Can influencer marketing work in B2B? (Dave's Newsletter)

Hello and welcome to Dave's Newsletter — read by 42,000 B2B marketing professionals around the world. I’m Dave Gerhardt, founder of Exit Five and former CMO. I really write this newsletter (not AI) and my goal here is to share lessons and learnings about B2B marketing, insights from the Exit Five community, and to be a resource to help you grow your career and advance your skills in marketing. If you enjoy getting this newsletter, I’d love it if you told a friend about it. I also enjoy getting replies here because it is really me, so reply back after you read and say hello.

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How To Nail Influencer Marketing In B2B (Because Your Buyers Trust Creators More Than You)

Editor's Note: Hey. It’s Dave. A couple months ago at Drive (our annual event up in Vermont), Brianna Doe made the case for influencer marketing in B2B. I first met Brianna by chance a couple years ago when I sat next to her at a dinner in New York. She's spent 14 years helping brands from scrappy startups to household names stand out, founded Verbatim (an award-winning influencer marketing agency), and is a LinkedIn creator herself with nearly 246k followers. She's got a true 360-degree view of this space.She showed us how smart B2B brands are borrowing plays from B2C (including Love Island), the framework her team uses to build creator programs, and how to measure impact without lying to yourself with vanity metrics. This newsletter breaks it all down. Hope you like it.

84% of B2B buyers rely on peer recommendations.

75% research products after seeing thought leadership content.

87% trust content from industry experts over branded content.

You already know this. You've lived it.

Think about the last major purchase you made at work. Did you just Google "best CRM" and pick the first result? Or did you ask around in Slack? Check LinkedIn DMs? See what people you respect were using?

Your buyers are doing the same thing.

The problem is most B2B marketers are still optimizing landing pages and writing whitepapers while the actual buying conversation is happening somewhere else entirely.

If your strategy doesn't meet buyers where trust already exists, you're invisible. Influencers can change that. Here’s Brianna’s playbook.

🧰 What B2B Can Steal From B2C

Three lessons from consumer brands that B2B needs to copy?

1️⃣ Creators as co-architects, not megaphones.

Comedian Amelia Dimoldenberg and Bumble is the perfect example. Bumble didn't hand her a script. They wove her into the strategy itself. The campaign leaned into her humor, her awkwardness, her voice. She talked about being single. She flirted with guests. It felt natural because it was. Weave creators into the strategy, not just the promotion.

2️⃣ Make the moment bigger than the product.

"Nicolandria" (a couple from Love Island USA) went viral this summer. A big cultural moment was the lip combo Olandria wore every day. NYX jumped on it right after Love Island ended. The product sold out in about two hours. They didn't force the trend or manufacture the experience. They rode the wave the couple was already creating.

3️⃣ Balance short-term sparks and long-term plays.

Compare Sydney Sweeney and American Eagle (not aligned with their customer base or demographic) against Gap partnering with KATSEYE, a diverse, multicultural girl group. It wasn't just that they sold jeans or that the ad went viral (it got 20 million views on YouTube). The campaign became a trend all on its own. Creators on TikTok started recreating the dance, wearing new Gap jeans they bought. It took on a life of its own. There's this mix between capturing one moment in one ad that won't live on forever and turning that into a trend that transcends time.

📝 The B2B Influencer Playbook (Beyond Sponsored Posts)

The B2B playbook has expanded way beyond one-off LinkedIn posts. Here's what's working now:

• POV-led LinkedIn content and YouTube explainers. Deep dives that show expertise, not just promotion.
• Webinars, conferences, and creator-led activations. Get creators on stage. Let them moderate panels. Make them part of the event.
• Podcast partnerships and integrations. Sponsor episodes. Co-host series. Go where your audience already listens.
• Newsletter sponsorships. Your buyers are reading industry newsletters. Be there.
• Co-created and co-branded content. Build something together, not just a sponsored mention.
• Niche communities. Show up in Slack groups, private forums, and places where your buyers gather.
• Multichannel activations. Mix short-form and long-form. Don't just post once and move on.

The pattern? Stop treating influencer marketing like a media buy. Treat it like a distribution strategy that meets buyers where they already spend time.

⚙️ The Creator Engine Framework

Brianna's team uses a framework they call The Creator Engine:

Tier 1: Discover and co-create.
This is where most people mess up. They jump straight to execution without doing the work up front.

Brianna's approach: design for impact before scale. Nail down your KPIs first.

What are you trying to accomplish?

Then bring creators into the process early. Don't hand them a finished brief.

Co-create the narrative with them. Your brief should act as strategic guardrails, not a script. You're aligning on story, tone, and who you're trying to reach.

Tier 2: Activate across channels.
This is where it gets interesting. Think experiences, not just posts.

Pair creator content with actual customer journeys. If a creator posts about your product, have an email sequence ready. Build a dedicated landing page. Set up a demo flow. And go beyond LinkedIn.

Your audience isn't just on one platform. Use webinars, micro-events, newsletters, wherever they actually spend time.

Tier 3: Amplify and optimize.
Tier 3 is about getting more mileage from everything you built.

Repurpose creator content across paid ads, organic social, sales enablement, and product marketing.

Loop in your sales, product, and customer success teams so the content shows up at every stage of the customer journey.

Then use what you learn to refine your messaging and validate your assumptions. Keep optimizing.

✊How to Pick the Right Creators (Without Getting Burned)

Brianna shared a framework based on two factors: authority and audience size.

Then vet with three filters:

• Voice alignment. Do they already talk about your space? If you're selling project management software and they never mention productivity, it won't land.
• Audience overlap. Does their audience match your ICP? A creator with 100,000 followers means nothing if none of them are your buyers.
• Authenticity check. Would this partnership make sense to their audience? If it feels forced, their audience will smell it immediately.

The biggest mistake? Picking creators based on vanity metrics. Follower count doesn't mean influence. Engagement doesn't always mean the right audience is engaging.

📏How to Measure Real Impact (Not Vanity Metrics)

The key is aligning metrics with what different stakeholders care about.

• Sales: Pipeline generation, influenced pipeline, high-intent lead capture.
• Product: Trials or freemium sign-ups, feature adoption lift, product education engagement.
• Customer Success: Account retention and expansion, onboarding lifts, creator-led demos.
• Executives: Influenced pipeline, high-intent lead capture, category association.

Here's the thing: you don't have to hit all these metrics at once. Most campaigns won't and probably shouldn't.

Pick one primary metric and one secondary metric. But keep an eye on the other metrics you're still influencing so you can tell the full story when you report back.

⏳Running a 90-Day Pilot That Works

If you want to test this without blowing your budget or needing exec approval for a massive program, here's Brianna's 90-day framework:

First 30 days: Set up to learn.
Start with business context, not channels. Pick 3-5 creators whose audiences mirror your buyers. Design 1-2 focused plays. Set metrics that ladder into your goals.

Next 30 days: Launch and layer.
Onboard creators with product access, briefs, and content brainstorms. Lock in at least 3 deliverables per creator. Monitor performance in real time. Test messaging angles, formats, and posting cadences.

By day 90: Analyze and adjust.
Review creator performance and early signals. Double down on high-performing creators, formats, and plays. Use learnings to evolve toward longer-term partnerships.

The pilot isn't about proving influencer marketing works. It's about learning how it works for your business.

💡 Real B2B Influencer Examples That Worked

Three companies doing this right?

Semrush started small…
They hosted an invite-only influencer weekend in London with 10-12 marketing creators. Then they scaled it into their Spotlight 2024 conference.

The result? 500+ organic social posts across LinkedIn, TikTok, and Instagram. 3.1M impressions. 1,000 attendees. They turned a weekend with creators into a full conference strategy.

Sprout Social plays the long game.
They co-host micro-events and dinners with top creators. They sponsor community-led events. They use creator content across every channel and send creators as brand reps to industry events.

The key insight: they're not doing one-off posts. They're building actual relationships that keep compounding.

Navattic built a hybrid advisor/influencer program.
Creators get regular demos, strategic context, and early access to updates. They're empowered to share in their own voice.

Navattic prioritizes alignment over follower count. The creators aren't just promoting the product – they understand it deeply enough to recommend it authentically.

The pattern across all three? They gave creators real access, not just talking points.

🫵 What This Means for You

You don't need to launch a massive influencer program tomorrow.

But you should stop ignoring the fact that your buyers are listening to someone else.

Start by asking: who are the voices our buyers trust? Make a list. It doesn't have to be perfect.

And no, there's no magic database that ranks influencers in your industry. This comes back to actually knowing your space. Who are you listening to? What podcasts do your buyers mention? Who's creating content on YouTube or LinkedIn that your customers are sharing in Slack?

Once you have your list, ask: what would a partnership look like? Could you sponsor their newsletter? Co-create content? Send them your product to try?

Pick one person. One campaign. See what happens.

– Dave

P.S. When Brianna walked off stage, at least ten people came up to me asking for intros. That tells you everything you need to know about whether this resonated. If you want to learn more about what she's doing, go follow her on LinkedIn. And tell me…what else do you want to hear about? Reply back and let me know.

📺 UPCOMING EVENTS

[TODAY] The Future of Pipeline: How Marketing Leaders Are Using AI to Drive Revenue

Great B2B marketers know that it’s all about aligning to revenue. And over the last two years, AI has come in with the potential to rewrite how revenue focused marketers find buyers, create demand, and actually hit pipeline targets.

But there’s also more noise and more competition than ever. What’s actually working? What’s real? What’s not?

Join Jess Lytle (Head of Marketing, Exit Five), Morgan Cole (VP, Demand Gen, Red Canary), Lisa Cole (CMO, 2X), and Jean Cameron (Sr. Director of Field & Partner Marketing, Demandbase) to break down what’s working right now with AI in B2B marketing.

What you’ll learn:

• Using AI to identify in-market buyers and accelerate deals
• Aligning marketing, sales, and ops around shared revenue goals
• Evolving their playbooks for a new era of pipeline accountability

Bring your questions. This will be an open, live conversation with hundreds of B2B marketers in the chat.

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🏢 Open Roles

Who's hiring right now?

Inovautus Consulting is hiring a Marketing Advisor and a Marketing Specialist to level up its content and digital engine. The Advisor will drive strategy, lead client relationships, and build integrated, AI-enhanced campaigns that move revenue. The Specialist will power the execution—content, social, HubSpot, events, and day-to-day coordination that keeps everything humming.These roles will leverage AI tools and automation to enhance efficiency, personalization, and performance measurement while driving growth for both clients and the firm.

Tread Technologies is hiring a Head of Marketing to build its entire growth engine from the ground up and turn a traditionally offline industry into a measurable, repeatable pipeline machine. You’ll figure out where construction and materials logistics pros pay attention, craft messaging that ties real-world workflows to Tread’s AI-powered platform, and run integrated campaigns across every viable channel—digital, offline, and everything in between. This role is built for someone who loves experimenting in messy, unconventional markets, moves fast, and can translate insights into revenue.

Ross Video is hiring a Marketing Specialist - Automation to advance lead development and qualification through smart automation and strategic, well-timed communications across the buyer journey. This role spans all communication programs - from demand generation campaigns to product launches and event communications - with a focus on delivering the right message to the right audience at the right time. The ideal candidate pairs marketing automation expertise with strong segmentation, scoring, and data management skills to help convert prospects into qualified opportunities.

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