How Oldcastle APG Blends High-Tech Marketing with High-Touch Relationships

00:00 – Introducing Jenny Nail and her role at Oldcastle APG
03:20 – Aligning sales, marketing, and operations across teams
07:50 – How Oldcastle is evolving from hardscapes to outdoor living
12:40 – The rise of the homeowner as a key decision-maker
16:25 – Why direct mail is working again—and how it’s different now
20:10 – High-tech and high-touch: balancing digital with on-site support
22:35 – The strategic value behind Oldcastle’s acquisition of Yardzen
26:15 – Launching innovation with real contractor adoption
29:00 – Connecting the dots between digital activity and sales follow-up
30:40 – Jenny’s advice to marketers: don’t forget the customer

Jenny Nail is the Chief Revenue Officer at Oldcastle APG, where she leads sales, marketing, product, and innovation across one of the largest outdoor living portfolios in North America.

She’s held six roles over nine years at the company, building on a career that spans retail, startups, and product marketing. Today, she helps lead the charge in transforming Oldcastle from a category leader in hardscapes and masonry to a multi-brand powerhouse that’s redefining how outdoor living gets designed, specified, and delivered.

Jenny talks about the healthy tension that exists between departments—and why the only way to get customer experience right is by integrating everyone who touches it. Sales knows the immediate needs. Marketing sees the long-term trends. Operations keeps it real. Without all three aligned, the strategy breaks.

Her advice: get your sales team walking the plant floor, and your operations team out on job sites. That kind of cross-pollination builds buy-in and eliminates blind spots.

Oldcastle started as a masonry brand. Today, it offers everything from pavers and walls to composite decking, artificial turf, fencing, and pool finishes. Jenny says the mission now is to “own the backyard”—not just supply parts of it.

That shift means thinking differently about product expansion, merchandising, partnerships, and go-to-market strategies. It also means speaking to the homeowner directly, even though the company still sells through pros.

Oldcastle’s data confirms what many have suspected: the homeowner is now the primary decision maker in many outdoor living projects. Not just on budget, but on product selection and brand choice. That changes the whole model for B2B marketing.

Jenny explains how Oldcastle is adapting to this shift—not by replacing the contractor, but by empowering the homeowner to come to the table informed and inspired. The result? More efficient installs, fewer reworks, and happier end users.

In 2024, Oldcastle acquired a controlling interest in Yardzen, a tech platform that helps homeowners visualize and plan outdoor spaces. Jenny shares how this move wasn’t about chasing a DTC play—it was about enhancing the buying journey across all audiences.

Yardzen creates inspiration, specification, and demand. That demand gets fulfilled by contractors and dealers. It’s a full-funnel investment that pays off across channels—and it brings Oldcastle even closer to the homeowner without undercutting the pro.

Jenny describes Oldcastle’s marketing strategy as “high-tech and high-touch.” The company still shows up on job sites and at the dealer counter—but now they’re also running video-forward campaigns, optimizing websites, leveraging Pinterest, and seeing surprising wins with personalized direct mail.

This isn’t about replacing traditional channels. It’s about surrounding the customer at every stage—and being ready when and where they look for answers.

One example Jenny highlights is the launch of Diamond Pro® Pin System AIR, a lighter, engineered wall block that makes installation faster and easier without compromising strength. But innovation only works if contractors are willing to try it.

That’s why her team created “rainy day demos”—deploying pallets of new product when crews are off-site due to weather. It gives them hands-on experience without disrupting their schedule, which is often the biggest barrier to adoption.

Jenny’s parting advice for other sales and marketing leaders? Don’t forget the customer. You can fall in love with a campaign or product, but if it doesn’t solve a real problem, it won’t create lasting value. Keep their needs front and center—then build the strategy around that.

You can connect with Jenny Nail on LinkedIn or reach her at jenny.nail@oldcastle.com. To learn more about Oldcastle APG, visit oldcastleapg.com.

The Smarter Building Materials Marketing podcast helps sales and marketing professionals find better ways to grow leads, sales and outperform the competition. It gives insights, examples and shares stories about how to create a results-driven digital marketing strategy for building products and construction companies of any size. SBMM is co-hosted by Venveo’s Founder, Zach Williams and Venveo’s CEO, Beth PopNikolov.