Domitille de Saint-Exupéry recently shared something that caught my attention: "Influence marketing drove ~10% of lemlist revenue in 2025. And we’re doubling down in 2026. Here’s the playbook we’re using." In the same breath, she called out what many B2B teams are feeling right now: ads cost more and convert less, SEO (and GEO) takes time, owned content is drowning in an AI-flooded feed, and spray-and-pray outbound is fading fast.

I want to expand on what Domitille is really saying here, because the headline is not "pay creators and win." The point is that influence marketing works when it is built as a system that connects trust (demand creation) to measurable intent (lead capture), and then back again.

"Paying a creator ≠ growth. What works is a system." - Domitille de Saint-Exupéry

Below is my take on the playbook she outlined, plus the practical context that makes it usable for a B2B SaaS team trying to drive pipeline without burning budget.

Creator-Led Growth is the channel that does two jobs

Domitille frames influence marketing (also called Creator-Led Growth) as the rare channel that can both:

Drive leads now
Build demand over time

That matters because most channels are biased toward one side.

Paid search and retargeting often capture demand, but they rarely create new belief.
SEO creates demand capture later, but it is slow and hard to control quarter to quarter.
Brand content can create demand, but distribution is the bottleneck.

Creators are a distribution layer with built-in trust. If your ICP already trusts them, you are not starting from zero. You are borrowing context, credibility, and attention.

The catch is that trust is not a one-off purchase. It is compounding, and compounding requires repetition and consistency.

The six-part system Domitille described (and how to run it)

1) Find creators your ICP already trusts

Domitille’s first step is deceptively simple: find creators your ideal customers already trust. Not necessarily the biggest audiences. The right signal is credibility and engagement inside your niche.

Practical ways to do this beyond follower counts:

Read the comments: are decision makers asking real questions and getting real answers?
Look for repeated names: who does your ICP cite, tag, or quote?
Ask your sales team: which people come up in calls as sources of ideas?
Check relevance density: do they speak to your category weekly, or dabble monthly?

I would add one more filter: creator-audience fit beats creator-product fit. A creator does not need to love your product on day one. They need to deeply understand the problem space your product solves.

2) Co-build content before you scale

Domitille makes it clear this is not a brief-and-pray motion. The best partnerships look like collaboration: back and forth, shared drafts, shared angles, and honest feedback.

Why this matters in B2B:

The creator knows what their audience will accept (tone, depth, format).
You know what claims you can support (proof points, differentiators, boundaries).
Together you can produce content that feels native and still drives the right intent.

A practical content co-build workflow:

Start with one strong idea, not five weak ones.
Agree on the audience problem in one sentence.
Provide the creator with raw material: screenshots, customer quotes, numbers, mistakes you made, lessons learned.
Let the creator choose the format: narrative post, carousel, video, live, newsletter.

This is where most teams get impatient. But co-building upfront is what keeps the content from sounding like an ad, which is exactly what Domitille is warning against.

3) Set a simple attribution model (even a rough one)

Domitille’s advice here is pragmatic: start with a baseline and compare campaigns and creators. It is not perfect, and it does not catch halo effects, but it helps prioritize and it buys trust from leadership.

"Influence has halo effects you’ll never fully attribute. This is just the minimum contribution." - Domitille de Saint-Exupéry

A lightweight attribution model you can implement quickly:

Create a baseline period for direct traffic, demo requests, and branded search.
Track creator-specific UTMs to a dedicated landing page (even if conversion is not immediate).
Track assisted conversions: visits within 7-30 days after a creator touch.
Track leading indicators: profile views, follower growth in ICP roles, replies to outbound that references the creator content.

The goal is not perfect truth. The goal is decision-making: which creators, topics, and formats move the business, and which do not.

This is the flywheel moment Domitille highlights: when something works organically, boost it with Thought Leader Ads so it keeps compounding.

Why this works:

Organic performance is a quality filter. You are not guessing what resonates.
Social proof carries over. High-engagement posts look credible when amplified.
Targeting lets you put that credibility in front of the accounts you actually want.

A practical rule: do not boost average content. Boost proven content. If the post did not earn attention organically, paying for distribution rarely fixes it.

5) Run warm outbound to people who engaged

Domitille shared a specific result from outreach to people who engaged with a creator post: 45% reply rate, qualified meetings, in one week.

That makes sense because engagement is intent. It is not purchase intent, but it is attention intent. And attention is the hardest part.

How to do warm outbound without being creepy:

Reference the topic, not the person: "Saw you engaged with the post about X - curious how you handle Y today."
Ask a small, relevant question.
Offer a resource aligned with the creator’s point of view (checklist, teardown, template).
Keep it short, and do not overclaim.

This is also where sales and marketing alignment becomes real. Marketing creates the conversation surface area, sales follows up while the topic is still warm.

6) Then you scale (carefully)

Domitille ends with the scaling step: replicate with top creators, test new formats and platforms, and turn your best creators into long-term partners (or even influencer managers).

In my experience, scaling works best when you standardize the system, not the creativity. Keep the machine consistent:

Creator selection criteria
Collaboration process
Tracking and reporting
Paid amplification rules
Outbound follow-up playbook

But let the content stay human and varied. If every creator post starts sounding like the same corporate narrative, you lose the very trust you rented.

The growth loop: organic influence + paid boost + intent outbound

Domitille’s outcomes are the kind most teams want right now: CPL cut by 2-3x, direct traffic up, conversion rates up.

What I like about her framing is that it is not a single tactic. It is a loop:

Organic creator content creates demand and attention
Thought Leader Ads amplify what already works
Warm outbound converts engagement into conversations
Those conversations feed back into better content angles and proof

You end up with a system that can create demand and capture it, without relying on one fragile channel.

If you want to try this in the next 30 days

If I were implementing Domitille’s playbook from scratch, I would do this:

Week 1: shortlist 20 creators, interview 5, pick 2 to pilot
Week 2: co-build 2 posts per creator with a single clear thesis
Week 3: publish, monitor comments, collect objections and questions
Week 4: boost the best post with Thought Leader Ads and run warm outbound to engagers

Keep the first cycle small, measurable, and fast. The commitment Domitille mentions is mid-term, but you can prove the loop quickly.

This blog post expands on a viral LinkedIn post by Domitille de Saint-Exupéry, CMO @lemlist | Follow for real B2B Marketing insights from the tech trenches. View the original LinkedIn post →