Does influencer marketing actually work? (Dave’s Newsletter)

WHAT WE'RE HEARING

How To Build A Creator Program in B2B

Hey Dave here. In this newsletter I’m talking about Clay’s creator program. How they got customers and partners to become their marketing machine by writing and creating content about Clay on LinkedIn. With some insights from a conversation I had with their Head of Marketing, Bruno Estrella. I also love the little names Clay gives to everything they do (ex: agencies built around Clay are “Claygencies”). If you’re in content / social / or thinking about influencers, this one is relevant to you.

8,000 → 40,000 followers in 10 months

40,000 → 138,000 followers in 1 year

No “viral” moment.

No massive ad budget.

Just this counterintuitive approach:

They did marketing through their customers.

I have no doubt you’ve seen Clay all over the internet and it’s been one big rolling boil: Clay grew their LinkedIn following from 8,000 to 40,000 in 10 months in 2024 and  since then they have tripled that number now with over 138k (yes, on the company page) plus a brand full of execs and teammates in the company with their own followings now too. And it’s not all vanity metrics - revenue at Clay is growing too and as of this writing just last week the company is now valued at over $3B.

So what helped them build this? No viral moment. No massive ad budget. Just a creator program built on a simple idea: your best users are already creating content. Why not help them talk about you?

Here's the thing most B2B companies get wrong about this. They treat it like an affiliate program. Slap a discount code on it. Check a box. Move on.

Clay did the opposite.

“We Noticed Our Users Were Already Creating Content”

Bruno Estrella’s (Head of Marketing at Clay) first insight when building Clay creators was observation, not invention. Clay's early adopters were freelancers and agencies, people who were already building audiences on LinkedIn to grow their own businesses. They were already talking. Clay just needed to show up in the right way.

So they built a three-tiered structure around what already existed:

• Creators Program: people who want to talk about Clay.
• Clay Experts: freelancers and agencies actually building businesses on the platform.
• Top RevOps Agencies: enterprise-focused partners working with bigger clients.

The program isn't “hey, post about us and we’ll send you a gift card.” It’s closer to a community where everyone genuinely uses the product and sees real value from it.

“We Got On Calls With People.”

Here’s where most companies cut corners. They automate too early.

Clay didn’t. At the beginning, Bruno’s team was manually identifying agencies signing up for the product. Then reaching out personally. Hopping on calls. Asking what they were working on, what challenges they had, what they were trying to build.

That's dirty work. It doesn't scale. And that's exactly why it worked. And this a trend I’ve noticed with a bunch of the top performing marketing teams and leaders I’ve met through Exit Five. This is almost always what moves the needle - the things that don’t scale.

(A month ago in newsletter #211 I wrote about this with examples including sending handwritten notes to top prospects. You should go back and read that one if you want more on this topic…)

But here’s what made it more than relationship building. The Clay team would actually help creators build solutions using Clay that drove results for their own businesses. Then those creators would share that with their audiences. Authentically. Because it actually worked.

That’s the flywheel. Not “post about us.” It’s “let us help you win, then tell people about it.”

“We Made It Stupidly Easy To Create Content”

Once you have creators who genuinely love your product, the next question is: how do you remove every possible barrier between them and hitting publish?

Clay went deep on this. They built tools to auto-generate branded screen recordings. They created content templates creators could customize. They gave special product feature access so creators had something new to talk about. And they promoted creator profiles inside Clay’s own paid ads, so creators weren't just helping Clay grow. Clay was helping them grow too.

The best example? They launched a tool where a creator records a voiceover, just talking through a feature, and Clay automatically generates a professional screen recording with the creator's face and voice. No editing. No production. Just talk and ship.

Think about what that does. It removes the biggest excuse: "I don't have time to make good content." Now they do. In five minutes.

This is what we talk about when we say distribution matters more than creation. The content isn't perfect. It doesn't need to be. It just needs to get out there, consistently, from people your audience already trusts.

Three Reasons Clay’s Creator Play Worked

Clay didn't invent creator marketing. But they executed it better than almost anyone I've seen in B2B.

The reason it worked comes down to three things.

1. They started with people who were already creating and already using the product. No forcing it. No paying people to fake enthusiasm.
2. They did the unscalable work first: real calls, real relationships, real help, before they ever thought about automating.
3. They made content creation itself almost effortless.

If you're thinking about building something like this, don't start with the program. Start with your users. Who's already talking about you? Who's already creating content in your space? Find those people. Have real conversations with them. Help them win first.

The marketing engine builds itself after that.

– Dave

P.S. Are you running a creator program right now? Or thinking about it? I’d love to hear what’s working or what blew up in your face. Hit reply. Also, if you know Bruno, go tell him I said hey. He’s doing good work.

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