Early marketing goals: awareness first

Swearing on sales calls can boost win rates by up to 8% — that's just one of the counterintuitive insights that helped Gong grow from 11 customers to over $300M in annual revenue.

Udi Ledergor joined Gong as employee #13 and marketer #1, eventually becoming CMO and now Chief Evangelist. His data-driven content marketing approach turned proprietary sales call analytics into viral marketing gold that media outlets couldn't resist covering.

Udi is the author of "Courageous Marketing" and has over 28 years of marketing experience across multiple successful tech companies. He's pioneered creative growth tactics like securing Super Bowl ads and Wall Street Journal placements for a fraction of their usual cost, all while building one of B2B's most recognizable brands.

In this episode, you'll discover why AI-generated marketing ideas should be eliminated rather than used, how to create content so valuable that university professors want to license it, and why the best way to use a small marketing budget is to show up where your audience already congregates instead of trying to build your own party.

Here's what you'll learn in this episode:

(00:00) Intro(01:00) Why Gong focused on LinkedIn and ignored their website(07:21) Why best practices are the enemy of standing out(13:31) The reciprocity principle: Give value before asking for anything(18:21) How swearing on sales calls became viral marketing gold(25:18) How to make your marketing budget unlimited(33:29) Creating websites for AI vs. humans in the age of answer engines(40:36) Why you need preemptive "marketing experiments" budget(44:18) Punching above your weight(51:23) Using AI to eliminate obvious ideas, not generate them(56:54) The Netflix test: Would people pay for your content?(1:01:31) Finding talent in unlikely places

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Ahrefs Podcast! As always, be sure to like and subscribe (and tell a friend).

Where to find Udi Ledergor:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/udiledergor/

X: @ledergor

Website: https://www.gong.io/

Where to find Tim:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timsoulo/

X: @timsoulo

Website: https://www.timsoulo.com/

Referenced:

• Robert Cialdini (Influence): https://www.robertcialdini.com/
• Chip and Dan Heath (Made to Stick): https://heathbrothers.com/
• Malcolm Gladwell: https://gladwell.com/
• Adam Grant (Think Again): https://adamgrant.net/
• Daniel Pink: https://www.danpink.com/
• Peter Walker (Carta): https://www.linkedin.com/in/pwalk/
• Ahrefs: https://ahrefs.com

#ContentMarketing #B2BMarketing #GrowthMarketing #AhrefsPodcast