This Is Marketing: You Cant Be Seen Until You Learn to See

But what about Hamilton?
The hit that proves the theory. The hit that represents not only the triumph
of one creator over the status quo, but the magical narrative of a singular
piece of effort and art that changes everything.
Except.
Except, for more than a year, Hamilton was seen by only a few hundred
people a night.
Except that even when it is running at full capacity in New York,
breaking records on Broadway, it’s only being seen by a few thousand
people.
Except that even as it’s changing a small part of the culture in cities like
Chicago, it has been seen by less than 1 percent of the U.S. population. Its
best-selling soundtrack album only sold a few hundred thousand copies.
And the companion book, a surprise best-seller, sold about that many as
well.
Our hits aren’t hits anymore, not like they used to be. Instead, they are
meaningful for a few and invisible to the rest.
What would Jerry do?
I often tell the story of the Grateful Dead, and yet almost no one has the
guts to commit to this sort of service, the leadership of connection. I first

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wrote about them ten years ago, and yet too many of us fall into the trap of
seeking whatever passes for the Top 40 in our industry instead.
So far I’ve purchased 233 different Grateful Dead albums, more than
five hundred hours of music altogether.
The Dead are an almost perfect example of the power of marketing for
the smallest viable market. It’s worth a few minutes to deconstruct what
they did and how they did it, because it will inform the long, strange trip
we’re on here.
Although it’s become a familiar example, musicians, publishers, gym
owners, consultants, chefs, and teachers seem to forget the core lesson in
the Dead’s failure to race for a hit.
First, few kids grow up wanting to start a band like the Grateful Dead.
The Dead had a grand total of one top 40 Billboard hit. One.
They’re easily dismissed as some sort of quirky hippie band. They have
fans, true fans, fans who are also easily dismissed as quirky hippies.
And yet . . .
And yet the Dead grossed more than $350 million in revenue while Jerry
Garcia was alive, and another $100 million since his death. I’m not even
counting record sales, just concert tickets. Most of that run was
accomplished when ticket prices averaged just twenty-three dollars.
How? Because the true fans showed up. Because the true fans spread the
word. And because the true fans never fully satisfied their need to be
connected.
Here are the key elements of the Dead’s marketing success:
They appealed to a relatively tiny audience and focused all their
energy on them.
They didn’t use radio to spread their ideas to the masses. Instead,
they relied on fans to share the word, hand to hand, by encouraging
them to tape their shows.
Instead of hoping to encourage a large number of people to support
them a little, they relied on a small number of true fans who
supported them a lot.

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They picked the extremes on the XY axis (live concerts vs. polished
records, long jams for the fan family vs. short hits for the radio) and
owned them both.
They gave the fans plenty to talk about and stand for. Insiders and
outsiders.
They needed three things to pull this off:
Extraordinary talent. You can’t fake your way through 146 concerts
in a year.
Significant patience. In 1972, considered by some to be a peak year
for the band, only five thousand people came to a typical show. It
took more than a decade before the Dead became an “overnight”
success.
The guts to be quirky. It couldn’t have been easy to watch the
Zombies, the Doors, and even the Turtles sell far more records than
they did. For a while, anyway.
In 1972, being obstinate, generous, and lucky was an accident that led to
their surprising success. Today, though, in most industries (including the
music business) this sort of success is not an accident. It’s the best path to
success, and in many ways, the most rewarding as well.