The Grateful Dead: B2B Marketing Lessons from the Europe 72 Record Album with Director of Content at LeanIX, Matt Grant

There’s nothing like a B2B event. Right?…. Right? [[ *crickets* ]] 

That is, there won’t be anything like a B2B event after you apply the lessons in this episode of Remarkable to your events. 

It’s like how Deadheads say “There’s nothing like a Grateful Dead concert.” That’s because the Grateful Dead were selling the experience. 

It was a place to go with people to meet, and all of the sights, sounds, and good vibes that made it an experience of a lifetime. 

So in this episode, we’re listening to the Grateful Dead with our guest, Director of Content at LeanIX, Matthew Grant. Together, we talk about giving away content to build an audience, selling the experience, and recording the event. So grab your tie dye tee for this episode of Remarkable.

About our guest, Matthew Grant

Matthew Grant is Director, Content Marketing at LeanIX. Over the last 14 years, Matt has created content focused on a wide range of B2B technologies including cloud management, cloud security, content management, product lifecycle management, data center cooling, generative design, quantum computing, and edge computing. He has also written and spoking on user experience design, content marketing strategy, social media strategy, and patent law, among other things. Matt has hosted podcasts on data in the enterprise, B2B marketing, and cloud computing. He has a PhD in German Studies.

About LeanIX

LeanIX’s Continuous Transformation Platform® offers SaaS solutions to help IT architects, IT asset managers, business leaders, and DevOps teams achieve transparency and control over their enterprise architecture, SaaS, and microservices landscapes. They offer Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) for managing Enterprise Architecture and multi-cloud environments to enable organizations to take faster, data-driven decisions in their IT. 

About the Grateful Dead

The Grateful Dead is a psychedelic band that got together in California in 1965. The founding members included Jerry Garcia (vocals, guitar), Ron “Pigpen” McKernan (vocals, organ, harmonica), Bob Weir (vocals, guitar), Bill Kreutzmann (drums), and Phil Lesh (vocals, bass). Their home stomping grounds were the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood in San Francisco. And they got their musical careers started off around the time of the Summer of Love and the counterculture movement.

About the Grateful Dead Europe 72 Record Album

The Grateful Dead’s Europe 72 Album is a triple album (17 songs split across three vinyl records) that was recorded in 1972 while the band was touring in Western Europe (England, Denmark, Germany, etc.)  It was recorded in April and May of that year, and released in November. The hope was that proceeds from the sale would help them recoup what they spent while on tour. Especially since they toured with an entourage of 43 people. Most of the songs were new, but it also included some live renditions of songs from studio albums. It has songs like “Brown-Eyed Woman,” “China Cat Sunflower,” and “Cumberland Blues”. Notably, it marked the last time Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, one of the original members, would play with them before passing away from an autoimmune disease that affects the liver. The album charted in the U.S. for 24 straight weeks after its release, and it was one of the first triple-record rock albums to be certified gold, and has since been certified double platinum.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From the Grateful Dead:

• Give away content. Your content provides value to your audience while driving brand awareness. So when the buyer is ready, your brand is the one they think of. Matt says, “You could argue that the model for content marketing comes from the Grateful Dead. Which is, you give away content to build an audience. ‘Hey, Deadhead, send us your postcard!’ And then you get them to pay for something that can't be commodified, like an in person live experience that's only happening once.”
• Sell the experience. Create a unique experience for your audience around the product. When talking about the Grateful Dead, Matt says, “Music on some level is a commodity. There are better musicians than the people in The Grateful Dead, there are better songwriters than the people in The Grateful Dead, especially now when you have Spotify and all those other things, your access to music is unlike anything I had in my earlier part of my lifetime. So you've got to give people something else. The music is almost secondary. What they're really selling is an opportunity, or a space, for you to be yourself, or do your own thing, or be a freak, or be weird, or whatever, and it’s a non-judgmental zone.” So sell your audience an experience. Especially if it has good music.
• Record the event. So people who missed out can see it, and fans can re-live it. Ian says, “It’s a fan service to create a live album. It’s like a time capsule. And the idea that at any point in time, you could transport someone back to this moment is really interesting. Even if you weren't there, you still get to have that moment.”

Quotes

*“It was more about the cult than it was about the actual music.” - Ian Faison

*“When people say they like The Grateful Dead, what they're remembering is this show they went to. And that time, you know, in Southern California, and it was outside, and it was at night, and everyone was chill, and we had a lot of fun. That's why they like it.”  - Matt Grant

*”It's this experience. You have to give people more if you want them to come back. If you play the same songs every time and it's a cookie cutter thing, maybe they'll see you once. But why come back?” - Matt Grant

*”In B2B tech, you can focus on content and the message. But if you don't have a product that can deliver on it, it doesn't matter.” - Matt Grant

Time Stamps

[0:56] Meet Matt Grant, Director of Content at LeanIX

[2:11] What makes the Grateful Dead’s Europe 72 album remarkable?

[27:41] What can the Grateful Dead can teach us about authenticity in marketing?

 [28:35] How did the Grateful Dead build a community of Deadheads?

[30:50] Where did the Grateful Dead bear come from?

[34:25] What do the Grateful Dead and HubSpot have in common?

[38:51] What we can learn from the Grateful Dead about knowing your audience? (And more marketing lessons)

[46:32] How does Matt think about content at LeanIX?

[56:04] What does Matt think about AI when it comes to building content?

Links

Listen to the Grateful Dead’s Europe 72 album

Browse the Grateful Dead Collection on Archive.org

Read Marketing Lessons from The Grateful Dead by Brian Halligan and David Meerman Scott

Connect with Matt on LinkedIn

Learn more about LeanIX

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. 

In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.