ON THE MOVE: Transportation Sales & Marketing Success Stories

Innovative Marketing and Leadership Insights from Celine Clayton

• Jennifer Karpus-Romain • Season 1 • Episode 26

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Celine Clayton, the newly promoted VP of Marketing at GreenscreensAI, shares her inspiring journey through the logistics industry, offering invaluable insights into career progression and the art of leadership. Discover how Selene transitioned from Marketing Director to her current role, nurtured by a truly supportive environment that encourages innovation and growth. With a focus on the power of problem-solving and the beauty of learning from failures, Selene reveals key strategies for thriving in marketing roles. She highlights the significance of autonomy and trust from leaders like CEO Dawn, crafting a thriving, empowered team culture. If you're eager to learn how embracing challenges can advance your career, this episode is a must-listen.

We also explore how Celine and her team manage to strike the perfect balance between fun and informative marketing, using Hawaiian shirts to craft a unique brand identity while tackling complex AI technologies. With plans for the coming year including more targeted educational content and the launch of new products like Illuminate and Ignite, there's plenty to be excited about. Anticipate the Elevate Conference 2025 in Austin, Texas, where the GreenscreensAI team will continue their journey of innovation and connection. Join us for a conversation that promises to inspire and motivate as Selene shares her experiences from this year's conference and her aspirations for the next. Don't miss out on the opportunity to gain a fresh perspective on the dynamic world of logistics marketing.

Check out the Transportation Sales and Marketing Association (TMSA) website or engage with us on LinkedIn.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain:

Hello everyone, welcome to On the Move, a show where we share transportation, sales and marketing success stories. I'm Jennifer Karps-Romain, the Executive Director at the Transportation Marketing and Sales Association, tmsa, which is a trade nonprofit educating and connecting marketing and sales professionals in transportation and logistics, and today on the show we have Selene Clayton, who is the VP of marketing at greenscreensai. Welcome to the show, selene.

Celine Clayton:

Amazing! Thanks doing having me. I'm excited to be here today.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain:

We are so excited to have you and just for people who might not know you or might not know about your journey here in logistics, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your experience in the?

Celine Clayton:

industry, of course I'm happy to. So I'm head of marketing at Greenscreens, as Jennifer gave me the introduction just there. I've been with the organization for a little over two years now, which is absolutely crazy. Time has just completely flown by. But it's been exciting to be a part of the journey in the last two years and seeing where you know where I started at Green Screens and where we've come in the brand and the customer growth and all the things. So it's been super, super exciting. But my previously, before Green Screens, I was in the supply chain logistics technology space where we focus more on the last mile delivery aspect of the supply chain. But really there I got to get my foot in the door of the industry as a whole, while also in that startup space, and ultimately gained a lot of experience in that role to then lead me to joining the green screens team.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain:

So that's kind of my quick overview of my time in the space awesome and one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on the show is because you were recently promoted from marketing director to vp of marketing. So first off, congratulations on your promotion, um, and I love it because it's really great to see people rising through the ranks at a company. So any advice to people that are looking to advocate for themselves or to the companies that are looking to encourage people to grow within how you know, I would love to talk to you about, you know, suggestions for career advancement.

Celine Clayton:

Yeah, I love that question. I would say, you know, I can't sit here and say like, oh you know. You know, obviously self-advocacy is so important, but it is something I'm still, you know, I'm still struggling with, so I can't really speak to that extent. But I can speak to the extent of, you know, companies looking to promote within and what to look for. I'm truly so grateful that Green Screen saw the potential for me to grow, and not only that, but trusting me with the brand. It's been a true honor that they saw the potential in me and were obviously ultimately trusting me to do so.

Celine Clayton:

But I would say, definitely look for those people you know that are willing to jump in and problem solve. I think, truly, you know, just in general, growth comes from stepping into uncomfortable situations and so if you're looking to, you know, advance in your career, maybe it's, you know, taking on that challenge or that project and you know, it's not so much having the answers but having the ability to go in and the willingness to go and learn how to do it. I think that speaks volumes. So, yeah, I think that's kind of my advice there.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain:

But absolutely. I think one of the key things you said there, too, is that you're so thankful for green screens trusting, trusting you to do it, to advance the brand and to try new things. And I think that's incredibly important when we're talking about this, because I think a lot of times we don't give people the authority or the ability to actually take ownership of a project or of something that we want to do, and so we may be fearful as leaders to. You know, let people try something new because we want to adhere to our brand standards or anything like that, but having that ability to take ownership, being able to share your ideas and to run and to learn, I think greatly affects our employees, and it sounds like that's something that really helped you to continue to grow.

Celine Clayton:

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think that's something within our leadership as a whole. I think, you know, our CEO, dawn, is absolutely incredible, but she has built out this team and put you know the people in the positions who she trusts to do the job. And you know, I think she's amazing in every aspect of our organization and I think she can do an amazing job. But she's allowing us to have the autonomy to do that and I think that is just so important in a leader to you know, enable your team to you know, try something, fail, and maybe you have the idea and, like you, you know, as leader, you were in that position at one point and you also learned. You know you had to learn from failing sometimes. So I think you know, sometimes that is the ultimate you know outcome. But I think, yeah, I think that's just key in leadership for sure.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain:

Yeah, and not everything is going to work perfectly the first go, especially in marketing, because it's all about, okay, what's going to work, what's not going to work, oh, can we tweak this a little bit to make it work more? Or is the idea itself bad, which you know? That takes time to really figure out what that looks like. So I'm curious kind of, over your past few years at Greenscreens, what was the most kind of surprising thing that you did that you learned from, and how did your team support you to move forward with a different idea or a different approach?

Celine Clayton:

Yeah, I think I don't have a key moment that's standing out, but a lot of really small ones, I think In the last two years, obviously, you know, event marketing has been a really big play for us and I know we'll get more into that later. But I think too, it's just like you know, for my first year at green screens I was a one woman show. So like having to create processes but it's only me following them felt a little silly, but really learning how to, you know, write out my processes and then continuing to refine them every single time. So you know, when I first started, we weren't necessarily doing like pre and post show debriefs, you know, but that's something we realized. Okay, we need to do that, even if it's a five minute sync with everyone at the show, like what did you see? What did you learn? What didn't work? What did work, like what was surprising that people actually cared about?

Celine Clayton:

There was a in Vegas last year at Manifest we did the football jerseys for the Super Bowl because it was in Vegas and it was super fun, and our sales director, sharm, went out and bought those sweat headbands and the sweat wrist things and he bought some green ones and he bought quite a few for the team, and so we had them just laying on the table with the rest of the swag and, surprisingly enough, people were coming up to our booth asking if they could have the sweat bands, which wasn't even a intentional thing, but it's just like okay, that's something to note. Like people wanted sweat bands for their head, I don't know, maybe for their kids, but yeah, just like, the more you learn and the more you kind of get the insights, especially marketing. We're not at every show, so we need to really understand the event from the viewpoint of sales.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain:

So absolutely, I think that is key. As a marketer, you need to, and I do think it's important to at least go to some of the shows so you can hear how your sales team is interacting with your prospects, with your customers, hear the languages that they're using, the verbiage that they're using, so that you can attach it. And yeah, in terms of swag, what's resonating, what's not.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain:

I do think I stand firm as a mom that if you have swag that I both can use and that I can bring home to my kid, that's really key because, my son always wants swag, he always wants gifts from shows, and so it's so much easier when I can accomplish that and then I go like pick up one Hot Wheels from the airport or from Target or somewhere like that. But yeah, I he has so many like branded trucks. He loves stress balls, loves the mint packs that people have always grab. Those Things like that are really great. He would love a sweat band. For sure. That is something that he he is for fun.

Celine Clayton:

We have to keep that one top of mind then.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain:

And we are kind of routing, rounding out trade show season in the next few weeks, and so I do want to touch on that, because green screens is definitely one of those companies that works to stand out at the trade shows and I know we've talked about this in person at the shows, like from your matching custom hawaiian shirts. I remember I think it was manifest, you guys had a huge like light up display and I think you were like I didn't even think it was manifest. You guys had the huge like light up display and I think you were like I didn't even think it was that big and then it delivered.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain:

Yeah, we definitely thought it was a tabletop neon sign, but it was like not it was a full sign, but it made it better because it was so stand out. But what kind of brainstorming sessions go in to your trade show booth and your trade show strategy? Who participates in that and how do you get people on board to kind of maybe step outside the box of a normal booth?

Celine Clayton:

Yeah. So I think this is definitely a twofold question. But first off, I think the reality is we actually don't set like traditional, like okay, we're going to brainstorm this hour. A lot of the ideas we've had have just like spun off of an idea or, honestly, a joke. And we, you know our marketing weekly marketing meeting is Friday morning. So I feel like there's that bit of okay, weekend energy is coming.

Celine Clayton:

We're all in a good mood, but often we go on like you know, side notes, tangents, we get off topic and somehow we end up with some crazy idea. And there's been a lot of ideas we haven't executed on, but a lot of the ones you see probably started as more of a joke. We have an amazing team and I think that goes back to the culture that our leadership team has established and putting the right people in the right seats who are willing to do this. I think, because that's half of the battle. Right Like marketing can go and we can have these crazy ideas, we can get it all printed and ready and, you know, ready to wear, but they have to be willing to actually go and do that, so we don't force people, you know, hey, you must wear this Hawaiian, I'd like to say that they're willing and happy to do it at least for a few hours, you know, but it's been fun, I think the Hawaiians we started it off at my first TIA Capital Ideas two years ago and it was in Orlando, florida.

Celine Clayton:

So I think we were just trying to go with the Hawaiian tropical theme. We're in Florida, so we had the green leis, we had the Hawaiian shirts and then, I think the fall season, we had a few of our sales directors. They all were matching Hawaiians to the McLeod user conference and then the next day they didn't wear them and then they were being asked where are the Hawai, the Hawaiian? So that's when we realized, okay, there could be something here. And then it quickly evolved into the custom Hawaiian print which you now see all over our swag.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain:

I love it. It's I, so I was at that conference, the TIA one, two years ago. So like it's been really fun to watch the trajectory of the hawaiian shirts and I do think I mean I spend so much time thinking about what's fair to trade, show like how lovely that is, that you're just like hey, this is what we're wearing and you just hand them the shirt, it takes that pressure off, which is great. Um, and I do love you mentioned now the hawaiian shirt is like kind of taking on a world of its own. It's on your swag. I actually was looking and I see that you're hiring for a demand gen specialist right now and you put on the like on your LinkedIn post like this shirt could be yours, which I thought was so funny. I loved it so much.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain:

How do you find that balance between fun and informative? And are the? Do people resonate to that? They're, like're, like. No, I want that shirt. Have people outside of green screens tried to get a shirt like? Is that becoming a trend?

Celine Clayton:

for sure. Yeah, I think we always have people that are I want a hawaiian, but yeah, we haven't printed enough of them yet. So it's something as we get our next batch of hawaiians, to consider that apparently people actually want them and want to wear them. That aren't employees, so that's fantastic. So I guess we're really leaning into that.

Celine Clayton:

But I guess, to your question on you know balancing the fun and informative, I think that's kind of at the heart of what we try to do in our marketing, what we've really been focusing on, we try to keep our messaging simple. You know we have the taglines no BS, just GS, but really like that holds, it's a fun, you know, fun little saying but it holds a lot of different meanings on really what we represent with our technology. You know what we do really really well as our technology and we take that really really seriously. But that doesn't mean that we can't approach you know the way we work and our team and you know connecting with people in a more lighthearted, fun way. So I feel like that is really big for us and just trying to keep things fun and light when our technology is ultimately pretty complex in that sense.

Celine Clayton:

But what we do is, you know, technology, machine learning, ai. It's a very, in a sense, scary topic right now, right, but we try to make it um easy to digest and for people to really understand um, so I think that's a big part to it too, and you know, we have such a unique team that has direct industry experience. So I, I think to, yeah, I think, coming back to the informative, like you know, we want to keep things lighthearted because that really is the freight industry, right, and I think there's no reason we need to be buttoned up all the time and serious. So, yeah, I think that's been fun.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain:

Yeah, I think it speaks to the team at Green Screens too, like you said, like you don't force anyone to wear the shirts or anything like that, but everyone does it. I've never seen anyone eye-rolling their way through a conference floor. Everyone really buys into the vibe, which I think is great, and you can just tell that the culture there is collaborative and everybody genuinely seems to like each other, which is great. So now we're in November and so we're like in strategy and thinking through next year. So now that you kind of have this being known for doing things outside of the box, how do?

Jennifer Karpus-Romain:

you kind of up that for next year and as you continue to plan for future trade shows.

Celine Clayton:

Right, yeah, it's like, it's definitely like, oh, we have to keep one-upping it. So that's, you know, no pressure there, but we certainly have some fun ideas in the hopper already, some that I think you will like if you're looking for, you know, something to take home to the kids. I think we definitely have that top of mind. But, yeah, I guess, like beyond the brand and fun swag ideas, just thinking about budget or, you know, budget planning and planning for next year. I think really we've done a great job at building the brand awareness and establishing ourselves as a company. People now know who we are, which is fantastic.

Celine Clayton:

So I think a big focus for marketing this next year is to really focus more on, like, educational pieces, and you know we've, you know we've put out some new features, continuing to evolve our, our core platform, but also adding on some new products like Illuminate and Ignite more content out there to educate. You know what are the difference, why you need it. So I think that will be a big focus for us, taking more of a targeted approach to on how we're connecting with prospects and customers. But, yeah, I think really just trying to continue to stay consistent, right, like there's so much we want to do and we're hiring a third person. So really, you know that's going to give us so much more power. We'll have three people on our marketing team, um, and that will really allow us to continue to stay consistent with what we're already doing and grow so with when you do add new products and things like that.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain:

So like I know, as I used used to work in software and adding new products and features for as a marketer, like I loved it, but I also like it would stress me out because they were how you would receive that information wasn't all. It would be like, oh, we need to run a campaign, we're like announcing this feature like tomorrow and like, oh, okay, um, so any advice on kind of putting together the building blocks and make sure you have a good roadmap to announce the different products or different features? How do you educate while still trying to make it informative but fun? But like, how else do you kind of roll that out and make sure people understand what green screens has to offer?

Jennifer Karpus-Romain:

now versus what it could do a year ago.

Celine Clayton:

Yeah, I think honestly, that's something we're kind of still working through and something especially with the features and product releases.

Celine Clayton:

I think we've gotten a lot better from when I first started doing it.

Celine Clayton:

But I think too, sometimes, right, you're announcing something, it's not necessarily, it's not ready, it's not like you know, customers aren't using it yet, and so from the marketing perspective, it's tough to market something that isn't live and in action, and obviously the dream scenario is to have customer testimonials that are saying how amazing it is, and then that's an easy sell, right? But sometimes that's not always the case. So that's where it comes into the education pieces like trying to do, you know, more centered, you know, focused webinars, quick pieces of content, too, that are digestible written pieces, and then, you know, people do like the more technical long form pieces as well. So I think the ultimate goal will be to have something that resonates with everyone's learning style and also to learning how to test that, because I think that's something big. You know, we have a lot of data now on the marketing side, so I really want to dive into what has worked, what's not working and get super analytical in this next year so that we can optimize our strategies as we move forward.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain:

I think there's so much greatness in what you just said, and the biggest thing for me is that I want to make sure we're doing things for all learning styles. And the biggest thing for me is I want to make sure we're doing things for all learning styles. That's like if you hit a button for Jen to like stand on a soapbox and like go on tangents, it's a big one. Because they feel like when we're in school, we learn about how everyone learns differently, but, like as adults, we just never talk about it anymore. And I don't understand why, because we're still those people, but now we're stressed and have responsibility. So, if anything, we should care more about that. So I do think that's really smart for all marketers to think through like, how are we presenting this content? Is it in a way that anyone can receive it? How are people wanting to receive it? And then testing how that works. I think that's all really smart.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain:

And then two yes, sometimes, especially on the software side of things, you're talking about products that are coming, so people get excited and want to hear about them so that they'll implement it when it's ready. But that can be really hard as a marketer because you're like, but how. So one thing I used to do when I was in that seat I'd be like, okay, give me like five things that this new feature solves, like how are we problem solving for our customers? And that really helped my product team think through that and why I'm asking them because they know that, they know why they're building it, because somebody asked for it, so they're doing it. Give me those like problem solution, like quick hits, because that helps with your marketing. So I think that those are things to think through too. And then, of course, when you actually have the customer testimonials that can back up those things, it's really great.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain:

But yeah, I used to. I created like a forum like these are the things I need from you. We have to do it properly, because I don't understand how to then relay that over. So, yeah, yeah, it's always a work in process, but I think, or work in progress, but I think the process you're creating. You also talked about creating processes, even though you're a team of one, and I bet you, now that you're a team of two and are going into being a team of three, you love that. You did that because I can speak for myself here at TMSA, I definitely didn't, and now that we're a team of two and we also have, like our members and our committees that work like we are really trying to put our processes down on paper because it's lived in my head.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain:

I worked by myself for a year and a half so it just stayed in my head and I was like, oh, now I have to tell other people what's up here. So I do think that's a really good piece of advice and I'm glad that people are like no Celine, like just write it down for yourself, it'll be great, because it was.

Celine Clayton:

Yeah, no, exactly Like when I first I was encouraged to, you know, get your processes in place, and I thought it was so silly. But yeah, and then, once I started thinking about hiring the next person, I like, as I was working on stuff, I'd be like, ok, now's a good time to go and jot this down real quick, like let me just put my steps in place because, again, we're going to continue to add and refine those processes, especially as we add more people.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain:

But having a baseline, at least right, of what's living in my head is helpful. It's a good place to start. Yes, I think that's amazing. So we talked about kind of product launches, feature launches, trade shows. Are there any other areas of marketing that Green Screens really focuses on and is looking to dive into in 2025?

Celine Clayton:

Yeah, I think I would say definitely. Events is a big, it's a big area that we allocate budget to. But for sure, sponsorships and podcasts and newsletters we kind of call them the freight influencers in our space, right, but you have the podcasters like Chris Jolly.

Celine Clayton:

We've been a sponsor of him now for probably a year and a half or a little over a year, and then Freight Caviar as well I think it'll be two years at the beginning of this next year and so we supply our lane data three times a week to him, which has been just really great. I think we have what we do. Is we do what we do really well at green screens? Is data right, and so I think getting that data and more places, more people to see, will be a big play for us and really just establishing ourselves as thought leaders and leveraging the data that we do have to show, like what's happening in the market and things that we're seeing. So I think that will be a big focus for us for sure.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain:

Awesome. Well, that takes us to my last question that I like to ask anyone who comes on the show, and that's if you could go back in time and advise a younger Celine anything, and it could be personally or professionally. When would you go back to and what would you tell her?

Celine Clayton:

Yeah, I think this could apply personally or professionally. But I think growing up I was always just afraid of my own shadow and because of that I didn't, you know, I didn't participate in things I wanted to do and I really held myself back. And looking back on that, I wish I would just, you know, could go back and say girl, go do it, you know, stop being afraid of the world. And I think it took me a while to get there, but yeah, I think that's what I would tell my young, young self for sure.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain:

I think that is a great thing to tell people. Get involved, get active, and here at TMSA there are a few ways you can actually get active involved. If you want to get involved, you can scan the code up in the corner and you can join a TMSA committee if you're a member and I will gladly talk to you about that if you're interested in that. Anyone listening? But what I'm most excited to talk about is that we did open registration for our Elevate Conference for 2025, which will be June 8th through 10th in Austin, texas. So we are gearing up for a great show next year. I'm excited to see everyone. Celine got to come to her first Elevate this year, which was great, but thank you so much for being on the show and for telling us your story.

Celine Clayton:

It was great to hear. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it and I can't wait for the next Elevate conference.

Jennifer Karpus-Romain:

Perfect, awesome, see you there. Have a good one.

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