We have some success with it, but I recommend you check with Hiten Shah at KISSmetrics. I believe he told me that most of their sales can be tracked back to their content marketing efforts.

Neil Patel writes often about the power of guest posting. I've included in my marketing strategy for a new blog and Post on larger sites have definitely driven traffic. I've also found being interviewed on Podcast to be just as powerful, provided you have a strong CTA during the interview to visit your blog.

(Flowtown's blog had 350K U/V month and drove most of our customers, Clarity is at 20K U/V month - using a different strategy for growth)

So I've done it a couple times now, and Sean is right - you want to talk with Hiten (KissMetrics) or Leo (BufferApp).

I'm assuming you want numbers - we'll here's the deal.
1. There's a real cost to the blog
2. It's getting increasingly hard to pull this off
3. You need an unfair advantage

One: I spent half my time managing the Flowtown blog, and $5-10K month on hiring writers and designers (infographics).

Two: With EVERYONE getting into content marketing thanks to amazing companies like HubSpot, it'll continue to get harder and harder to rank in SEO or get social media love.

Three: Everyone mentioned above/below (including myself) had somekind of unfair advantage. Maybe it was high ranking accounts on Digg.com / HackerNews / iTunes, or connections with the press to get distribution of top articles.

My only advice is yes it can work, but you need to treat it like any other paid marketing channel (cause there is a cost) and decide if it's the one you want to invest to the most.

The upside of a great blog is that it's an asset long term vs. paid ads that stop being displayed if you don't pay :).

P.S.These guys have all done it / call them :)
https://clarity.fm/harleyfinkelstein (Shopify's blog)
https://clarity.fm/jasonbillingsley (Get Elastic)
https://clarity.fm/jasonnazar (DocStoc)

For sure. But as one other person mentioned, it does take a lot of work. I go through our process + tips in this free webinar: http://alexisgrant.com/webinar-guest-blogging/.

Also, Danny Iny has an affordable course that focuses solely on guest blogging, which is what I recommend whenever readers ask me how to approach it: http://writelikefreddy.com/site/?hop=alexis9. His stuff is really quality. (That's an affiliate link because I highly recommend him.)

I believe stories would not help you because every story is different.
Using Google search, search for the name of prolific guest bloggers in your industry plus the phrase “guest post by”. This will reveal all the sites that these guest bloggers have posted upon. If you have access to tools like Open Site Explorer, you can look at the backlinks of your competitors and spot any blogs they have written for. Com -domain. Com “guest post” which should reveal sites that a competitor has written for. A lot of bloggers and guest posters will share their latest guest posts on social networks. Just follow the links to see which blogs are accepting the guest posts.
ProBlogger uses a template to help document their guest blog strategy. Still, there is a startling number of marketers who are creating content and guest blogging “just because.” Meaning simply, they are guest blogging without any clear strategy. That leads bloggers to pay attention to things like social shares, comments, and traffic as the measure of success for a guest post. Your strategy should be built around growing your own business, not necessarily the blog of another organization.
You can read more here: https://neilpatel.com/blog/truth-guest-blogging/
https://neilpatel.com/blog/guide-to-guest-blogging/
Besides if you do have any questions give me a call: https://clarity.fm/joy-brotonath