After 12 years of working in-house at lean startups, where she led influencer marketing alongside social and brand strategy, Brianna Doe noticed an opportunity in the market. 

“Influencer marketing is blowing up. We all see it. It’s huge and continuing to grow. But we’re still seeing influencers struggle to figure out how much to charge. We’re seeing brands struggle to figure out how to build really strong, community-driven influencer campaigns that drive the results they’re looking for,” Brianna explains.

So, Brianna established Verbatim in October 2023, a Phoenix-based influencer marketing agency that serves small- to medium-sized B2B SaaS and B2C e-commerce brands with limited marketing resources.

Brianna envisioned Verbatim to be the agency that helped address these obstacles by giving marketing teams the bandwidth and strategic direction to create more intentional, trust-building influencer programs. “Trust is the only differentiator,” Brianna asserts about today’s marketing. “We are saturated with content and options. And trust, in my opinion, is the only differentiator.” 

This philosophy dictates Verbatim’s influencer marketing work for clients whose marketing teams have often been “slashed in half” with “budgets reduced” yet are “being asked to build these programs out of nowhere.”

How Verbatim Approaches Influencer Marketing

When Brianna launched Verbatim, she asked herself a key question: “There are so many influencer agencies out there, and more are popping up every day, especially in the B2B space. So, what do I plan to bring to this space that’s different or unique or actually will make an impact outside of just being another agency?”

The answer lies in Verbatim’s distinctive methodology and service model. While the agency offers standard influencer marketing services—handling everything from sourcing to reporting—what distinguishes it is its modus operandi for client relationships.

“What I focus on outside of the technical skill set that we’ve built is just how we show up for our clients,” Brianna says. “Are we as flexible of a partner as I would have needed back when I was in-house? Can we be agile and pivot and teach our clients along the way instead of just owning everything, bringing them along as partners and coaching them so they know how to do it too?”

This educational partnership approach contrasts with agencies that simply execute campaigns without building client capability. Verbatim offers two primary service models to accommodate different client needs:

1. Targeted support for companies with existing marketing teams that need specific assistance with “influencer sourcing, negotiation, and contracting.”
   
2. End-to-end management for smaller teams without dedicated marketers, covering “the influencer discovery and sourcing process through contracting and invoicing campaign strategy,” along with campaign management, content coordination, and performance reporting.

The agency also provides event speaker sourcing as an additional service, particularly for B2B clients hosting conferences who need help finding influencers to either promote or speak at their events.

The Dual Perspective Advantage

Verbatim’s manner of working is further enhanced by Brianna’s personal experience as a content creator. Having started creating content in 2022, she brings insights from both sides of the influencer-brand relationship.

“Becoming a creator and navigating it from that side adds a level of empathy to the experience,” Brianna notes. “It’s also helped me become a stronger marketer. I now have a really deep understanding of what motivates creators outside of just the dollar signs. And I enjoy helping creators understand what motivates marketers.”

This dual perspective proves helpful during campaign and content strategy development. Brianna explains, “Knowing how to translate it for the brand versus what the creator needs to know. There’s just something about being involved in both sides of the process that makes it a lot more impactful, like from a performance standpoint.”

Building Trust in a Saturated Market

The core of Verbatim’s philosophy is that amid market saturation, trust has become the ultimate brand differentiator. Brianna describes the consumer challenge: “If I take my marketer hat off and put my consumer hat on, you and I have so many options. What we want to buy, where we buy it, who we get it from, and when we buy it.”

This abundance of options is complicated by an “oversaturation of content” and misinformation. As Brianna notes, “If I get on Instagram or TikTok right now, it’s just going to be ad after ad, followed by influencer posts. We are saturated with content and options.”

In this environment, Verbatim helps brands understand that price and features alone won’t distinguish them. “It’s not just pricing because you could price something at $15, but some of your competitors will price it lower or the same. It might be your social media presence, but there are also so many brands doing social well,” Brianna explains.

Instead, she advocates for building trust through several concrete strategies:

1. Transparency in business practices: “Be transparent. Promote transparency in how your products are developed or made and/or in your founders’ values or beliefs.”
   
2. Alignment with customer values: Brianna emphasizes that “in this sociopolitical climate, a lot of consumers are interested in the values of the company, of the founder, where they’re spending their money, where that money is then going.”
   
3. Genuine brand voice: Rather than adopting trendy language that makes brands indistinguishable, Brianna recommends “being clear on what your values are as a brand, having a strong brand voice and not just choosing a brand voice based on what’s trendy.”
   
4. Deep customer understanding: “Talk to your customers and understand who they are and what they’re trying to accomplish. The deeper you understand your customers and ICP, the more authentic you’ll become.”
   
5. Showcasing the human element: Brianna supports employee-generated content (EGC) because “people want to connect with people regardless of whether you’re buying a tech product or a new Stanley cup.”

More Than Virality

A key element of Verbatim’s operations is helping clients focus on meaningful business outcomes rather than just engagement metrics or viral moments. Brianna is clear that “it’s not about making every single thing connect back to a dollar amount. There are marketing plays designed for brand awareness and community engagement.”

However, she emphasizes the importance of aligning on success metrics from the beginning: “The first step is making sure that we’re aligned on what success actually looks like and then managing expectations.”

For B2B clients, this typically means tracking leads, demo bookings, or trial signups while being careful not to directly attribute conversions to influencers if they have no role in the sales process. Brianna also highlights lead quality: “How many or which percentage falls within their ICP. Because that will also tell us if we are partnering with the right influencers. Do they have the audience we’re looking for?”

For D2C clients, metrics often include direct revenue alongside brand awareness indicators like traffic, impressions, and newsletter signups.

A recent case study demonstrates Verbatim’s approach to measurement. Working with a D2C custom merch company developing a B2B offering, they implemented a unique collaboration model where influencers co-create designs and earn revenue shares rather than flat fees. 

“Our initial challenge was figuring out how to measure success,” Brianna says, adding that the solution focused on tracking market share, social listening metrics, word-of-mouth, and reputation building, with revenue as a secondary indicator.

Image: Brianna and influencer Kwame Appiah

The Development

Now approaching its second anniversary and, as Brianna shares, recently ranked the number one influencer marketing agency in Phoenix, Verbatim faces a new strategic decision: whether to scale by building a larger team or maintain the personalized approach central to its success.

“We are at a point, transparently, where I need to decide if I’m going to scale and start hiring full-time folks, or if I want to keep it small and have a smaller client roster,” Brianna says. Her priority remains maintaining the personalized client experience where “each of our clients, they work directly with me.”

Brianna plans to launch micro-events through Verbatim in Q3-Q4 2025, creating opportunities for professionals to connect and network. This aligns with her observation of a broader industry trend toward “more like people-focused events” ranging from “micro dinner, micro conference, a VIP dinner within a conference.”

Insights on the Changing Creator Economy

Beyond her work with Verbatim, Brianna offers practical observations about changes in the creator field. She points to the growth of B2B influencer marketing, particularly on LinkedIn, which has shifted from “just a job-searching platform” to “very much a platform for creators too.”

She also notes the emergence of hybrid influencer-affiliate programs and predicts an influx of new creators based on studies showing a high percentage of students aspiring to become full-time content creators. 

According to Brianna, this will increase competition and make differentiation even more crucial: “Content creators and brands are going to have to find even more ways to differentiate and stand out.”

For brands operating in this environment, Brianna’s perspective on trust as the ultimate differentiator offers a straightforward strategic approach. “And I mean trust in terms of product quality, sustainable practices…whatever that looks like for the consumer and their belief system,” she explains.

Her final insight speaks to the challenge all creator economy businesses face: “It’s really hard to build trust and keep it with consumers.”