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Hey Marketing Bestie,

Miami summer weather is unwell.

You wake up to sunshine. 

By lunch, it’s a steam room. 

Then comes the 10-minute downpour.

Followed by a breeze that tricks you into thinking it’s over.

And somehow, the sky still finds a way to drop the most perfect sunset.

My weather app’s just guessing at this point.

Was this email forwarded to you?

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SPARKNOTES FROM THE POD

Any brand can hire influencers for a campaign. 

But how do you make that campaign actually effective? It takes more than just messaging someone with a bunch of followers and hoping it’ll stick. 

And if you’re in the B2B space…you gotta be even more strategic with your influencer marketing efforts. 

You need a plan. You need just a little bit of time and $$. You need good content. Most of all, you need the right influencer(s). 

That’s where Vin Matano comes in. 

Vin’s an influencer marketing expert and even started his own B2B influencer company, Creatorbuzz, to help tech companies scale their influencer arms. 

Here are his 5 tips to make sure your B2B influencer marketing campaigns are effective, in his own lightly-edited words. ⤵️

Vin’s Take: “The best clients that I see are kind of taking that full funnel approach, finding creators that are helping with the top of the funnel, and then... working with creators that are really helping with more bottom of the funnel.”

A common mistake B2B brands make when launching influencer campaigns is focusing solely on top-of-funnel awareness. 

But effective B2B influencer campaigns consider every stage of the buyer journey: awareness, consideration, and conversion.

Vin explains the best-performing campaigns involve a mix of creators who can drive both attention and action. 

- Top-of-Funnel Creators: These are high-visibility creators who create episodic content, skits, or broader industry commentary. Their role is to grab attention and generate brand awareness within a professional audience.

- Mid-to-Bottom Funnel Creators: These are IC-level professionals (like RevOps leads, marketers, or engineers) who may not have massive followings, but their audiences are hyper-relevant and deeply engaged. They can produce things like tutorials, product walkthroughs, etc. 

- By working with both types of creators, brands can move buyers from first hearing about a product to actually trying it, without relying on just one flashy post.

Takeaway: Make a list of 3 creators in your industry who have large followings and drive broad engagement (top-of-funnel), and 3 niche creators with smaller, highly relevant audiences (mid-to-bottom funnel). 

Then, draft a simple campaign plan showing how you would use each group to support different stages of your buyer journey.

Vin’s Take: “If you are a... revenue operations software, well we wanna be deeply embedded into the revenue operations department. We wanna find those ICs who are actual RevOps individuals...like all their followers are RevOps folks.”

Bigger isn’t always better. 

Brands often gravitate toward creators with the largest followings, assuming reach will translate to results.

For most B2B products (especially niche or enterprise tools) audience relevance matters far more than audience count.

Vin gave an example using RevOps pros: your best creator partner might not be someone with 100,000 followers, but someone with 5,000 RevOps, sales, or marketing professionals who actively trust them.

Creators who are practitioners in your target field often create more authentic, tactical, and trusted content that directly impacts conversions.

Takeaway: Find 2–3 niche creators in your space.
Then look at their posts. Not the likes, the comments.

Are people asking smart Qs? Sharing real feedback? That’s the signal.

Audience trust > audience size.

Vin’s Take: “I think the brief should also be brief… What does the company do? What am I promoting? What are the deliverables?”

A well-crafted brief can make or break a B2B influencer campaign.

The most effective briefs are short, clear, and focused. They give creators what they need to know without being overbearing. 

Think: clear, not complex. 

The best briefs should answer five essential questions:

1. What is the product or service?
2. Why is it valuable to this creator’s audience?
3. What are the exact deliverables? (ex. 2 LinkedIn posts, 1 video)
4. What’s the CTA or desired outcome?
5. What brand guidelines or dos/don’ts should they know?

Vin also stresses including examples of successful content, either from your own brand or from others in the industry:

“If you’ve already done influencer marketing, include them in the brief. That really is actually gonna help the creators give some context.”

Takeaway: Draft a brief and get those reps in. It doesn’t have to be perfect (and you don’t even need to actually send it out), but it needs to have your product description, the goal of the campaign, key deliverables, and a CTA.

Keep it short. If it feels like too much to read, it’s probably too long for the creator too.

Vin’s Take: “You do need a good hook in your video... good cuts... emotion to storytelling... the values there, but the pieces that make a great video aren’t there.”

What you say matters, but how you say it matters just as much. 

A post with great value can still flop if it’s delivered in a boring or unclear way. According to Vin, one of the biggest gaps in creator content performance is not the substance, but the structure and presentation.

For video specifically, storytelling on social is completely different than in traditional formats. Instead of building up slowly, you have to grab attention immediately.

He breaks down the three essential types of video hooks:

- Visual Hook: Use your best visuals (B-roll, dynamic cuts, vibrant shots) right at the start.

- Spoken Hook: Say something powerful or unexpected in the first 3–5 seconds.

- Text Hook: Use bold, clear on-screen text that summarizes the value or emotional angle of the video.

(Even if you’re not doing video, the same principle applies to text-based posts: you still need a hook, a clear structure, and some emotional or educational payoff.)

Takeaway: Choose 1 of your recent posts and rewrite (or re-edit) it with a strong hook in the first line or first 3 seconds.

Great content is also about delivering it in a format that grabs attention and keeps people engaged. Does your hook do that?

Vin’s Take: “We’re actually sending a lot of creators to events where they can go on behalf of the brand, capture content... help also drive foot traffic at booths.”

B2B brands often think of events as opportunities for lead capture and networking, which is totally fair. BUT, they’re also great opportunities for content creation and brand storytelling.

Creators can play a huge role as participants, hosts, and content engines. 

They can:

- Create behind-the-scenes videos or interviews to post in real-time

- Host panels, moderate sessions, or lead live Q&As to drive engagement

- Produce long-form recap videos or short-form reels for the brand's social channels

- Draw attention to booths or activations with their presence and audience pull

This creator-led approach changes the game: instead of spending $300K on just a booth, brands can work with creators to create content that can be used beyond the event.

Think: Marketingland. Hubspot Inbound. Yes, I’m biased. 

Takeaway: Pick one upcoming event your brand is attending and brainstorm how a creator could add value through interviews, behind-the-scenes videos, or promoting the event ahead of time. 

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Also OMG....just found out my old college teammate Travis got engaged! Go Bearcats!

Your friend,

Daniel

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