Who is Dave Gerhardt?

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Dave Gerhardt: Driving B2B Marketing Influence Through Exit Five and Strategic LinkedIn Engagement

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Dave Gerhardt is the founder of Exit Five, a marketing community with over 6,000 members focused on real-world B2B challenges. His leadership stems from firsthand experience as CMO at both Drift and Privy—two fast-growing SaaS brands. At Exit Five, he curates tools, job boards, and live sessions for marketers in tech and startups. This platform has become a go-to for insights on brand positioning, messaging, and team building.

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Gerhardt’s content philosophy centers on simplicity and clear communication—embodied by his viral quote: “Make sure people know you exist.” He has written hundreds of LinkedIn posts breaking down B2B lessons into digestible anecdotes and career reflections. He publishes at a pace of nearly 30 times per month, often tackling topics like hiring, marketing frameworks, and messaging. His content consistently reflects the operational reality of high-growth startup teams.

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Beyond social media, Gerhardt runs a weekly newsletter with 34K subscribers, offering in-depth breakdowns of brand strategies, team culture, and marketing leadership. He also hosts the Exit Five Podcast, where he interviews CMOs and startup founders on B2B growth and communication. These platforms serve as direct channels to the marketer audience he’s cultivated over the years. Each piece maintains a tone that’s conversational yet rooted in expertise.

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Gerhardt has built a network that includes executives like Jason Lemkin and Adam Robinson, often engaging them through collaborative content or public tagging. His Favikon Influence Score of 8,217 points places him in the Top 1% for LinkedIn and U.S. Digital Marketing categories. He’s consistently ranked among the most influential voices in SaaS and startup marketing. His profile is marked by high trust, niche clarity, and strategic execution.

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An Influencer Active on Social Media

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Dave Gerhardt delivers highly focused B2B marketing advice to a professional audience, primarily on LinkedIn, backed by his Exit Five newsletter and podcast.

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Dave’s Social Media Strategy Analysis

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LinkedIn: His Stronghold for B2B Engagement

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Dave Gerhardt uses LinkedIn as his primary channel to engage a B2B audience of 180.5K followers, primarily made up of marketers, founders, and SaaS professionals. His posts combine storytelling with direct, tactical insights on marketing leadership and team building. He often reflects on real experiences from his time as CMO, using them to highlight practical takeaways. Most of his posts avoid visuals and instead lean into strong written hooks.

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He maintains a predictable posting rhythm—29 times/month—typically at 5 AM EST, optimizing for professional scrolling hours. His cadence keeps him top-of-mind in his niche, and many posts receive high visibility despite modest engagement metrics. With an average of 74.4K views/month, his reach is primarily driven by professional relevance rather than viral tactics. This timing also aligns well with U.S.-based tech and startup professionals finishing their workday.

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Each piece of content is crafted around themes like brand differentiation, team dynamics, and hiring for marketing roles. He routinely includes screenshots of feedback, job listings, or behind-the-scenes decisions from Exit Five to illustrate his point. The goal is not follower growth but value creation for a small, high-intent community. His average engagement per post sits at 285, emphasizing quality over reach.

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His tone is direct, friendly, and grounded in his personal experience, making his feed feel more like a mentorship space than a broadcast platform. He rarely promotes tools or products unless they directly serve his audience’s problems. His Influence Score on LinkedIn is 87.8/100, which places him in the Top 1% in both the U.S. and Digital Marketing categories. Every post is built with his core community’s questions in mind.

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• ‍Username: @davegerhardt‍
• Influence Score: 87.8/100
• Followers: 180.5K
• Activity: 29 posts/month
• Engagement Rate: 0.16%
• Growth: +0.69%
• Average Engagement: 285
• Posting Habits: Everyday at 5 AM EST

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X (Twitter): Supporting Platform for Lighter Insights

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While not his dominant platform, Dave Gerhardt uses X to share shorter takes, commentary on trends, and links to his newsletter or Exit Five content. With 37.4K followers, his presence is focused but intentionally secondary to LinkedIn. He tweets around 8.1 times/week, often using a mix of text-based threads and reposted memes or screenshots. The format is lighter, more reactive, and often experimental.

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His average engagement is only 11 per post, reflecting that X is a distribution tool rather than a core content hub. The platform is useful for cross-posting content that originated from LinkedIn or his podcast. Despite the lower engagement rate of 0.03%, he still garners roughly 915 views per tweet, often from the same professional audience following him on other channels. His posts often echo themes he's already explored elsewhere.

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He schedules his tweets around 7 AM EST, likely aiming to reach users in wind-down or recap mode. Unlike his LinkedIn presence, Gerhardt doesn’t maintain a strict topic pattern here—some tweets are reflective, others promotional. However, all tweets maintain the same voice, emphasizing clarity and relevance to the B2B marketing space. His tone remains professional even in informal threads.

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Despite lower stats, he uses X strategically to keep conversations alive across platforms, especially when responding to community chatter or referencing ongoing industry news. He rarely engages in debates or polarizing discourse, choosing instead to retweet high-quality insights or support posts from his network. His Influence Score here is 69/100, showing steady but secondary performance in his overall strategy.

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• ‍Username: @davegerhardt‍
• Influence Score: 69/100
• Followers: 37.4K
• Activity: 8.1 tweets/week
• Engagement Rate: 0.03%
• Growth: –0.19%
• Average Engagement: 11
• Posting Habits: Everyday at 7 AM EST

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Newsletter: A Core Pillar of His Marketing Strategy

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Dave Gerhardt’s newsletter is a key extension of his personal brand. With 34K subscribers, it targets marketers who prefer curated, in-depth insights over real-time social updates. The newsletter covers topics such as effective communication, leadership challenges, and content strategy frameworks. Each edition is structured like a mini case study or thought piece.

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Gerhardt distills lessons from his own experiences while incorporating reader feedback and community discussion, giving the newsletter a two-way feel. It also often promotes new Exit Five initiatives, podcast episodes, and community resources. Its high reader retention is likely due to the specificity and clarity of his messaging. Unlike generic marketing roundups, his emails deliver a unique tone that aligns closely with his LinkedIn style—direct, helpful, and practical. Many B2B marketers treat it as a go-to resource in their weekly learning cycle.

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Podcast: The Voice Behind Exit Five’s Marketing Conversations

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Dave Gerhardt’s podcast, Exit Five: B2B Marketing with Dave Gerhardt, is a key content pillar in his overall strategy. It complements his LinkedIn and newsletter efforts by providing deeper, unscripted conversations with top B2B marketers and founders. Each episode offers real-world perspectives on topics like positioning, team building, and leadership—all grounded in operational experience. The podcast acts as an extension of the Exit Five community's private conversations, made public.

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The format is conversational, often featuring long-form interviews that allow for unpacking nuanced ideas without the time constraints of social media. Gerhardt’s hosting style is casual yet insightful—he asks pointed questions based on his own experiences as a former CMO, making interviews feel more like peer-to-peer coaching sessions. This makes the show especially appealing to mid-level and senior professionals in marketing.

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Episodes are shared on all major platforms, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and are frequently repurposed into clips or highlights across LinkedIn. These snippets are used to drive traffic to the full episodes and keep key ideas circulating. Unlike many shows, he avoids fluff—each episode is value-dense, typically under an hour, and sharply focused on execution over theory.

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The podcast strengthens his brand as a marketing operator first and influencer second. It builds intimacy with his audience, reinforcing trust and expertise. Regular listeners often cite the show as a go-to resource for marketing leadership insights, and guests from companies like HubSpot and Drift help validate his credibility in the B2B space. This audio channel adds depth to his overall authority and reach.

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Dave Gerhardt ’s Social Media Influence Summary

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Dave Gerhardt scores an impressive 8,217 points on the Favikon Influence Score, placing him in the Top 1% for both LinkedIn U.S. (#520) and Digital Marketing U.S. (#17). Globally, he holds the #125 spot in Digital Marketing and ranks #2,345 on LinkedIn Worldwide. These rankings affirm his impact as a leading voice in digital marketing and professional content.

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Learn more about the Favikon Methodology here

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Content Strategy: B2B Content That Prioritizes Clarity and Credibility

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Gerhardt’s content is built on simplicity. His posts often challenge industry jargon and push for clearer, more human-centered marketing. He avoids overused frameworks and instead offers real stories and practical takeaways. His tone is cheerful, non-political, and focused on brand safety, which is crucial for corporate audiences. He frequently breaks down how brands can position themselves effectively in noisy markets and what leadership really looks like in startup environments. With an average activity rate of 37 posts/month, his consistency is matched by message quality, fostering a deeply engaged niche audience.

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Reachability and Partnerships

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Dave Gerhardt is highly reachable through his Exit Five community, LinkedIn inbox, and newsletter replies, offering multiple access points for brands targeting B2B marketers. He frequently collaborates with SaaS companies, particularly those building tools for marketing teams and startup operators. His campaign fit leans toward product categories like analytics, copywriting, and team enablement. His estimated rate is $1.6K–$2K/post, reflecting his niche authority and audience trust.

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He selectively accepts sponsorships that align with his message and community needs, favoring long-term brand integrations over one-off placements. Exit Five’s audience includes over 6,000 paying members, many of whom are startup founders or marketing leads—ideal for strategic B2B outreach. Sponsored content is typically integrated via podcast mentions, newsletters, or LinkedIn storytelling. These touchpoints allow brands to engage an audience already primed for marketing solutions.

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Conclusion: A Trusted B2B Voice with Community at the Core

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Dave Gerhardt has established himself as one of the most credible creators in the B2B marketing space, backed by data-driven influence and a focused content approach. Through LinkedIn, Exit Five, and his newsletter, he reaches thousands of marketers with relevant, trustworthy insights. His community-first mindset, consistent delivery, and clarity in messaging make him a key partner for brands seeking genuine connection in the B2B world.

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