029 Legendary Marketing Lightning Strike Dave Gerhardt Drift

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In this follow-up to Episode 20 with David Cancel (DC) the founder and CEO of Drift,  Christopher talks with Dave Gerhardt (DG), the head of marketing for Drift and fellow podcaster.

They are co-authors a of brand new, number one best-selling book called Conversational Marketing: How The World’s Fastest Growing Companies use Chatbots to Generate Leads.

In this episode, we unpack how Drift is designing a new category and we go deep into the strategies and tactics Drift is using and how they executed this most legendary lightning strike centered around the new book.

If you’re into marketing, there’s a ton of gold in this episode. 

• You’ll get insight into how to get a massive amount of attention for your category, brand and point of view.
• How to execute an approach called the Multiplier Effect so that each component of your marketing mix multiplies the value of the other components.
• How to make your company and your category undeniable. 
• And, how to do my favorite kind of marketing which causes your competition to have emergency board meetings.

“Whether the (category) name is sexy, good or not, you have to name it.” – Dave Gerhardt

 Almost two years ago, Dave was introduced to Christopher through his book after Sequoia invested in Drift, Pat Grady sent him five copies of his book Play Bigger and said he needed to read it. Dave was blown away that how much was in the book was what they were doing without really talking about it. Play Bigger clarified what they were working on.

Hurdles to Overcome

The team at Drift knew they were building a category but didn’t’ really know about category design. During their efforts to write the book and get a publisher, Dave and David discovered that thing, that category that they were building meant nothing until they named it.

“In order for us to win, we need to elevate the category of Conversational Marketing.” – Dave Gerhardt

They had a little traction but not enough. They needed a following, big investors, and the social proof. Fast forward to early 2018. They spent the year writing the book and published on January 30, 2019. After a month, it’s a top 20 business book in the US and in the top 1.5% of all books being sold on Amazon. 

Why Competition is Good

In order for the book to succeed, Dave wants competitors and people in the conversational marketing space. They don’t want people to just think of Drift when they think of conversational marketing. 

Dave compares it to a part of Play Bigger. Apple didn’t invent the tablet but they created a category that elevated it. That’s Drift’s goal; to elevate the category of conversational marketing.

To hear more about Dave’s legendary marketing strike, download and listen to the episode.

Dave Gerhardt Bio:

Dave Gerhardt is a B2B marketing leader, brand builder, and copywriter. 
As VP of Marketing of Drift, he’s helped grow Drift from $0 to over eight-figures in revenue in just two years, and his work has been featured in 100+ news sites and publications, including Forbes, Fortune, Inc., Entrepreneur, TechCrunch, and Harvard Business Review.

He also co-hosts the popular Seeking Wisdom podcast with Drift CEO David Cancel, and he’s the co-author of the definitive book on Conversational Marketing.

Links:
Linkedin
Drift.com
Podcast: Seeking Wisdom
iTunes Seeking Wisdom

We hope you enjoyed Dave Gerhardt on this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!