Blending Creativity and Funnel Mastery to Elevate Brand Awareness and Drive Full-Flywheel Demand
Jill Crawford, CMO of Selerix and a veteran in HR tech, shares how deep industry knowledge, smart content strategies, and sales alignment fuel marketing that connects at every stage of the customer journey
Jill Crawford is the CMO of Selerix and a leader in benefits administration, employee communications, and compliance systems. Jill has over 20 years of experience in the HR technology space, having held leadership roles at prominent companies such as UKG, Workhuman, Lattice, and Vensure Employer Solutions.
Jill is an innovative thinker with a strong technology, communications, and business background. She is known for creating brand awareness, generating quality demand, and delivering on customer experience by implementing campaigns throughout the customer journey. She has described herself as a content and lifestyle visionary and a funnel velocity expert.
She also owns four French Bulldogs and is the President of Brew Free or Die, the oldest homebrew club in New Hampshire. The Continuum sat down with Jill to discuss her experiences on both sides of the brand and demand spectrum.
You have a lot of demand generation experience. How did you get your start in that?
My second job was at a company called e-Copy. We sold software that integrated with the office copier. You could scan documents and route into your SharePoint folders from there. It sounds crazy now, but it was cutting-edge at the time. The company was eventually acquired by Nuance Communications, and I was moved into a demand gen role.
They had both B2B and B2C versions of their software. My first role was working with channel partners like CDW or PC Connection that sold software. Businesses would buy licenses in bulk through these partners. I had to figure out what kind of programs and promotional opportunities would drive demand within each partner. It was an interesting challenge because some partners drove more revenue than others. I had to balance what would work for each of them while staying within my budget.
I moved from there into a campaign manager role, where I talked to our B2B consumers directly, but it was still really about demand generation, just a different spin. The question we kept trying to answer was, “How do we get the decision maker directly at these businesses to engage and create interest in these products?”
You have a marketing background, but you’re in a teach-heavy industry. How much did you have to learn about the technology to be able to do your job effectively?
I had to learn a lot, not just about technology but about the industries I was selling to. I remember I got some critical feedback in a performance review when I first got to Kronos, now UKG, that said, “Jill doesn't really understand this industry.” And I was like, “Oh my gosh, I don't.”
At the time, I managed what was called the service and distribution vertical. It was kind of the technicolor dream coat of verticals; a place for verticals that had no other logical home. This included financial institutions, credit unions, tribal gaming, logistics, third-party logistics, field services, and call centers.
I had to learn a lot about each of these areas so I could understand their pain points and the trends. I immersed myself in these industries. For example, I read Logistics Management and signed up for daily trucking news updates. One of the things I learned was that the Q4 timeframe is a crazy busy time in trucking because retailers are preparing for Black Friday. Understanding that meant I could create campaigns that connected that pain point to something we did at Kronos that could ease it.
I also had financial institutions as one of my verticals. I learned quickly that banks and credit unions are very different and have very different challenges. I had to know this if I wanted to make a campaign that was compelling to a credit union. Yes, of course, the business and the sales teams could help me, but educating myself made me more of a stakeholder.
Interestingly, when the company started getting into human capital management solutions, my role changed to being more of a generalist in human resources. Instead of thinking about trucking or tribal gaming, I had to put myself in the mind of a human resources leader, regardless of field. I started reading Comp & Benefits Today, HR Executive, and everything from the Society of Human Resources Management.
“Reading an interesting blog is not necessarily going to equate to someone buying our product straight off, but it's going to help us be top of mind.”
In addition to reading a lot of publications, you’re a big fan of content as a way to foster both brand and demand. Why do you think this is so important?
I work in HR software. People don’t wake up every morning and say, “I gotta go get me some Kronos. Or, man, do I need some Selerix today.” You have to have a presence. Seeing thought leadership from our company in the space, reading our blog, seeing our posts on social, getting some ads, or seeing our placements in industry publications is the start of that presence. Reading an interesting blog is not necessarily going to equate to someone buying our product straight off, but it's going to help us be top of mind. When consumers are in the market for a solution, they can think, “Oh, I've heard of Selerix.” This is how we start to be in the running.
Remember, these are big purchases. People conduct research before they reach out to a company. Think about it like buying a car; the typical person doesn’t walk into four different dealerships with no idea of what they want. Instead, they’ll test-drive a few models they’re already interested in.
You talk about creating content across the lifecycle. Can you explain what you mean by that?
Think about it like a flywheel where you start with prospects; businesses and personas that fit you is your ideal customer profile (ICP). Every industry is different, but generally speaking, at the top of the funnel—or the beginning of the flywheel—you’re talking about pain points and trying to solve them. You’re publishing the thought leadership pieces I spoke of earlier. Or offering educational material. For example, we know that open enrollment is a pain point for basically all HR professionals across the board. It’s a difficult and hectic time of year. You could help by offering an open enrollment guide that shows them, month by month, how to plan, approach and make that process easier for them. For people who are thinking about you but in the early stages, you could offer additional content like workbooks that explain the process.
Say that person got the open enrollment book and found it helpful. Down the line, when they start to think that their benefits administration platform can’t handle the complexity of their business, they reach out to your salesforce, and maybe they get a demo. After that, they’re an open opportunity. At that point, the sales rep will send them case studies from customers in similar industries or put them in touch with happy customers.
Then, if they sign on and move to the customer side of the flywheel, you can start dripping content that helps keep them educated and informed. Especially as it pertains to using your product. An engaged customer is a happy customer, resulting in higher customer lifetime value (CLV).
Of course, they can always fall off the flywheel and become former customers, which puts them right back in the prospect pool. This isn’t always a linear process.
“Educating myself made me more of a stakeholder.”
Can you tell us a little bit about Selerix?
Selerix makes benefits administration software for enrollment, healthcare compliance, and employee communication. We’ve been around for 20+ years and have over 14 million people enrolled on our platform. Historically, Selerix has primarily been behind the scenes offering white-label solutions through carriers. If you work for a large company, you’ve probably used Selerix software to enroll in benefits.
From a marketing perspective, our unique challenge is to create awareness across the various go-to-market channels, such as brokers and employers. The team has been working hard to implement strong brand strategies that feed demand gen over the last 10 months or so.
You’ve been acquiring companies recently. How does that impact your marketing plans?
It’s been an exciting challenge to build deeper brand strategies across our portfolio. Balancing the need to drive deeper awareness for Selerix but also building on the momentum of the organizations we acquired, TBX and SyncStream. Branding is a very emotional thing for employees and customers. Part of the initial work is doing thorough analysis to understand the best ways to integrate that brand and how, over time.
Outside of acquisition, we’re continuously working to ensure the Selerix brand is top of mind across our go to market channels. We have been specifically focused on our social media presence (driving followers & thoughtful content) while simultaneously engaged in earned and owned PR efforts and demand campaigns to help grow the pipeline for our sales folks.
“Our job is to educate the team that a PDF is a dead-end experience; from a marketing perspective, I’d rather have an email or a landing page so I can see whether the prospect opens it, comes to the website, or rereads it.”
Speaking of your sales folks, you’ve always worked in companies that have a sales team. How do sales and marketing work together?
It can be challenging. Sales teams often feel like marketing doesn’t understand the business; that we exist only to make things pretty. I’ve worked with reps who just want you to be an order taker and crank on one-pagers all day. On the flip side, I’ve also had the pleasure of working with teams that truly understand and embrace what strong sales and marketing can be if they work together.
I encourage my team to seek to understand the why, and to explain it to the sales force when needed. What is the value of that one pager? What’s the end goal? Our job is to educate the team that a PDF is a dead-end experience from a marketing perspective. I’d rather have an email or a landing page so I can see whether the prospect opens it, comes to the website, or rereads it.
That said, being a salesperson is not an easy job. It's a stressful world of rejection. It’s important that we approach them with empathy and understanding. If we can have healthy banter and educate one another, we can have a strong working relationship and craft exciting programs. Ultimately, marketing can take some of the heat off of sales.
“Branding is a very emotional thing for the employees and customers.”
Before we let you go. You’re the President of Brew Free or Die. What’s that?
It’s the oldest homebrew club in New Hampshire. We’re a group of people who love making our own beer, mead, and cider. My husband and I share a passion for brewing beer. We built ourselves a brew kitchen in the basement, complete with brew kettle and several conical fermenters!
What’s your favorite beer?
I like German beers, particularly Weissbier or Bocks.
April 8, 2025
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