Strategic Collaboration Is Necessary for Marketers Today, Says Asana’s Jessica Cobarras

Jessica Cobarras is the head of revenue marketing at Asana, where she was hired 18 months ago to help transform its B2B marketing and sales motion. Already delivering a series of marquee events, the ‘Work Innovation Summits’, she says the team has rallied behind the new vision and developed new muscles to deliver excellence for customers.

Jessica’s career began with a contractor role at Salesforce, filing papers at the company, which would be her home for the next 17 years. During this time, she worked up through the company in 12 different roles — from product marketing to customer marketing, content, campaigns, and more — witnessing significant evolutions in the marketing landscape. “My approach was to stay curious and slightly uncomfortable at every step, taking on roles that were tangential to each other and continuously broadening my remit,” she says.

With more experience came more seniority and responsibilities, integrating acquisitions into Salesforce, growing businesses, and turning around declining units along the way. In 2023, Jessica left Salesforce as a senior vice president overseeing experience marketing for a dozen business units. Having grown up in that organisation and seen it go from 600 employees to over 80,000, she went in search for a new role that would again fulfil her passion for building B2B marketing and sales engines, leading to her current role at Asana.

Jessica speaks with LBB’s Ben Conway about her work so far and the state of marketing more generally as we head into 2025.

LBB> What’s the most important lesson/piece of advice you received early on in your career? How does it influence you and your work today?

Jessica> One of the most valuable pieces of advice is to stay curious. During my Salesforce tenure, I held 12 different positions. This constant state of slight discomfort kept me engaged, humble, and continuously learning.

Another core value I carry is to be helpful. Earlier in my career, I would always consider how my programmes and campaigns could benefit other teams, and how we could amplify their impact collectively. This approach led to me being sought out to solve problems and take on stretch projects, even outside of my day-to-day responsibilities. These opportunities not only helped me become a more well-rounded marketer but also allowed me to build strong relationships across the organisation.

By focusing on helping the business and others around me, the recognition and rewards followed naturally. This mindset has been a guiding principle throughout my career and continues to shape my approach to work today.

LBB> What are the big challenges and trends affecting your work with Asana today? Is AI having an impact?

Jessica> AI and work management are converging, and Asana is at the forefront of this revolution, particularly for marketers. Our AI Studio, powered by our unique Work Graph® data model, seamlessly integrates AI into the natural flow of work, providing context-aware assistance to marketing teams.

By automating repetitive tasks, such as data entry, content creation, and campaign management, AI allows individuals to focus on higher-level strategic initiatives. AI can also provide valuable insights and recommendations based on data analysis, helping marketers make more informed decisions and improve the effectiveness of their campaigns.

As we continue to co-create with our customers, we're seeing compelling ROI data from their AI Studio workflows. Customers are saving significant time and resources, demonstrating the transformative power of AI in marketing.

LBB> Where does marketing sit within wider company goals at Asana?

Jessica> Marketing plays a highly strategic role within Asana and is a core pillar of driving the go-to-market strategy. As the head of global revenue marketing, I collaborate with our chief revenue officer and general managers worldwide, analyse business metrics, and build full-funnel marketing strategies to support the business' objectives, both globally and regionally.

A significant aspect of my job involves leading cross-functionally and influencing within the marketing organisation, and with other business units such as revenue and product. This cross-functional alignment ensures that our marketing strategies are effective and closely tied to the company's overall goals and objectives.

LBB> Asana’s Work Innovation Lab recently partnered with Meltwater on a ‘State of Marketing Collaboration’ report - can you tell us the key findings, and how it’s influenced your marketing strategy?

Jessica> In the rapidly evolving marketing world, strategic collaboration is more than just a buzzword – it's necessary. However, our report revealed that 27% of marketers feel disconnected from the rest of their organisation. Further, only 39% of marketers are confident that their department's goals are aligned with overall business objectives. However, we know there is an appetite for more collaboration among employees, with 79% of marketers saying it improves the quality of their work.

Several factors are holding back effective collaboration. Firstly, there is a need for more visibility. Collaboration suffers without an awareness of what colleagues are working on or how their efforts contribute to shared objectives – as does productivity and performance. Secondly, there is a lack of communication. According to the report, 22% of marketing professionals admit that they rarely or never see a marketing leader stepping up to actively improve team collaboration. But by embracing greater transparency, both within and across departments, marketing leaders can alleviate silos, supercharge collaboration, and unlock the full potential of their teams.

These findings have also influenced my leadership approach. For instance, I have made a conscious effort to cultivate a culture of collaboration across my teams. This starts by understanding how teams work together and identifying improvement areas. I am also determined to streamline workflows and tackle information overload. By creating transparent processes through our Asana work management platform, key insights are efficiently shared across different teams, facilitating better collaboration and decision-making. 

Moreover, learning that 49% of marketing professionals want their department to provide more transparency in strategy development has led me to work hard to set clear, measurable, and achievable goals when working on any new strategy. This provides focus and direction for my teams and can drive the organisation forward when aligned with broader company objectives.

LBB> Be it across performance marketing or brand marketing, a marketers job increasingly relies on data. How do you ensure you’re collecting and deploying data in the most effective ways? 

Jessica> Data is a powerful tool in any marketer’s armoury. Especially when marketing departments typically work twice as hard as other parts of the business to prove ROI to stakeholders, who want to understand if extensive marketing spending results in leads. As marketers, we know it is much more nuanced than that, and data can help us tell that story internally. 

However, data alone won’t sustain you in the long run when it comes to doing your job and showing your worth. Marketers – particularly in a company like Asana – need to know our customers. We need to know their pain points and how to relate to them. To do that, we must go beyond the numbers, talk to our customers, and understand their stories. Of course, this involves a lot of manual work. AI can help by taking customer feedback and stories and providing ‘TL;DR’ summaries. Combined with data, these insights can put you in a powerful position to plan and execute the right work. 

LBB> What are you looking forward to, professionally and personally, as we come to the end of 2024? Any big 2025 marketing plans for Asana you can tell us about?

Jessica> Looking ahead to 2025, my focus is on building upon the success we've achieved this year and finding innovative ways to level up our marketing efforts. Rather than starting from scratch, the key is to refine and optimise our existing strategies, exploring new types of content, activations, and experiences that enhance our approach and drive even greater impact.

As a working parent, my personal goal for the coming year is to be kinder to myself. It is easy to focus on the things that you feel like you missed versus celebrating the things that you have done – and in the new year, I am going to flip this!

Professionally, I am thrilled about the recent launch of AI Studio and the incredible potential it holds for Asana. Our Work Graph® differentiates us in the market, enabling us to deliver powerful, real AI capabilities to our customers. As AI continues to dominate the conversation, our challenge is amplifying our unique AI offerings in creative and compelling ways that showcase the value we bring.

In 2025, our marketing plans will focus on leveraging our strengths and telling our story effectively to capture the attention of our target audience. We can drive significant growth in the coming year by exploring innovative strategies to highlight Asana's AI capabilities and demonstrate how we stand out in a crowded market. I am excited to see how we can push the boundaries and deliver even more value to our customers through our cutting-edge AI solutions.