028: Drift’s 138X Blog Traffic Growth, Ditching Gated Content w/Dave Gerhardt

Dave recently led a 138X growth in blog traffic for Drift. In today’s episode he’ll tell us how they achieved this growth – and to put that tangibly – it was 198 visits a month in October, and last month they received 27,369 visits to the blog. He’ll tell us why he ignores analytics, how he leveraged cold email outreach … and actually didn’t even have a plan, yet still achieved this growth.We also chat about how to leverage community sites like Inbound.org and Growth Hackers by self submitting without seeming self-promotional, why most startups suck at PR, why Drift ditched all gated content, and how their Podcast gets over 10,000 downloads a month.Also discussed in this action packed interview – side-projects, books, bad podcast hosts and “sneezers”.Dave Gerhardt has worked with companies like Constant Contact, Hubspot and now runs marketing for Drift (a company founded by David Cancel and Elias Torres, former Hubspot execs).Enjoy!And please subscribe on iTunes!LinksDriftTech in BostonHubSpotStop Gating Our ContentSix Things We Learned About Content MarketingHow Slack Grew Into a Billion Dollar CompanyWhy Most Startups Suck at PRWhere Do Sneezers Come From?Growth HackersInboundSoundCloudSeeking Wisdom PodcastFresh Air w/ Terry GrossA Side Project Helped Jumpstart My CareerRecommended BooksShoe DogPeopleDave GerhardtSeth GodinDavid CancelElias TorresPhil KnightAgendaDave’s backgroundWhat is Drift?Gated ContentThe wrong way to market“Make all your content free.”Content Marketing“There wasn’t a plan.”Content PRCompounding effectsCreation Process“We only promote 1-2 pieces at a time.”Content PromotionCold emailing?Posting on communities“I started writing-out the content on the forum (rather than just a link).”“Self promotion is okay when you’re the one who wrote the post and explain why you’re posting.”Startups and PR“A lot of startups are telling the wrong story.”Transparency“What’s your story?”Drift Podcast10,000 downloads per month?“Keep a conversation going.”The post 028: Drift’s 138X Blog Traffic Growth, Ditching Gated Content w/Dave Gerhardt appeared first on Evolving SEO.