Hey all,
Happy Sunday before more fun holiday times.
It was awesome to see so many friends and CMOs at Mastercard’s Culture and Entertainment Summit earlier this month, including from Mars, Rituals, Dagne Dover, NASCAR, PepsiCo, Oakley, USA Lacrosse, PayPal, 818 Spirits, Movado Group + more, many of whom are now subscribers & reading this…..welcome!
Creator partnerships were a key topic among leaders, as we’re all doubling down here in 2026.
They are driving how companies collaborate, co-create and build influence…all at a more reliable cost and with stronger authenticity than other growth levers.
I’m seeing this mirrored in the inbound we’re getting at Knight Vision from brands asking to build creator engines from the ground up.
This means running a full creator cycle: sourcing → negotiation → closing → asset planning → posting timelines → approvals → tracking + attribution.
For example, with our epic client, beehiiv, we have ~40 pieces of creator content flighting across platforms in January alone, with trusted creators reaching a combined ~50M followers.
Using the Knight Vision (“KV”) creator build process, beehiiv went from signing one creator every few weeks to as many as 5 per week.
This ^ is fundamentally different from a UGC program ^ (also very popular to build right now) and here’s exactly why: we’re sourcing and working with creators that have audiences filled with the ICP.
A creator program is a 2026 requirement. Reply here if you want to talk through it and we can pressure-test your approach.
@ Mastercard in NYC
We’re nearing the finish line of the Q4 sprint, and it looks incredibly different for our friends in B2B and B2C.
I don’t generally believe marketers are inherently better in one vertical than another; winners will always win because strong fundamentals and intuition transfer. But in December, the work required to win in each is meaningfully different.
So, what’s everyone up to?
B2C: Capturing holiday shopping demand, overpaying for CPMs (real), running seasonal campaigns, and using tight, urgency‑driven promos/discounts to squeeze maximum spend from shoppers
B2B: Budget and planning season, locking in 2025 vendors, running “use‑it‑or‑lose‑it” experiments with final drops of 2025 budget, making special customers feel extra special, and lining up Q1 programs to flight when buyers are back from break.
Keep it going!
Brands that stay visible and keep campaigns live through Q4 will see stronger conversion rates and Q1 performance vs. those that go dark, because pre‑holiday touches compound when buying restarts.
Everyone is relaxing on their phones, doom-scrolling, after all.
Startups still are under heavy pressure to prove that every incremental dollar of spend moves core metrics like ARR (annual recurring revenue), payback period, or gross margin.
That creates a weird split.
I’m seeing startups that raise capital (mostly newer AI startups) deploy it as fast as possible to win as category champions are being carved out.
This is accelerated by investors doubling down on their favorite companies with huge checks (e.g., Lovable raising $330M+ while only being 14 months old, Profound raising back-to-back Series A and B totalling $100M)
Alternatively, there are “normal” startups that can’t out‑spend these players and instead have to out‑focus them; spending only where there is a clear, short line to better unit economics, faster payback, or a more defensible position.
You can also try to create virality. But take it from me, generating 2B+ views took me 2 years. But at the end, Citizen was doing ~100-150M/monthly.
Either way, if you haven’t raised this level of capital, it’s going to be challenging to compete with brands deploying massive cash into marketing and engineering (to ship and market more products, obviously).
So let’s get into it.
Here’s a quick Q4 sprint checklist across B2B and B2C so you can set yourself up for success in Q1:
Where to put last min $$
B2B:
Spoil your favorite customers
This will help expansion and retention via surprise‑and‑delight credits, value‑packed QBRs, roadmap access, and special offers
The goal is to make your best accounts feel like partners so they renew faster + buy more
Resolutions are all the rage; lean in here with messaging
Example: "Reset your stack" bundles and positioning
B2C:
Ship more creative = more shots on goal and opportunities to stand out
Examples: new hooks, visuals, formats, and UGC variations
At KV, we’ve been doing super sick LinkedIn content with partners of ours – reach out about this!
Josh Suggs is building super sick and fast street interview content that you can rotate in
Creators: Everyone wants to make more $ before EOY
I love flash cart-abandon flows: SMS/email sequences with "gift-ready in 24hrs" urgency capture 20-30% of drop-off
Quick assets to get ready before January:
Budgets: Jan budgets need to be locked. If you have partnership ideals, those should be locked in.
Content that recaps your 2025 (brag stats or, alternatively, real moments from a founder)
Founder POV content: “what we believe going into 2026” (used across email, LinkedIn, press, sales, etc.)
Example of what to ship now: Founder email to customers
Any EOY decks or testimonials that you can use to update your website and sales assets; dates on these matter, and something from 2024 will look outdated in 2026
Ship calendar: Lovable’s head of growth said that the faster companies are shipping vs. iterating on existing features, the faster they are growing. I love this, and it’s accurate!
Pricing & packaging sanity check: Confirm it still maps to value bc you should have shipped more this year!
Logo wall cleanup: Remove outdated logos and add whalesssss! We love whales, aka your mega cool customers that make you look legit!
What to stop funding now:
Let’s talk about what to kill or pause.
Paid spend without rapid creative rotation
Running the same Meta ads for months is what brands stuck in 2021 are doing
No weekly creative refresh
No learning agenda beyond “let’s see if it works”. You need to double down on messaging and angles that are showing signs of life. I have an entire strategy around this – reply if you want it.
Your old SEO firm that isn’t optimizing for AEO
Community platforms that no one writes in
Slack or Discords that are totally dead. Either assign an owner or close it down before your brand looks dead, too.
Paid ads agency that isn’t doing creative: What a ripoff and they will be 10x worse than someone who can own the creative to drive pipeline.
Any internal haters of your brand: You need to fix your vibe now to win 2026.
Creator deals with creators who don’t use the product
Outdated lifecycle flows
Example: Welcome emails written 3+ years ago
I can’t even explain how many brands haven’t updated their welcome series and/or have no idea what automations are going out and when. It will take a few days, but do a deep dive here; so worth it!
Internal reports or meetings that are expensive (employee burn based on time spent) but aren’t driving the same amount of value. You’d be surprised at how much can happen async and how much faster your team can move when they have time to work (groundbreaking, i know).
What carries from holiday into Q1:
Pricing:
B2C: You can take winning pricing from holiday and rebrand it as “new year resolutions.”
B2B can also do this with new year discounts pushed by AE’s
Messaging: Founder messaging that welcomes the new year and tees up hype for the company.
Execute this on LinkedIn, X, and email to your customers. Be concrete with how you see 2026 (or at least H,1 aka half 1 of the year) and what you’re betting on.
Offers: I love when B2B does holiday bundles on features and offers interesting specials for the new year (stolen from B2C, of course)
Winning creative or creators.
B2C and B2B should have a grasp on what content works to drive customers and pipeline.
Examples: Whether it’s team posting on LinkedIn, a B2B content creator that is a huge brand champion or micro influencers heavily posting on socials, double down on what’s working.
Conversations you want locked (do this if you haven’t)
Renegotiate with tech vendors
Marketing examples: email service providers, cloud providers, attribution/analytics, ad tech
Ask for this: free seats, new features bundled into your legacy pricing (e.g., AI features)
How to say it: “Competitor X (competitor of the vendor) is offering me X, Y, Z more to migrate. I really don’t want to, so what can you do for me on pricing and value?”
It’s their job to retain you!
Tighten renewals and expansions:
Clean this up:
Get rid of seats you aren’t using
Ask for reduced fees for unused features
For expansions: where usage is clearly outgrowing your current plan, lock in a better price now while you have more leverage before you’re in a time crunch
Book meetings with new potential vendors that are doing cool stuff
There are tons of incredibly cool and specialized companies launching now (thanks, AI boom)
Shortlist 3 to 5 vendors that your industry friends are using or that you’ve seen get traction online (e.g., a new CRM cleanup tool, AI deck maker like Gamma, or a marketing partner who can provide product growth direction, like how we support our clients at Knight Vision).
Well, How’d I Do?
Maybe this is a hot take, but I love using this week to clean up for 2026 and buy positions (attention, distribution, and slots on future stages) while everyone else is chilling on the couch.
This checklist is the perfect place to start.
Where to put in last min $$
Quick assets to get ready before January
What to stop funding now
What carries from holiday into Q1
Conversations you want locked
Of course, let’s make sure you chill out, too.
It’s the best time of the year to feel grateful for closing out another full 12 months of life.
It’s incredibly challenging to balance building your life, your business, friendships, yourself…..and for that, there’s so much to be proud of.
If you made it through another year, you’re already winning.
I hope you have an incredible week.
Julia
