Jodi Cerretani, VP of Marketing at RollWorks, an Account Based Marketing platform, sat down with Mike to discuss how marketers can use ABM to maximise their marketing efforts and how RollWorks can support this process. Jodi shares why it is more important than ever to focus on intent and how this can set you up for success. She also offers the best advice she has been given and provides her own advice for new marketers starting their careers.

Listen to the podcast now via the links below:

About RollWorks

RollWorks is an account-based marketing platform for B2B marketing and sales. Through proprietary data and machine learning, RollWorks helps teams identify their target accounts and key buyers, reach those accounts across multiple channels, and measure program effectiveness.

Time Stamps

[00:27.00] – Jodi shared a little about her career journey and what lead her to RollWorks.

[04:20.00] – What is Rollworks? How does it help its customers – Jodi shares her insights.

[08:41.00] –Mike and Jodi discuss integrations and target audiences in ABM marketing

[12:49.00] – What marketing strategies and tactics does RollWorks use itself?

[17:02.00] – Jodi talks about measurement and pricing transparency

[21:47.00] – Jodi offers her marketing advice and industry insights

Quotes

“I think you have to be comfortable with a certain amount of ambiguity and instinct. Yes, this matters. Yes, this is going to drive action. Yes, this is worth my time. And it, it pushes the initiatives of a business forward, even though I can’t see it in my…revenue.” Jodi Cerretani, VP of Marketing at RollWorks.

Follow Jodi:

Jodi Cerretani on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodicerretani/

RollWorks website: https://www.rollworks.com/

RollWorks on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rollworks/

Follow Mike:

Mike Maynard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaynard/

Napier website: https://www.napierb2b.com/

Napier LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/napier-partnership-limited/

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Want more? Check out Napier’s other podcast – The Marketing Automation Moment: https://podcasts.apple.com/ua/podcast/the-marketing-automation-moment-podcast/id1659211547

Transcript: Interview with Jodi Cerretani – RollWorks

Speakers: Mike Maynard, Jodi Cerretani

Mike: Welcome to marketing b2b technology, the podcast from Napier. Today I’m joined by Jodi Cerretani. Jodi is the VP of Marketing at RollWoks. So welcome to the podcast. Jodi.

Jodi: Thank you so much for having me, Mike. I’m excited to be here.

Mike: So Jodi, tell me a bit about your career journey seems really interesting. He started off, like studying psychology and then went into marketing. So how you ended up in marketing, and then ultimately got some role works?

Jodi: Yeah, so I think back on that on those college years, I remember very little honestly, Mike about the individual classes that I took in my psychology jority. But I do think that college taught me very much about how to learn and definitely expose me to a tonne of people, I did a number of different things outside of college, I managed women’s resource and Action Centre, I did some independent research, I was a TA etc. And over the years, I’ve been told that my velocity of learning is one of my biggest strengths. And that sort of skill isn’t really decoupled from my people skills. So I think I tend to have a flexible approach when it comes to different people a different approach for different people. And I tend to get people very quickly, my husband actually says, I have a knack for difficult people. And I think that’s just meaning that I tend to connect with and find ways to understand and motivate different people. And I think that core that velocity of learning coupled with people instinct, allows me to nail a foundation in b2b marketing that’s necessary. And that is to really understand what is going to motivate people to take action. So I think that that, that journey, starting in psychology and the little nuances to that, that early part of my education, definitely did help set me up for success, but maybe slightly less literally than one might imagine from someone with my background. So I think I ended up in in Legion or demand generation, I’ve run all of marketing now.

But I definitely can’t unring the demand gen Bell, I definitely have that orientation. And probably we’ll always be looking to create, you know, revenue for our company. So I spent a number of years in the latter part of of college doing independent research. And I quickly learned through that experience that I am way too impatient for that line of work. And I really needed to be in a career where the effort that I was making, even on a daily basis was connected to impact, important impact right away. So in research, as I’m sure you’re aware, you could do many years of conducting the research, and then it takes many years to publish and create impact. And that just wasn’t going to work for me. So it was very obvious to me, I needed to shift into a career where that could be possible. And that’s very much the nature of demand gen and b2b marketing these days. So as far as how I ended up at RollWoks, I’m lucky and blessed to have worked with a number of very talented people over the years. And one of those individuals, a fella by the name of Mike stocker was that role works. And he reached out and shared just the details of the company and really inspired me with how incredible the culture was incredible the leadership was and really the potential of this space. So that was kind of the initial hook. But beyond that, I have learned about myself that I have a particular passion for helping other marketers, you know, peers, people in my role or aspiring to be in my role really earn the seat at the table. And I think one of the direct ways to do that is to allow those individuals to make an impact on the business and to prove that impact. And so, ABM and roadworks and sort of our charter very much connects into that personal ambition that I have. So it was a bit of a combination, I suppose, of getting that endorsement from Mike and some of those key elements of the the business model Leadership, Culture, etc. But then, also being a company where I could continue to pursue that personal passion of mine.

Mike: That sounds awesome. And I love the way that you talked a lot about the company culture as a reason to join. But you also seem very enthusiastic about what the company actually does say, can you just tell listeners who don’t know what RollWoks does? I mean, what, what do you offer customers?

Jodi: Yeah, so we offer our customers what we call a no nonsense Account Based Marketing platform that drives efficient revenue growth at b2b companies. It’s a bit of a mouthful, but that’s kind of a fancy way of saying that we make b2b revenue generation through marketing, tangible, scalable and less expensive than ever before. So so that’s kind of the gist

Mike: of it. How are you doing that? Are you serving ads to particular company? So what’s the approach when you say Account Based Marketing, so there’s a lot of martech companies doing different things in the ABM space?

Jodi: For sure. So there are a lot of point solutions that are focused done kind of an account based approach or a fit, focused approach, role works, you know, as that platform we sort of are that end to end solution, helping folks realise the promise of ABM and the promise of ABM is is efficient by nature, because we’re focused primarily, if not exclusively, on the accounts that are most likely to purchase in the near term and be most valuable to your business in terms of the average deal size, and their fit as a customer, and therefore their longevity as a customer. And additionally, the promises of ABM are really connected with sales and the rest of the go to market team. It is multi channel and highly what I like to call Hyper relevant messaging across your different channels. And it allows you to measure all these different initiatives in a single platform. So I think simply put, we help folks identify their best fit accounts to go after reach those accounts through ads, and then a variety of other marketing and sales channels, and then measure all that impact to top and bottom line metrics in kind of a single destination.

Mike: That’s perfect. That’s a great overview. I’d like to unpack it a bit, you said something which I think a lot of marketers were picked up, that you find accounts that are most likely to actually spend money, and also like to spend the most. So that seems like two different things that you’re looking at intently, you’re looking at FIT. Can you talk about how RollWoks does that?

Jodi: Yeah, so intent data, what it means to roll work, sometimes people use intent, the word intent to describe first party activities that they’re able to track at the account level, some analysts use that term for role works, we separate intent as a third party pool of data, and then engagement as that first party pool of data. So it’s true that we have incredible capability to connect into all the sources of activity data on the person and the account level and make sense of it. So a lot of times, marketers, we have different systems of record across marketing and sales, we’ve got our website that there’s certain activities, we’ve got our marketing automation platform, perhaps we have a sales outreach tool, et cetera. And then additionally, our buyers are engaging with the rest of the web, right, which oftentimes is invisible to us. And so RollWoks has this incredible ability to be able to pull all of that data across the web, as well as all of your first party activity sources, and pull it up to the account level, whether they’re, it’s an anonymous individual that’s acting, or whether it’s a known individual, we can tie that up to the account record, and therefore have a complete understanding of all the activities that you might value as a business. So that’s extremely powerful for our customers. Because as you said, it’s not just about the fit, that’s a great starting point, but it’s also about their readiness. So looking across first and third party data to really understand their interests, their readiness, their willingness to buy, whether the timing is right. And their affinity as a company can allow you to do a whole slew of things that are really exciting in terms of prioritising the right accounts, and then acting on those accounts in a really relevant way.

Mike: That’s great. I’m just interested, you mentioned, you know, obviously, that robot sits in an environment with a lot of other tools and is pulling in first party data maker from the market information platform and pulling in third party data. I mean, integrations must be huge part of what you do, how do you make sure you integrate with the products that your customers need? Because it seems like every day, there’s a whole wave of new marketing technology products that you probably need to integrate with?

Jodi: Absolutely, yeah, I mean, we’ve made the deliberate choice as a vendor as a solution to really support a composable tech stack versus trying to build one tool to rule them all. And that’s kind of unique in our space, our competitors are, are really trying to disrupt and in many cases, replace a lot of the other the mahr tech and sales tax solutions. But we found that when we talked to our customers, they are really intolerant of kind of the switching costs or the cost of ripping and replacing what they already are using. And to be honest, they believe that their needs are unique. And so they want to select you know, the the individual tools and technologies that fit their unique needs, as opposed to purchasing a behemoth tool that maybe have subpar or just slightly misfit capabilities when it comes to say email marketing or other things. So yes, integrations are very important to us. They’re very important to our solution. And you’re right, I think I’m not sure what it is now is it 9000 Martex. So allusions, and that’s just on the marketing side of it. It’s pretty wild. So it’s not rocket science. Honestly, Mike, we’re just constantly conducting customer interviews and really trying to understand who are the core technologies that our customers are using in order to support their account based motion or they’re kind of demand gen to Dotto revenue, marketing, whatever you want to call it. So certain things are definitely going to be core like a marketing automation platform. We’ve got rich integrations with sort of a largest marketing automation platforms, gifting tools, intent sources, etc. And we make decisions about who to integrate with, I think we have 27 integration partners at this point, which is, is pretty beefy, and definitely checks all those core boxes that our customers need to and want to see. And those integrations continue to be our partnerships continue to be formed and and whilst sort of always be on that journey.

Mike: Yeah, I’m sure you keep a few developers busy with all these integrations. Absolutely. So what I’m really interested in finding out is who typically works with RollWoks, do you have a typical customer? Or is it a range of people that use the product?

Jodi: Yeah, it’s a bit of a range, but neatly in two camps. So we like to say that we have two solutions and two audiences that are the right fit for those two solutions. On the one end, sort of on the upper end of the mid market and into the enterprise, we offer what most people see as the most sophisticated, targeted ad platform on the market. And that typically suits the needs of a b2b company that’s in technology, manufacturing, business or financial services. And they’re really looking for sort of the the Ferrari of of ads, most of the time, it’s within an ABM practice, but they believe that advertisements is the most cost effective way to sort of reach and engage, convert, accelerate, etcetera, their business. And so they’re really focused on that sort of channel and the offer that we have within that channel. And then on the other end, sort of on the other side of the market, we offer, what I have said we’d like to say is that no nonsense ABM solution for growth oriented small to medium sized businesses. And they’re looking for full platform capability. So everything from identification of target accounts to engaging those target accounts across their channels and tools of choice, and then measuring all those capabilities with one tool. So I guess, strategically, the ABM market is pretty saturated. There’s a lot of point solutions and different folks that if they didn’t originally set out to solve an ABM kind of challenge or be in that market, they have aligned to that, that kind of growth in the market. And that that interest in ABM, it’s very, it’s very popular, it still is very popular as a category. And because of that, we’re really looking for green space and aligning our solution and our go to market strategy to the to areas of the market we feel like are simply underserved by the capabilities that the other partners might have today. And so that’s where you get this bifurcated approach and two very distinct markets looking for two distinct solutions.

Mike: And presumably, that impacts how you as RollWoks, do your marketing, you have to treat those two audiences very differently.

Jodi: It absolutely I mean, we’ve learned that it’s best if we’re very, very thoughtful about how we go to market because there are different as you can imagine, different buyers, different level of complexity, different members of the buying committee, different needs different messages, different ABM, maturity, et cetera. And so it really is very specific. And so we’ve built our internal teams and our approaches to be as relevant and also thoughtful I guess it in our approach and make sure that all the the mechanics of go to market are there and we’re doing all the right things in terms of paying ourselves back and supporting growth in those two areas.

Mike: And I guess, I assume you’re gonna say something about ABM when I start asking you about tactics and how you approach actually getting the message to those two audiences.

Jodi: Yeah, we definitely eat our own cooking as my head of sales like to say and it may or may not surprise you that for role works, we don’t have a separate demand gen team that is distinct from our ABM team. In fact, we sort of see ABM and demand gen is one of the same in many ways, ABM is just our mindset or our North Star and how we approach going to market in a highly aligned and highly efficient way. That’s definitely very much true. Were a last touch attribution house formally and so us and everyone else on the planet will see if their last touch attribution house that their most successful tactics are going to be eat anything that offers something that is as close to give me a meeting with sales as as possible. Those are those hand raising calls to action are obviously going to show up as the last thing that someone did before they booked a meeting and then ultimately down the road about your product. Specifically for us, I’ll give drifta shout out here because drift is a chat solution. But they also have this capability that allows folks to kind of skip the form and choose a time of day that works for them to meet with a salesperson. So it eliminates that friction. And then on the on the back end, of course, it eliminates the drop off that you typically see between somebody submitting a form request you to speak to sales and when you can actually get them scheduled and to show up. And so drift actually is our number one source of demand, in part because we’re a last touch attribution house. And that’s just how the everything shakes out. But in part because it’s a it’s a really friction free process. But beyond sort of last touch, we obviously know that there’s other important motions, other important touches, I should say, in the demand creation motion, you have to source buyers, we have to accelerate them along the process. And and that role works. The marketing team is also responsible for Retention and Expansion as well. So really, there’s a lot that goes into it. So we do very carefully look at what what brings folks in what sort of moves them along what converts them, what encourages them to stay with us and buy additional things. And, and so we’re very prescriptive in how we approach how are we going to resource these different types of motions. And depending on where we’re seeing gaps in our funnel, that’s where we shift our attention, and then invest in the right tactics at every sort of stage, depending on what impact we’re focused on.

Mike: And I’m interesting, you’ve obviously said that you invest in different tactics, even though you really focus attribution on the last touch, and could hear me on a podcast, which is classic top of the funnel stuff. I mean, how do you justify investment when you’re not actually measuring ROI directly for that activity?

Jodi: Yeah, I guess there’s two answers to the question. One is, is I think regardless of what the tactic is, or what purpose it has, that you should always, as best you can, try to tie that investment, whether it’s a investment in time, or investment, financial investment, to the most meaningful business outcome that you can, I think, as an orientation. And because of the capabilities of different tools and technologies and measurement capabilities that is standard today, we we are obligated as marketers to always try to connect our actions to business outcomes. Having said that, there is going to be a certain piece where it’s very intangible. I was on a podcast a couple of weeks ago, and I had a customer, actually the decision maker for a really important customer who we’ve been trying to get connected with, in terms of an executive sponsor relationship. And she had been sort of not very responsive. And she happened to hear me on a podcast and reached out to our contact and was like, I would like to speak to your VP of Marketing, because I really liked some of the things that she was saying. I mean, what are the odds? Right, so, you know, in that case, that was the, quote, measurement. But obviously, it’s anecdotal. And it’s difficult to scale. So I think the second part of the answer, Mike, is that I am one of the most data driven business folks out there, but I even I know that there is going to be a part of marketing that is just intuitively right. And that is where there’s a period at the end of that sentence, I think we have to be comfortable with a certain amount of ambiguity. And that your instinct on Yes, this matters, yes, this is going to drive action. Yes, this is worth my time. And it it pushes the initiatives of a business forward. Even though I can’t see it in my quote unquote, sources of revenue, we have to be somewhat comfortable for that level of ambiguity. Yeah, I guess I’m talking about both sides of my mouth, but it is a complicated field. So you know, stay attached to business outcomes as best you can, but then leave room for the fact that you just aren’t going to be able to measure every single thing.

Mike: That’s first face it. I mean, things are not black and white, I guess. And I’m interested because RollWoks has somewhat changed its strategy on pricing a couple of years ago, RollWoks are very aggressive, very open about his pricing. And now you’ve chosen to take that off the website and you have to actually ask for the pricing. I’m interested in what drove the decision to change the strategy there.

Jodi: You just caught us in a moment of transition honestly, Mike, we definitely believe in transparency in the buying process, including being upfront about our price points and and particularly our starting price because it is resetting the standard in the market. For what ABM platforms full ABM platforms with for ABM platform capabilities ought to cost which you know, is you know, less than $1,000 ollars per month as a starting point, it’s just that we’re actually changing our pricing and packaging model a bit on the background. So to not confuse existing customers that are going through the sales process now, before we’ve been able to publish it, so stay tuned in just a short while we’ll have pricey backup on the website. But regardless of the details, we definitely remain committed to being the right priced ABM solution and make sure that all businesses regardless of their size, or ABM sophistication, have a package that works for them both in terms of the impact they’re looking to drive and the price point that is accessible for their particular budget.

Mike: What a great answer. I mean, I love the fact that you are committed to transparency and price. I think a lot of people get frustrated by the, you know, kind of a peak pricing that some people produce. And I suspect because we record these podcasts in advance, probably by the time this podcast is released, actually, you’ll be back in you may well have the pricing on the site, people will be asking why are such a crazy question. But it was fascinating to get your answer.

Jodi: Yeah, no worries. But I think I agree with you. I think transparency is key, especially as we know that buyers are doing almost all of their research ahead of time, a lot of times the folks that are doing that research and making a recommendation or they’re putting together a business case, they may be a more junior level person. So they really want as much detail as possible before they present, at least their top a few vendors to selected. We’re just realists are in that and just want to support folks finding the right tool for them.

Mike: So, JD, you’ve been a great guest. It’s been really interesting. We normally ask a couple of sort of quickfire questions. So I’m gonna dive into it. Now as we come to the end of the interview. The first question is, what’s the best bit of marketing advice you’ve ever been given?

Jodi: Oh, I know that I don’t know if I ever recall a particular piece of marketing advice. But I definitely remember one of my early early sales counterparts, he had this phrase that he would say about sales, which I actually think applies very much to marketing, b2b marketing. And that is you eat what you kill. And I think that idea that you benefit from the revenue that you drive is very important for marketers to ingest and live by, it’s both important for from a career security and career advancement perspective, but also from the perspective of accessing resources internally, right, commanding the attention of folks that you need to command attention, getting alignment, and getting support. In many ways. I agree with my CFO, that revenue solves all problems, right. And so it needs to be the number one focus of your marketing organisation. It’s not simply a demand gen function, it is the responsibility of everyone in marketing period. So I guess that’s what I would say is just keep that in mind. That’s what someone told me about sales. And, boy, it’s not just sales, it’s marketing to

Mike: I love that, that’s great. Another thing I’m interested in, a lot of things are happening at the moment in marketing, click with AI coming in and disrupting. What if somebody asked you, you know, that at the start of the career, whether they should go into market or not, what would be your advice?

Jodi: I’m not sure it’s related to AI. But I absolutely think marketing is oftentimes the unsung hero there. It’s the good news. Bad news is that we have the ability to impact so much in a business culture, internal marketing, and sort of the perspective the alliance that your employees have with the company, etc. It’s it’s incredibly powerful. But I think that what I often tell folks on my team, it’s a personal mission of mine to get everyone aligned to this. And also, if when I have the opportunity to mentor young younger folks, is that it is it is absolutely critical to invest in your own business acumen. I think it’s becoming now a more standard than not that businesses expect that the leaders in marketing will be business people first marketer second. And I think that is a transition that has been happening over the last few years. And now what’s absolutely key in order to going back to what I said, earn your seat at the table or earn that seat at the strategic table that the table of the executives and the board etc, is to really understand how every single ounce of your effort is driving business impact and being able to actually speak in terms that those folks that are in those rooms understand which is ultimately about financial statements and in dollars, dollars and costs. I think that is you know, not necessarily something that you get in college to it typically, but definitely through mentorship, definitely through the LinkedIn learning and other sorts of ways to educate yourself exposure etc. I think that’s something that is absolutely critical. And no matter what role you take in marketing, that that is where you want to be where you’re not simply a cost centre With the way that we were 10 years ago, or 15 years ago, whatever it was, but you’re really a strategic partner at the strategic table, and the only way to earn that seat and the only way to really belong there is to make sure that you’re speaking the language of business, which is ultimately in terms of business outcomes and dollars and cents.

Mike: That’s, I think, really insightful advice. I’ve so enjoyed this conversation, you’ve been very generous and kind with all the information you’ve shared. Is there anything else you feel we should have covered or anything else you wanted to talk about?

Jodi: I guess the only thing that comes to mind, Mike is I’m lucky enough to talk to a lot of prospects and customers and because we sell to marketers, I’m, I’m lucky enough to talk to a lot of other marketing leaders, marketing and sales leaders. And typically what comes up these days is what’s working now there’s been so many changes a lot of businesses are experiencing, you know, not to sound morbid, but depression in in things that are core like site traffic leads generated business, a lot of folks are experiencing churn problems, and they’ve never really had that before, or marketing hasn’t really focused on retention or expansion motions. And so one thing that often comes up is, you know, what’s working today, what’s changed? How are you succeeding in spite of the environment. And what I hear over and over again, if I could just, you know, share this one tidbit, it’s fresh off the press, not even really research, but more insights from the field is that people are really laser focused on really understanding in market signals at the person and the account level. The idea here is that there are fewer buyers in market, but fewer doesn’t mean zero. So as long as you can be laser focused on identifying those buyers that are the right fit for your organisation and acting upon them in a relevant way. You’re gonna set yourself up for success, you’re gonna set yourself up for success today, but also in the future when maybe there’s more abundance and fewer buyers becomes once again, many buyers. So there’s a lot of ways to do that data, of course, is your friend RollWoks does offer five distinct buying signals. And so a lot of times when I talk to our customers or, you know, transparently, they’re talking to me about of those different signals. But regardless of whether your role works customer or not, I still think it’s a relevant piece of advice is, is, you know, there’s a lot of different ways that you could spend your energy but with fewer resources, getting laser focused on those accounts, and people that are the right fit for your organisation are showing that they’re actually looking to make a purchase decision sometime in the near future is going to absolutely pay you back in spades.

Mike: That’s fantastic advice. I think, you know, focus is always so important. But I think that that insight about focusing on people in market, something a lot of people are talking about. I really love that idea. Yeah. So JD, it’s been a great conversation. I really appreciate your time. If people have questions or just want to learn more about RollWoks where’s the best place to get ahold of you?

Jodi: I mean, you can always find me on LinkedIn. You can also find me just through email. My email address is is J. Sarah Tani at roll works.com. So you can you can find me there as well. If you’d like to email me directly. I’m happy to have a chat. I always find that there’s a lot of quote unquote thought leaders out there, I definitely do not consider myself a thought leader. I’m more of a practitioner and I love to talk to other practitioners and get the real stories about what’s happening and share, you know, a few tips and tricks that I’ve been learning as as as someone facing the same challenge as everyone else. So feel free to reach out.

Mike: That’s, that’s very kind of give me your email address out. I really appreciate it. God has been a great conversation. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Jodi: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It’s been a real pleasure.

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