Author David Meerman Scott and HubSpot co-founder Brian Halligan hosted a fun Webinar yesterday for marketing and communication professionals entitled “Marketing Lessons From The Grateful Dead” (Replay Here).

I’m an easy sell when a classic rock or jam band theme is afoot and, besides, the hosts were putting their respective “World Wide Rave” and “Inbound Marketing” mantras into practice by providing valuable content at no cost to their audience.

Both gents did a nice job relating characteristics of the Grateful Dead with communication and content marketing concepts; even noting that, just as The Dead improvised during their long concert jams, they too were creating much of Thursday’s Webinar as the went along.

The most interesting thing about the Grateful Dead is their unique sound – tapping jazz, blues and psychedelic era influences – and the way they distribute and share it. While the band occasionally released studio albums until the death of Jerry Garcia in 1995, their live shows are what made them remarkable according to Halligan. I agree, and although I’m not a Dead Head to the core I’ve certainly learned to appreciate the band’s music through its live recordings.

(Musical interlude #1 – I don’t think the band’s 1980’s studio album output – my era of introduction – was that bad either. Removing official live album releases you have “Go To Heaven” (’80) “In The Dark” (’87) and “Built To Last (’89). “In The Dark” alone gave us great songs including “Touch of Grey,” “Hell In a Bucket” and “Throwing Stones.” You may recall the “Touch of Grey” video that gave the band a brief MTV run.)

Letting fans record concerts for free is the cornerstone of the band’s strategy even today (post-Garcia iterations include The Other Ones, Phil Lesh & Friends, The Dead, and Furthur). The band has always allowed this, even staging designated recording equipment areas at their shows. This was the “original freemium model” as Halligan puts it, and it created viral, word-of-mouth marketing among fans who still spent plenty of money on concert tickets, T-shirts and posters; making album sales concerns an afterthought.

The Dead are willing to lose control of their marketing by letting fans define them and giving much of their music away for free. This has made all the difference in terms of the band’s long running success. Halligan and Meerman Scott implore marketers to engage in similar activities, creating great content that is meaningful for an audience instead of being all about products and services. Business opportunities and sales results follow as a content strategy develops awareness, reach and trust.

Meerman Scott reminds us that most organizations operate in a command and control environment with mission statements, boilerplate descriptions and processes and PR messages. “This stuff doesn’t spread much,” he said when suggesting businesses let people talk about them as they will, without dictating how they should say it. (I commented on dictation and collaboration previously in a Social CRM guest post for CRM Magazine). It’s a leap for anyone set in their ways, yet if you can accept letting prospects and customers use your information in a context that is valuable for them and their social networks, the likelihood of gaining favorability among them is infinitely better.

In The DARC

Halligan mentioned one of my favorites from his book “Inbound Marketing” with Dharmesh Shah as the hour concluded. Certain traits are desired when assembling top quality marketing and communication teams in the digital era. He and Shah offer the DARC acronym as a guideline, suggesting you seek people who are digital natives, analytical, have social reach and are content creators. (I explored this further in conversation with Halligan earlier this year.)

Several other points I liked from the Grateful Dead Marketing set:

• Halligan noted it is ok to “be worse than your competition in some ways.” The Dead were much worse at studio albums by most fan standards while better than most anybody else at live concerts. Focusing on your core competency helps you stand out.
• Modern marketing professionals are half marketer and half content creator. Your library of content stacks up over time and starts to pull people towards your business.
• Enable your fans to help spread your message. It’s simple and I like it. If you develop ebooks or whitepapers only to cage them behind lead generation forms, you’ve left most of your potential audience in the dark. Set these things free (and tag them with your contact info and social sites) – the goodness will come back to you!
• The Dead were experimenters, improvising within songs every night. No show was the same. “Sometimes they laid an egg,” says Halligan, but they failed fast and moved on to the next show. Quick cycles of experimentation work well in the new world of marketing.
• Your best fans / customers ought to get special offers and news about your new products first. Meerman Scott says most of the time marketers do just the opposite, offering special pricing to first-time buyers and subscribers while giving the rest of their customer base the shaft.

If you attended the Webinar, watched the replay, or just dig Inbound Marketing, I would enjoy hearing your perspective.

(Musical interlude #2 – Speaking of free music, I’m a big fan of Wolfgang’s Vault which features dozens of Grateful Dead shows among its thousands of free concert streams spanning the 60’s to present day. Many of the shows, including some Dead shows, were originally staged by famed concert promoter Bill Graham and have great history behind them you can read about in the Vault. My favorite Dead show in the Vault thus far is the New Year Eve ’88 show from Oakland Coliseum Arena. A good three-hour vibe. And www.deadlistening.com is another place to discover shows.)

I love when a good book finds me. This was the case with “Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, And Blogs” by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah of HubSpot. It was next up on my Amazon Wish List but then – Boom! – it came my way via a promotional copy handoff from Social CRM consultant Brent Leary.

This friendly exchange ended up being a nice example of what the book is all about; creating content (online content for the most part) and relationships that help people find you and your business. These guys are good… I called up Brian right away and he was open to sharing some additional thoughts regarding Inbound Marketing implications and opportunities. His comments became the basis of my January PR Tactics article “Welcome to the DARC side: Creating compelling content for your Web site.”

The article focuses on the authors’ DARC acronym detailing essential qualities for every communicator in the digital age (Digital Citizens, Analytical Chops, Web Reach, and Content Creators). I couldn’t fit everything from my discussion with Brian into this piece, so here are some additional insights he shared. His comment regarding Apple is timely this week given introduction of the iPad, and extension of their simplicity and ubiquitous themes. (Apple PR, by the way, is an interesting study unto itself. This New York Times article by David Carr gives further details.)

Ryan Zuk: You cite Apple and the iPod among the inspirations for HubSpot. Are there elements here communicators can apply to help do their jobs better?

Brian Halligan: When I think of the iPod, instead of a complicated MP3 player, I think of a great experience focused less on features and more on user interface. Apple designed an alternative focused not on features but on an enjoyable experience. This is the takeaway everyone in business should consider. At HubSpot, for example, we take complicated Web concepts and simplify them for marketers. Most marketing firms wanting to do modern marketing right need to assemble SEO, blogging, lead management and Web analytics consultants. This can get rather complicated. Our Internet marketing software harnesses these elements to help businesses generate more inbound leads and convert a higher percentage of them into paying customers.

RZ: How does Inbound Marketing change business operation and communication?

BH: I was reading a comment by David Meerman Scott basically suggesting that the old-school rules of marketing focused on buying attention (advertising), begging for it (PR) or bugging people one at a time (sales). Inbound Marketing is about creating really compelling content for your Web site (videos, blogs, EBooks etc) that pulls people in to learn more about you. The people attracted include other Web site owners who link to your content, and people tweeting about your content and sharing it on other social networks. Lots of links naturally bring more people to you, and meanwhile you start ranking nicely on Google.

When you have good content it tends to snowball. More and more people start to find you. The nice thing about creating remarkable content is that it is very cumulative. You earn a few more links after each post. It’s kind of like compounding interest in your bank account.

RZ: What can we do as marketers, PR practitioners and communicators to get on board?

BH: Marketing teams and PR agencies need to help clients change their culture of content creation. Bigger, older businesses need to understand that every piece of content shouldn’t be scrutinized through legal reviews. You really need to crank out lots of good stuff, so focus on turning your clients into publishing machines. Businesses who win on the Internet are prolific publishers. Zappos and Whole Foods are a couple that come to mind.

Help your clients craft content that is right for them. Maybe it’s videos for one and blogs for another. Getting remarkable content to the masses creates an inbound flow of traffic that becomes your prospect pipeline, and eventually your paying customers.

My thanks to Brian for his time. You can find HubSpot’s free Grader resources at Grader.com if you haven’t experienced them already. The tools help evaluate and improve your Web presence as well as how you use Facebook and Twitter.

Also check out www.hubspot.tv which airs Fridays at 4:00 p.m. Eastern