Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

It's Only Common Sense: 10 Unique Marketing Lessons from The Grateful Dead

That’s right, you Deadheads, it’s time to not only appreciate their music but appreciate the marketing lessons that you can learn from them. This is not a joke, far from it. I’m deadly serious, these lessons come from the book Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn from the Most Iconic Band in History, by David Meerman Scott and Brian Halligan.

Frankly, I approached this book with a bit of skepticism, but it did not take long for me to realize that the insights and lessons quickly had me opening my moleskin notebook and frantically stealing these ideas.

In fact, most of the lessons highlighted in the book are perfectly suited to our times more now than when it was written in 2010.

Check out some of the lessons:

1. Create a unique business model: Get away from how everyone else does things. Find your own way and do it that way. If no one has done it before you, fine. If no one is doing it now, even better. Have the courage to break away from the norm and then do it well. This is truly the way to be outstanding. There has never been a band like The Grateful Dead. Can you say that about your company?
2. Choose a memorable brand: If you want to be remembered then you need a name that is easy to remember. Find a unique name for your company and go with it. Put some significant thought into what your company and your brand will be know for. (So much for practicing what you preach, the name of my company, D.B. Management Group, was thought up in five minutes in the lobby of Littelfuse in Des Plaines, Illinois before the company was even started and when I had to fill out an NDA before entering the plant.)
3. Build a diverse team: The more diverse the better. The Dead proved this idea with their band of merry musicians: two drummers and a bass player who had never played bass and had to improvise, which caused the band to have its own unique sound. The same applies to business. The more diverse, the more different ideas.
4. Be yourself: Be authentic is what that really means. Come as you are, say what you think, and go with your honest identity. This always worked with The Dead; they knew where they stood as did their fans.
5. Experiment: Try different things. The band never had a set list, they just went with what they felt like playing; sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. But it also caused them to come up with new and innovative songs and music that would have never happened without experimenting, and even screwing up occasionally.
6. Establish a new category: While the phrase, “Nobody has ever done it this way before,” is music to my ears, it can be terribly frightening to other people who love the comfort of their comfort zone. Don’t be afraid to do something that no one has ever done before. Go where no man, or woman, has ever gone before. That is called progress.
7. Cut out the middleman: The Grateful Dead had its own system of ticket selling that favored their real fans. They cut out the middlemen who were buying blocks of tickets for marked up reselling. They wanted their real fans to see their concerts at reasonable prices and they made sure that happened. The best business is the kind of person-to-person business where the customer and the vendor talk and communicate directly.
8. Free your Content: This is my personal favorite. The band gave their content out for free. They even created a “Tapers” section at their concerts so that those who wanted to create their own recordings of the concert had a clear visual and sound access to the stage to record and then pass along to others, often going viral. The more versions of the concerts out there, the more people who knew they were, and the larger fan based they got supporting them. This was brilliant and one to the strongest secrets to their long-term success.
9. Give back: The band was involved in a great many charities and often found unique ways to give back to their fan base as well. This created tremendous respect and loyalty. It also created a strong sense of community. There is no more connected and loyal fan base than the Deadheads.
10. Do what you love: The Dead did and it never felt like work. Doing what you love makes you bring passion and enthusiasm to what you do and that’s the best way to work. Life is short why spend time doing anything but what you love?

It’s only common sense.

Dan Beaulieu is president of D.B. Management Group.