alternatives? - Build a community, but remember it’s the community that will define you. This is a lesson companies are learning with social media–better to embrace the fact that you can’t control your brand once the community grabs hold of it.
Action: Remove made-up, gobbledygook-laden mission statements, boilerplate press releases and other top-down messaging from your materials and website. Instead, point people to your community: the conferences, forums, chat rooms and blogs of the people who talk you up. Then get out into your community and interact regularly. - Put loyal customers and fans first. The Grateful Dead always made sure that their top fans had the best seats and were in the know.
Action: Identify your most loyal customers and add them to a database so that you can reach them. What can you offer them that would be valuable and not available to the general public? - The Grateful Dead removed barriers to their music by allowing fans to tape it, which in turn brought in new fans and grew sales.They taught us that when we free our content, more people hear about you and eventually do business with you.
Action: Create free content: e-books, iPhone apps, blog posts. If this content your create is remarkable, it will draw visitors to your business in a far more dramatic way than the product or services page on your website will ever do. - Most bands prohibit the sale of merchandise in parking lots in favor of their “official” merchandise. Not the Grateful Dead. They helped others make money from their brand, and in doing so helped build their own brand and create a lively concert experience in the parking lot.
Action: Find entrepreneurs who stand to profit from your business. Help them help you.
Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me . . . What a long, strange trip it’s been.
The rest of this article is locked.
Join Entrepreneur+ today for access.
Subscribe Now
Already have an account? Sign In
