Marketing Lessons From The Grateful Dead
Long before the terms ‘inbound marketing’ and ‘social media’ were coined, the Grateful Dead were using these strategies to become one of the most successful bands of all time. They made a series of difficult and often unpopular decisions in order to differentiate themselves from their competition by providing the highest quality service to their fans, not just a product.
Deadheads and marketing strategists David Meerman Scott and Brian Halligan explain how smart businesses can learn from one of the most successful rock bands of all time in MARKETING LESSONS FROM THE GRATEFUL DEAD (Wiley; $21.95; August 2010). The Grateful Dead broke almost every rule in the music industry book and profited as a result. The lessons—and the effect the band had on the music industry and their fans—apply to businesses of all kinds.
The book includes a foreword by basketball legend—and the ‘world’s biggest Deadhead’—Bill Walton, who is 6’11” and has seen the band 750 times. Jay Blakesberg, who has been photographing the band for 30 years, has agreed to provide photos to illustrate each chapter.
“Brian and I had both been talking about the Grateful Dead as social media pioneers in the days before the Web,” explains Scott, whose best-selling book The New Rules of Marketing and PR is a modern day business classic. “We collaborated on a HubSpot webinar, and the tremendous feedback showed us that this concept really resonates with people.”
Scott and Halligan collaborated to create a book that reflects the attitudes of the time. “The Grateful Dead can be considered one giant case study in doing social media marketing right,” says Halligan, HubSpot CEO and co-author of Inbound Marketing. “Not only did they pioneer the freemium business model by allowing concert attendees to tape the show, but also encouraged their fans to build a community, and kept them informed via their newsletters.”
Source: Mi2N
