A Masterclass in Marketing from the Grateful Dead

Whether you love the Grateful Dead, hate them or don’t really care either way, the band offers a masterclass in marketing, building community and making a lasting impact.

The band members grew a global fan base of loyal deadheads, and they did so on their own terms. Much of what they did flew in the face of music industry norms and was counterintuitive to business practices. But it worked.

Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead is full of examples of the band bucking trends to carve a niche of their own. Many of the lessons can be applied to your marketing strategies for your coworking space or community project. Here are some of my favorites:

The Grateful Dead was a ragtag collection of artists from a variety of backgrounds, including bluegrass, jazz, rock, blues and R&B. Together they created something extraordinary.

One thing the Dead was not was a polished, artificial music industry creation. The band played and performed as who they were: hippie-leaning, everyday-looking stoners from San Francisco.

The Dead improvised and experimented every time they played. No two shows were ever the same. This experimental ethos allowed the band to grow in new, unexpected ways and connect with their fans on a deeper, more vulnerable level.

The whole Grateful Dead experience can be off-putting to some due, in large part, to the over-patchouli’d, slightly burned-out fans wearing Dead shirts that have…seen better days. But, the band embraced eccentrics and wanderers into the family, which only served to strengthen connections and create undying fans.

If you’ve ever had to play that early-morning ticket grab game, or paid way too much in service charges, you know that music fans are at the whim of the music industry. Recognizing this imbalance, the Dead controlled ticket sales for their concerts and even built an in-house ticketing agency. Fans had access to a special phone number where they could get updates on shows, news and tickets. This way, the best tickets were given to the biggest fans. The band also cut out music industry middlemen wherever they could, going directly to fans with everything from concert tickets and music to merch.

Word of mouth was at the heart of the Grateful Dead experience. The band wasn’t played on pop radio, they didn’t have a top 10 hit until “Touch of Grey” in 1987, and they weren’t exactly the type of band you’d stumble upon in a mall music store. But they built, cultivated and nurtured a massive following.

The Dead encouraged fans to record and share their concerts. They even established “taper sections” behind the mixing board where fans could get the best sound. This was absolutely counter-intuitive to a music industry that says you have to nickel-and-dime every fan for everything you can get. But it helped created a Grateful Dead subculture like no other and built a community around sharing music.

Who hasn’t seen a Grateful Dead t-shirt? Chances are good that you’ve seen the classic “Steal Your Face” skull logo, but even more likely, you’ve seen a hundred different varieties of Grateful Dead shirts, no two the same. Rather than lock down the band’s logo and brand, the members opened it up to be remixed and reinterpreted — both by fans and by the band itself. You never knew what to expect from the band, in terms of branding, but it always felt like the Dead.

The Grateful Dead regularly played benefits, donated the proceeds of projects to different causes, and put their collective weight behind organizations they believed in.

Circling back to the beginning, where a bunch of regular guys enjoyed playing music together, the Grateful Dead models that, to be successful, you have to do something you love.

The Grateful Dead is not for everyone, and you definitely have to be in the right mood for a 20-minute, tripped-out jam, BUT, you can’t argue with the fact that the band created something extraordinary and built a culture around music, community and sharing. Not a bad model for any business.

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