The Dave Gerhardt Show (from Exit Five)

#337 | Dave sits down with Erin May, CMO at User Interviews, who joined as the company's first marketer with a two-page website and zero recurring revenue and helped grow it to $20M+ ARR over eight years. Erin breaks down how she picked one niche audience and went all in, why she led with ungated content, and how she built a quarterly operating rhythm around "Bangers," tentpole marketing moments that get the entire company involved. They also get into podcasting ROI, what she'd do differently with AI-driven search today, and why she thinks the brand vs. demand debate is just noise.
Timestamps

(00:00) - Intro: 8 years, one niche, a two-page website, and $20M ARR

(05:16) - How Erin identified the right audience to go all in on

(07:18) - Building the UX Research Field Guide and the early SEO strategy

(09:47) - Why she went ungated and still captured 13% email conversion

(13:28) - What she'd do differently with content strategy today

(16:04) - Stacking channels one at a time instead of doing everything at once

(18:43) - How to plan for the next phase of growth before you need it

(21:14) - Introducing Bangers: the quarterly marketing OS

(23:42) - Top of funnel vs. bottom of funnel Bangers

(30:25) - How LinkedIn and employee advocacy fit into the Banger playbook

(34:44) - Why Erin started a podcast seven years ago when no one else was

(38:07) - How to think about podcast ROI when attribution is fuzzy

(40:59) - AI expectations for her marketing team

(45:27) - Why the brand vs. demand debate is stupid

(48:39) - The real secret: making your customer the hero

Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
Learn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/
***
Brought to you by:
AirOps - The content engineering platform that helps marketers create and maintain high-quality, on-brand content that wins AI search. Go to airops.com/exitfive to start creating content that reflects your expertise, stays true to your brand, and is engineered for performance across human and AI discovery.
Customer.io - An AI powered customer engagement platform that help marketers turn first-party data into engaging customer experiences across email, SMS, and push. Learn more at customer.io/exitfive.
Convertr - The enterprise lead data management platform that sits between your lead sources and your CRM, automatically validating, enriching, and standardizing every lead before it touches your systems. Check them out at convertr.io/exitfive.
Compound Growth Marketing - A full-funnel demand generation agency that helps high-growth cybersecurity, DevOps, and enterprise software companies drive more pipeline through AI SEO, paid media, and go-to-market engineering. Visit compoundgrowthmarketing.com and tell them Dave sent you.

***
Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.
They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.
Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.
Visit hatch.fm to learn more

Eoin Clancy (VP of Growth at AirOps), Connor Beaulieu (Senior SEO Manager at LegalZoom), and Adina Timar (Head of AEO at Weflow) join this live session to talk about how to create high-quality content with AI. Connor walks through a workflow his team built at LegalZoom to automatically source expert quotes.. Adina shows how she rebuilds competitor pages from scratch using sales calls, LLM data, and live competitor analysis. And Eoin shares the research behind why content quality is now the single biggest lever in AI search. If you want to see what content engineering actually looks like in practice, this one is for you.

Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
Learn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/
***
Brought to you by:
AirOps - The content engineering platform that helps marketers create and maintain high-quality, on-brand content that wins AI search. Go to airops.com/exitfive to start creating content that reflects your expertise, stays true to your brand, and is engineered for performance across human and AI discovery.
Customer.io - An AI powered customer engagement platform that help marketers turn first-party data into engaging customer experiences across email, SMS, and push. Learn more at customer.io/exitfive.
Convertr - The enterprise lead data management platform that sits between your lead sources and your CRM, automatically validating, enriching, and standardizing every lead before it touches your systems. Check them out at convertr.io/exitfive.
Compound Growth Marketing - A full-funnel demand generation agency that helps high-growth cybersecurity, DevOps, and enterprise software companies drive more pipeline through AI SEO, paid media, and go-to-market engineering. Visit compoundgrowthmarketing.com and tell them Dave sent you.

***
Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.
They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.
Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.
Visit hatch.fm to learn more

#335 | Jeff Hardison, now VP of Product Marketing at Sanity, joined Dave when he was running product marketing at Calendly to break down what the product marketing role should actually look like inside a B2B company. They get into how Jeff structured his team to serve both a PLG motion and an enterprise sales team at the same time, why he hires for specialization instead of making everyone a generalist, and how he thinks about measuring a function that touches almost every team in the company. Jeff also shares his take on positioning and messaging, how to run product launches that actually rally the company, and the two interview questions he uses to figure out if someone will be happy in a product marketing role.

Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
Learn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/
***
Brought to you by:
AirOps - The content engineering platform that helps marketers create and maintain high-quality, on-brand content that wins AI search. Go to airops.com/exitfive to start creating content that reflects your expertise, stays true to your brand, and is engineered for performance across human and AI discovery.
Customer.io - An AI powered customer engagement platform that help marketers turn first-party data into engaging customer experiences across email, SMS, and push. Learn more at customer.io/exitfive.
Convertr - The enterprise lead data management platform that sits between your lead sources and your CRM, automatically validating, enriching, and standardizing every lead before it touches your systems. Check them out at convertr.io/exitfive.
Compound Growth Marketing - A full-funnel demand generation agency that helps high-growth cybersecurity, DevOps, and enterprise software companies drive more pipeline through AI SEO, paid media, and go-to-market engineering. Visit compoundgrowthmarketing.com and tell them Dave sent you.

***
Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.
They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.
Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.
Visit hatch.fm to learn more

#334 | Dave is joined by Jessica Serrano, CMO at Bagel Brands (Einstein Brothers, Noah's, Bruegger's, Manhattan Bagel), for a conversation about what B2B marketers can learn from consumer restaurant marketing. They discuss why consumer and B2B marketing are way more similar than people think, how she’s using AI across her marketing and sales process, and her philosophy that her job is to ‘build brand over time and drive sales overnight.’ Jessica shares how COVID forced Dig Inn to rebuild itself as an e-commerce business, how she built a B2B catering sales motion from scratch using HubSpot and buyer personas, and how filtering work emails out of a consumer list became a real customer acquisition tactic. Listen to this episode to learn tactics that work whether you're selling bagels or software.
Timestamps

(00:00) - Why a consumer CMO listens to B2B marketers (and vice versa)

(03:33) - How COVID forced Dig Inn to rebuild as an ecommerce business overnight

(06:55) - The math behind going after $500 catering orders vs. $15 walk-ins

(10:33) - Building buyer personas for office admins, sports nutritionists, and universities

(16:05) - Why Jessica switched from ChatGPT to Claude (and the breakthrough moment)

(22:54) - Using AI for rapid product testing on a budget that wouldn't cover traditional research

(30:06) - "Build the brand over time, drive sales overnight" and what that looks like at Bagel Brands

(32:59) - Why you can't just copy a playbook from Taco Bell to Burger King

(37:18) - The biggest lesson from working at brands with nearly 1,000 locations

(40:46) - Google reviews as a source of truth for aligning marketing and operations

(47:49) - Why organic-first content matters more in the age of AI and dead internet theory

Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
Learn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/
***
Brought to you by:
AirOps - The content engineering platform that helps marketers create and maintain high-quality, on-brand content that wins AI search. Go to airops.com/exitfive to start creating content that reflects your expertise, stays true to your brand, and is engineered for performance across human and AI discovery.
Customer.io - An AI powered customer engagement platform that help marketers turn first-party data into engaging customer experiences across email, SMS, and push. Learn more at customer.io/exitfive.
Convertr - The enterprise lead data management platform that sits between your lead sources and your CRM, automatically validating, enriching, and standardizing every lead before it touches your systems. Check them out at convertr.io/exitfive.
Compound Growth Marketing - A full-funnel demand generation agency that helps high-growth cybersecurity, DevOps, and enterprise software companies drive more pipeline through AI SEO, paid media, and go-to-market engineering. Visit compoundgrowthmarketing.com and tell them Dave sent you.

***
Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.
They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.
Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.
Visit hatch.fm to learn more

#333 | Dave is joined by Clare Schmitt, a seasoned marketing leader and a member of our CMO community, to walk through what it actually takes to lead a rebrand at a mid-market B2B company. Clare shares how she partnered with her CEO to drive a full rebrand, from hiring a naming agency and running an RFP, to managing a small decision-making council, rolling out the new brand across every department, and measuring success post-launch. If you're a marketing leader thinking about a rebrand, this episode is a practical, top to bottom playbook from someone who just did it.
Timestamps

(00:00) - Why rebrands come up and what this episode covers

(02:58) - Clare's role at Piedmont Global and how the rebrand got started

(05:13) - Should you hire a naming agency? What it costs and what they actually do

(08:41) - Running an RFP and why they chose Focus Lab

(09:27) - Why the CEO has to own the rebrand go-to-market

(11:03) - Keeping the decision-making council small and who was in it

(19:09) - How to get CEO buy-in: framing a rebrand as infrastructure, not a marketing initiative

(21:46) - Timeline: how long a rebrand actually takes ($50M+ companies)

(23:28) - The rollout: project management, execution, and building the website internally

(25:25) - Measurement, post-launch QA, and tracking whether your narrative is sticking

Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
Learn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/
***
Brought to you by:
AirOps - The content engineering platform that helps marketers create and maintain high-quality, on-brand content that wins AI search. Go to airops.com/exitfive to start creating content that reflects your expertise, stays true to your brand, and is engineered for performance across human and AI discovery.
Customer.io - An AI powered customer engagement platform that help marketers turn first-party data into engaging customer experiences across email, SMS, and push. Learn more at customer.io/exitfive.
Convertr - The enterprise lead data management platform that sits between your lead sources and your CRM, automatically validating, enriching, and standardizing every lead before it touches your systems. Check them out at convertr.io/exitfive.
Compound Growth Marketing - A full-funnel demand generation agency that helps high-growth cybersecurity, DevOps, and enterprise software companies drive more pipeline through AI SEO, paid media, and go-to-market engineering. Visit compoundgrowthmarketing.com and tell them Dave sent you.

***
Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.
They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.
Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.
Visit hatch.fm to learn more