The Case for B2B Brand Trips: Trust Doesn’t Scale Itself

B2B marketers are trying something new: brand trips with creators. A “brand trip,” in which a B2B team might fly a creator out for a curated weekend, goes a few steps beyond perks or influencer junkets. The idea has its roots in B2C marketing, but serves a different function. It’s a new level of trust-building for high-stakes buyers.

Relationships are the currency that closes deals for B2B companies these days. That’s why many businesses find high-ROI relationships with influencers and creators. According to Ogilvy, 75% of B2B brands already work with influencers. 

Brand trips are a logical next step. They’re an experience that can help a brand scale its relevance with a creator’s audience. Additional advantages, like networking with creators, can also pay off in long-term opportunities.

A brand trip might look like a luxury from the outside. But for B2B brands, it’s fast becoming a new style of growth strategy. And the intangible benefits—relevance, loyalty, and strategic feedback—are often well worth the cost.

The shift that made brand trips inevitable

These trips should not surprise anyone paying attention to the B2B creator economy. Creators on LinkedIn are one key example. Digiday notes that B2B influencer marketing agency Creator Match has seen success. It’s even earned 80% of its lifetime revenue in just “the past few months.” That suggests a parabolic growth rate for B2B creator marketing on the platform.

“The rise of the B2B influencer is going to be extraordinary,” said marketing expert Gary Vaynerchuk a few months ago. Of note: he was using LinkedIn’s video platform to share the message. “The characters like myself and many others…are going to rise very aggressively.”

Brendan Gahan, CEO of B2B influencer agency Creator Authority, agrees. By his estimate, B2B influencer marketing will go up by as much as 400% by the end of the year. “The conversation before was very much that if you even were to get a budget, it was very small, because it was very experimental,” Gahan told Digiday. “Now, people are coming to us with budget specifically for this.”

With those budgets come brand trips. 

A brand trip is a curated, in-person experience. On these trips, companies host creators for networking, content, connection, and brand immersion. The purpose? To find resonance with the influencers drawing attention on platforms like LinkedIn. If B2B buyers trust people more than platforms? Using LinkedIn as a brand storytelling platform won’t be enough for B2B companies. Engaging brand storytellers, on the other hand, is an effective way to scale both trust and reach.

Outreach was once driven by sales reps and industry whitepapers. Now it’s community-led. It’s full of Substack writers, podcast hosts, and LinkedIn creators. The data backs this up, too. 75% of decision-makers trust brands collaborating with established industry experts and influencers.

B2B marketers have relied on creators in many ways. If thought leaders are more important than ever, then in-person experiences were always going to be the natural next step.

What a B2B brand trip actually looks like

In 2024, software company SEMrush hosted a summer B2B trip to London. Vin Matano immediately took note of how fun and B2C-like the trip appeared. “[Brand trips] in B2B? I’d never seen this before,” wrote Matano on LinkedIn. “Until I saw some of my fav B2B Influencers posting from the SEMrush weekend event in London. Themed dinners, to a branded SEMrush city bus, to a content creation contest with $5k cash prize…This was the first B2B Brand Trip I've seen so far.”

Nicole Price, lead of Influencer Marketing for SEMrush, helped execute the trip. “When pitching these trips internally, you need to have a very clear, strategic understanding of your long-term goals. Our business has been focused on growing awareness of SEMrush as not just a tool to enhance a brand’s online visibility, but a platform that serves a variety of marketing needs, for businesses of any size.”

Not every trip is going to have branded SEMrush city buses and $5,000 cash prices. But the goals are typically similar: deepening relationships with trusted creator voices. Those voices heavily influence the buying conversations happening on platforms like LinkedIn. A brand trip can therefore provide exposure for an up-and-coming B2B name. Other brand trips might host feedback sessions, early service reviews, or networking formats.

But the common thread is deepened relationships with those creator voices. Creators can walk away with access to a brand they respect. They can gain new insights into the industry in which they follow. In return, brands benefit from stronger goodwill, fresh insights, and organic exposure.

How smart companies are selecting creators

A strong brand trip finds resonance with new voices. But a creator’s voice doesn’t draw its strength from follower count alone. Fit is just as important. A marketing director might curate a trip for creators with industry credibility. That’s true even if the creator’s audience size isn’t huge.

“Influencer selection for in-person events is based on alignment,” notes Jess Cervellon, founder at Open Latte Collective and a frequent B2B event host for SheInnovates and MidCoast Community. “With our brand ethos, their relevance to the target audience, and their ability to spark valuable conversations.”

Which creators make the best fit? Those with specific niches or long-established patterns of thoughtful content. The ability to spark conversation within the category doesn’t hurt, either. 

“I don’t intentionally seek out and invite influencers, though sometimes the folks that we invite happen to be ‘influencers,’” said Alexa Kilroy, VP of Marketing at FERMÀT Commerce, which recently hosted a group at Coachella.

“FERMÀT is always seeking to fill our events with the best and the brightest in the ecom and retail industries. This means inviting brand CMOs, Directors of Ecomm, Founders, and similar leaders or operators that are either personally respected, or respected by way of the success of their business.”

Audience size is only one proxy for these intangible qualities. For B2B brands, a trip might include a healthy mix of expertise. Content marketers. Media strategists. Ad experts. Thought leaders from parallel industries. The greater the mix, the more interesting the trip should be.

Ideally, the whole of the trip will be worth more than the sum of its parts. According to Cervellon, “The objective is to amplify reach, bring credibility, and create content moments that extend the event’s impact beyond the room.”

That was true for SEMrush’s 2024 London influencer weekend. Organizers invited creators from niche communities. They invited creators who established expertise in different facets of content and marketing. SEMrush didn’t simply invite the loudest voices with the heaviest follower counts. The “curation” strategy resulted in a weekend that felt more organic. And the result? Creating valuable interactions for both the creators and the hosts.

What actually happens at a brand trip - and why it works

What separates a B2B brand trip from a bloated conference? Or any chaotic off-site marketing activity? These trips don’t have to be large. The best brand trips may even be small by intention. They just need clear strategic aims that thrive under a more curated environment.

A typical B2B brand trip agenda could include lots of things. Maybe early access to unreleased features for the purpose of soliciting feedback. Or candid feedback sessions with product or marketing teams to find fresh angles. Other formats might blend one-on-one meetings, casual dinners, and downtime. What ideas spark in the spontaneity of everyday conversation? It’s hard to find those answers on LinkedIn.

“[Brand trips are] designed to foster peer learning and open dialogue,” said Cervellon, “positioning our brand as a connector and resource.” Simply by playing host for the weekend, a B2B company can establish authority. It might also “borrow” authority from some of the creators invited.

For Kilroy, each of these elements helps create social proof. 

“Our goal in hosting IRL events is to further establish FERMÀT (as a business) and the FERMÀT team (as individuals) as thought leaders in the space,” said Kilroy. “We achieve this by deeply curating our event experiences, speakers/content, and attendees to be best-in-class. Throwing awesome events with brilliant marketing leaders in attendance is a form of social proof, in a way.”

There’s also something to be said for the in-person experience. Shared experiences are different from the online environment. Downtime between curated events offer new connections. And those connections aren’t accessible in LinkedIn DMs or Substack subscriptions. B2B creators may come away with stories from the event. They may find new connections that helped elucidate a trend in the industry. Shared experiences give story-worthy content to these voices. And this helps build trust for the brand that played host.

“Shared experiences in general are what bind us as people,” said Anthony Kennada, Chief Marketing Officer at Gainsight. “And you can think of that also outside the context of work with any relationship, be it friendship, dating, or romantic. It’s these shared experiences that really kind of build and bind us together and create that connection.”

These trips also give brands a chance to test their positioning. If something isn’t resonating with their live audience? The brand can learn more just by looking at the faces of the people attending a feedback session. Brands can get feedback from real practitioners with expertise in the field. These experts can elucidate trends and problems with each B2B category. These insights are often more valuable than survey results. After all, they come straight from people in the know.

Cervellon says B2B brands shouldn’t necessarily look at brand trips as quantitative marketing schemes. “Success is measured both quantitatively and qualitatively,” said Cervellon. “Attendance numbers, engagement metrics, and follow-up activity - alongside feedback from attendees and the quality of connections made.”

How can a brand discern what counts as qualitative success? “There are several factors, some of which you honestly can’t even measure,” said Kennada. “You can’t discount the feeling of people engaging - how they liked the event. You can quantify that through an NPS, which we would do…[which] gives us both qualitative and quantitative feedback.”

B2B brands can hope that these experiences lead to future posts from each creator. But social coverage, while an extraordinary benefit, isn’t always the goal. Creators often leave the experience with a deeper connection to the brand. They understand more about its goals. They know if it’s receptive to new ideas. They learn about the people behind it. These are the lessons that often get shared organically in the form of recommendations, mentions, and yes, LinkedIn posts.

How to define success (and why it’s not just about reach)

It’s helpful if a trip leads to a viral LinkedIn story roundup or a video about each creator’s experience, true. But that’s not always the point. Whether or not a B2B Brand Trip “worked” requires evaluation on multiple fronts.

As Cervellon mentioned, some teams track engagement data. Number of posts, impressions, traffic spikes, social mentions. These don’t necessarily define the success of the event. But they at least assign numbers to the reach it created. Others might focus on more qualitative signals. A creator might mention the brand weeks later, creating a network effect that is no less tangible, but much more difficult to measure.

Cervellon agrees with this strategy. “We also look at post-event collaborations and whether relationships move forward as a result,” said Cervellon. Many other brands look for long-term signals. Ongoing collaboration and deeper networking relationships are hard to measure, but they’re real.

From a pure ROI point of view, it can be difficult to justify a B2B brand trip in social impressions. But that’s not the goal. B2B brands need strategic creator alignment. They need to find more trusted voices willing to engage with them and trust them. If those voices are excited about your brand’s roadmap and have a better understanding of your value proposition? They may genuinely want to keep working with you. Or send you contacts who do.

Planning, logistics, and timelines (so it doesn’t fall apart)

No one who’s planned a vacation believes a successful B2B brand trip can happen overnight. They often take months to prepare.

“Planning is extensive,” reports Cervellon. “Typically starting 3-6 months in advance, depending on the event’s scale and complexity. This allows for thoughtful programming, strong partnerships, and enough runway to secure the right attendees and collaborators.”

Travel options and venues are the obvious checkpoints. But so are issues like creator selection, program selection, deciding which members of the team to involve. And so are basic ideas like defining goals and expectations.

The good news? For B2B brand trips, achieving clarity can be more important than achieving scale. Brands should know exactly why they’re bringing these creators together. They should know what kinds of qualitative results they hope for. They should then build the events around those ideas. Additionally, some brands also co-design the agenda with input from creators, which gives creators a sense of ownership in both the event and the brand.

Moving from basic trips into a new core strategy

From the outside looking in, a fun trip can seem like a vanity play. But B2B brand trips can be a new approach to building trust. They can be a powerful force for scaling network influence within B2B industries.

“What creators or influencers give [brands], I think, is at least two things,” said Kennada. “One, credibility. It’s not just you talking about the movement; you’re getting other voices to bring their brand equity into the conversation. Two, distribution. [Creators] have an audience themselves. So by partnering, you get validation and reach.”

A simple issue like trust is often a bottleneck in B2B. Buying decisions can be collaborative, careful, and even slow. That’s why these brand trips can get momentum on your side. They can build a greater sense of personal investment than a dozen email drip campaigns.

That’s why more brands are experimenting with the “trip” format. They are not copying DTC brands but adapting a proven tactic to the uniquely human mechanics of B2B growth.