The Dave Gerhardt Show — Episode Summary

Episode Title: Building a Marketing Machine from Scratch
Guest: Erin May (CMO, User Interviews)
Host: Dave Gerhardt, Exit Five
Date: March 12, 2026

Episode Overview

In this episode, Dave Gerhardt interviews Erin May, CMO at User Interviews, about her eight-year journey growing the company from the ground up. Erin shares real-life tactics and strategies for building a marketing engine, emphasizing the value of niche focus, channel stacking, content strategy, and operating cadences. She offers practical insights on company-wide collaboration, podcasting, the brand vs. demand debate, and the evolving role of AI in marketing. The discussion is deeply pragmatic, focused on what actually worked (and didn't) on the road to over $20M ARR.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. From Early Days: Niche Focus and Audience Building

• Early Stage Challenges:
  • Erin joined as the first marketer with no recurring revenue and a bare-bones website. Their audience was split between professional researchers and "people who do research but are not researchers" (aka POWDER: product folks, designers, UXers, founders).
  • Strategic Decision: Focused on researchers as the minimum viable audience due to their high recurrence and product-market fit.
    • "[Our hypothesis was] these researchers are going to end up being our best customers for obvious reasons... So we decided to take a look at how big can we make this thing with this research audience?" — Erin (06:11)

2. Smart Content and SEO: Authoritative, Ungated, Research-Driven

• Structured Content Strategy:
  • Began with building a comprehensive "UX Research Field Guide" targeted at identified audience needs and designed for SEO.
  • Taxonomy Validation: Used lightweight user research (card sorting) to validate content structure with actual researchers before creation (09:00).
  • Ungated Content Philosophy: Gave value up front, offering content free on the web and as an opt-in email series.
    • "I'm anti coercion...we had a 13% conversion rate on this thing. So we got our emails, we just didn't make anyone give them to us." — Erin (11:37)
  • Measuring Content: Focused on top-funnel metrics—website visits, signups, and sales conversations. In early days, effectiveness was clear due to lack of competing marketing efforts (12:35).

3. Channel Stacking: Focus, Experiment, Diversify

• Power Law Thinking:

  • "If you can get 90% of your pipeline from two channels, that makes things a lot simpler...but you want to be diversified because things can change overnight." — Erin (16:20)

• Pragmatic Channel Expansion:

  • Invested deeply in one channel, then gradually stacked new ones as the business grew. Emphasized the need to both explore future channels and exploit what works today.

• Resilience in Testing:

  • Recounted failures (e.g., referral program version one), but highlighted the need for timing and persistence.
    • "I've had things that haven't worked, and we’ve tried them again and it did work." — Erin (18:47)
  • Some things never worked (e.g., influencer marketing—so far), and knowing when to persist or park an idea is key.

4. The “Bangers” System: Building Company-Wide Tentpole Moments

• Quarterly Cadence & Operating System:

  • Marketing is structured around ‘bangers’—quarterly major launches or campaigns that rally the entire company.
    • "Some people would call them tentpoles. I like bangers. Bangers are banging." — Erin (21:34)
  • Bangers can be top-of-funnel (e.g., tools maps, reports) or bottom-of-funnel (product launches)—both treated with full company activation.
  • Originated notable pieces like the UX Research Tools Map—a visual competitor landscape, inspired by martech lumascapes.

• PGpalooza: Full-Company Amplification:

  • Company-wide competition to share ‘bangers’ on social, especially LinkedIn, incentivized by cash prizes for best performance (30:26–31:09).
  • Followed by coordinated sales outreach to those engaging with the content.
    • "Everyone in the company is encouraged to participate in sharing this stuff on social...There is a paid incentivized contest for whoever gets the most shares." — Erin (31:07)

• Scaling Participation:

  • Start with a core group of believers, build pride in the quality and relevance of the bangers, and use incentives (not just directives) to bring employees along.

5. Channel-First Planning and Social Distribution

• Instead of creating content and then finding places to push it, Erin recommends identifying the most promising channels first and building content around their strengths.
  • "We're not building our content calendar until we have a strong sense of what our channels are and what they can do for us." (29:36)
• For User Interviews, LinkedIn is a critical channel, with both founder-led and employee-advocacy-driven sharing.

6. Podcasting: Community and Industry Authority

• Started Early—Found a Gap:

  • Began the podcast when few existed in user research—filled a clear whitespace.
    • "We did not ask for permission to do this. I learned GarageBand. It was hacky." — Erin (35:41)
  • Chose guests from a receptive, community-minded audience.

• ROI and Attribution:

  • Saw clear feedback through event relationships and industry reputation, not just downloads or direct pipeline.
    • "I would go to these events and people would come up to me like, I was a celebrity because I host this podcast...That's all the attribution I really need here." — Erin (38:08)
  • Reused episodes for multiple content streams (LinkedIn, guides, email, etc.).

7. AI in Marketing: Useful, But Fundamentals Matter

• Enthusiastic but Grounded:

  • Sees AI as transformative, but warns against “AI slop”—low-quality, generic output.
    • "AI isn't going to take your job. The person who learns AI will." — Erin (39:42)
    • "We've all experienced AI slop—nothing new, guys. Marketing slop has been around a long time. It's just faster and worse and at higher scale now." — Erin (40:53)
  • Emphasizes the intersection of technology and humanity: marketers must use AI to deepen—not cheapen—connection and insight (40:53).

• Team Expectations:

  • Required adoption across team—encouraged experimentation and shared learning (41:00).

8. Brand vs. Demand: False Dichotomies

• Dismisses the Debate:
  • "I think the whole argument is stupid. I think that, like, brand and demand are both very important. It's a funnel, guys." — Erin (43:28)
  • Both are deeply interconnected; you cannot succeed long-term by focusing on one at the expense of the other.
  • Considers the artificial split driven by demands for ROI and misunderstanding of how initiatives interact.

9. Core Principle: Make the Customer the Hero

• Relentless Audience Focus:
  • The central thread is consistently elevating the audience (researchers), making them feel seen, valued, and central.
    • "The whole center of your marketing strategy is making your customer the hero. So everything you're doing is trying to elevate them, elevate their profession." — Dave (46:29, paraphrased)
  • Applicable to any industry or ICP.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "I'm a big fan of dogfooding our product...We actually build out structure, then validated that taxonomy with our researchers through research." — Erin (09:00)
• "Ungated content...I'm anti coercion. The idea was, let's build this all out, package and deliver as an e-course experience...But you can get the whole thing for free right here on the web." — Erin (09:49)
• "[Channel stacking is] finding that balance of where can you really dominate, but also having a portfolio." — Erin (16:20)
• "Bangers are banging...our first true banger was our UX Research Tools Map...let's do that but for user UX research and actually make it visually beautiful." — Erin (21:34/22:00)
• "Everyone in the company is encouraged to participate in sharing this stuff on social...and there's a paid incentivized contest." — Erin (30:26)
• "I've tried to be supportive and somewhat patient [with AI] ... Last year was the year of you gotta be using this stuff...This year it's like, let's go faster." — Erin (41:00)
• "Brand and demand are both very important...it's a funnel, guys." — Erin (43:28)
• "If you can convince [your audience] and actually mean it that you care about them and have their back, I think that will take you pretty far." — Erin (47:04)
• "So much of the success of a marketing team is: what ingredients do I have from the company?" — Dave (24:15)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:57] – Erin joins User Interviews, pre-recurring revenue
• [05:17] – How they chose a niche and audience
• [07:14] – Early content strategy and tactics
• [08:49] – Deep dive on SEO & content validation process
• [11:37] – Ungated content and measurement philosophy
• [16:20] – Channel stacking and diversification rationale
• [18:47] – Learning from failed and retried experiments
• [21:34] – Introducing "bangers" and the company cadence
• [26:26] – Company-wide social amplification (PGpalooza)
• [35:41] – Podcast origin story and value
• [39:42] – Erin’s views on AI and team enablement
• [43:28] – Brand vs. demand debate
• [46:29] – Making the customer/audience the hero

Summary Takeaways

• Marketing success at User Interviews was grounded in deep audience empathy, a relentless focus on producing valuable content, and an operating rhythm that systemically engaged the entire company.
• Channel focus (and not spreading too thin) enables outsize results, but balance comes from layering and experimentation.
• Structured, recurring moments ("bangers") fuel momentum—made possible by creativity, teamwork, and a little incentive.
• Ungated, research-backed content creates audience trust and delivers long-term brand equity.
• AI is a powerful enhancer, but only when used thoughtfully—not as a shortcut for meaning.
• “Brand vs. demand” is a false choice; both must work together in service of the audience.
• Above all, making your customer the hero and championing their profession is a timeless, transferable strategy.

For Further Connection

• Find Erin May: LinkedIn
• More episodes and community: Exit Five