This Won't Scale: 41 Plays From The Drift Marketing Team To Help Your Business Cut Through The Noise, Grow Faster Than The Competition & Thrill Your Customers

by Dave Gerhardt

Don’t Believe In Stealth Mode

And that’s when we knew that having the best product isn’t enough. Having the best brand isn’t enough. And having the best service isn’t enough. It’s the combination of those three things that will help us stand out.

Because when they sneeze, everyone else gets the germs

By the way, the key to that message above is asking for permission. The conversion rate is so much higher when you treat someone like a human and ask permission first vs. just sending them a link and begging.

No magic bullet. No growth hacks. No shortcuts. Just offering people something that we thought they might find valuable — and going hand-to-hand to make sure they got it.

we had gone out and started a conversation with the right people at the right time.

And to this day, the biggest mistake we see startups making is waiting for the perfect time to start marketing. We’ll let you in on a secret: There’s never going to be a perfect time. And here’s another one: It’s never too early to start marketing.

Your brand is the combined experiences a person has when they interact with your product and your company.

You need to craft a consistent story, where every touchpoint, from an ad to a blog post to a podcast episode to an email to the product, builds on the same core values and adds to the experience.

For example, if one study came out that said the best time to send an email was Tuesday at 2 PM, guess what most B2B marketers would do? They would start sending their emails on Tuesdays at 2 PM.

The best way to win customers and build a brand is to be you. To be real. To be authentic. To be human. And that lesson has been true for hundreds of years — but it’s even more important today with all of the noise and competition in the market.

And that trust is a lot easier to build if your audience can see your face and hear your voice.

And not just a stock image of a random person, but a real Drift employee or customer — that’s the rule. No stock photos. The reason why we’re so bullish on real faces is simple: It makes our brand more human.

Add real faces to everything you do.

Like in Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion Dr. Robert B. Cialdini breaks down the psychology behind why people say “yes.” There are six universal principles behind persuasion: 1. Reciprocity – pay back what we receive 2. Scarcity – people want what they can't have 3. Authority – people follow credible experts 4. Consistency – consistency with past actions 5. Liking – people say "yes" to things they like 6. Consensus – looking for what others have done

marketing is everybody’s job — it’s not just the people with marketing in their titles.

“That is how you get the opportunities that no one should reasonably give to you… If you’re willing to take these enormous leaps, and just be unafraid of what you don’t know and be willing to learn.”

But what results should you drive? To answer that question, we write 1/7/30 plans for each new employee. These outline what you should achieve in your first day, your first week and your first month at Drift. It’s one of our most important checklists because it makes sure success is clearly defined for new employees.

as Molly Graham taught us, “It’s not really a failure if you learn in the process of trying.”

an essential part of the learning process is documenting it.

never make the same mistake twice.

So even though we know that we’ll never be perfect, our work improves gradually. Every day, we’re a little bit better than we were the day before.

Instead of inventing something from scratch, go out and look for well known patterns that you can copy and innovate on. Now, this doesn’t mean actually copy something — but it means learn from what worked and what didn’t.

When it comes to learning, books are a cheap and easy way to learn from people who you wouldn’t normally get to.

So if you’re waiting around for someone you like — someone that’s perfect — then you’re going to be waiting for a long time.”

it’s better to enter a market first than to do it later with a better product.

it’s better to create your own category than to try to compete in a crowded one.

you also need a movement. You need a cause. Something to stand for.

To become real, things need a name.