REAS Marketing founder Sheena Graham has been an inspiration for marketing automation strategists around the nation. In 2011, she started the Oracle Eloqua Southern California Facebook group and since then has learned and used nearly every marketing automation platform software available.
In 2010, Sheena began pursuing her dream career of working as a marketing strategist for various clients and industries. In 2012 she founded REAS Marketing and the full-service email marketing agency has grown ever since.
Two years ago, REAS Marketing received a platinum certification with SharpSpring through the platform’s partner program. This reiterates the expertise Sheena and the REAS team possess to assist brands and businesses with their SharpSpring marketing automation needs.
Sheena’s experience and knowledge with marketing automation and client revenue generation has made her an obvious candidate for SharpSpring’s Revenue Rockstars series. In the webinar series, SharpSpring interviews different marketing professionals and asks how to implement measurable results for clients.
After watching Sheena’s conversation with SharpSpring’s CMO Chip House, we gathered the top 4 takeaways from her interview.
Tip #1 Each Industry Has Different Needs
REAS Marketing has worked with various industries such as finance, SaaS, and eCommerce clients. Sheena has realized one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to different industries, services, and expectations. She’s noticed financial clients tend to be very compliant, eCommerce is fast-paced, and B2B companies need to focus on nurture campaign tactics. Noticing these little nuances has helped her better understand the scheduling, strategy, and content requirements for each of her clients.
Sheena also emphasized in the interview that certain industries require more email campaigns and outreach than others. Locally based services tend to need the most amount of weekly emails. In fact, she’s noticed her service companies see a lot more success if they send emails nearly everyday because this aggressive approach leads to faster conversions.
Tip #2 Give the Skeptics a Chance
A lot of Sheena’s clients have told her “email will never work” for them. For example, a debt consolidation company was convinced emails wouldn’t lead to more conversions, so Sheena offered to give them a 30 day trial for free and see if the trial lead to any results. Sure enough, the company saw an increase in conversions and ultimately downscaled their sales team because of the lead generation success. The company has worked with REAS Marketing ever since!
As marketers, we always come across businesses that refuse to believe in the effectiveness of marketing automation. That’s why REAS Marketing gives a 30 day free trial to all of our clients. We want to show new clients the success they can achieve, even if they remain hesitant at first.
Tip #3 Have a General Strategy Plan, but Customize Overtime
REAS Marketing has templated client briefs and welcome campaign strategies in place for when a new client comes on board. Creating established templates has saved us time and makes it easy to review client needs. These initial setups have helped streamline the process of email creation and ensure every REAS team member is on the same page.
But over time, each client is going to have different requests and needs. Especially once A/B testing results come in. That’s why Sheena’s favorite marketing automation platform is SharpSpring. SharpSpring makes it easy to customize plans and drip campaigns from one client to the next.
Tip #4 Validate Your Monetary Value
Marketers are constantly busy with implementing strategy, creating content, nurturing leads, and finding new clients. In the midst of this all, it can be easy to forget about demonstrating the value your services provide.
In general, Sheena’s goal is to increase client revenue by 5%. After all, email marketing is a numbers game! In order to prove email marketing is delivering this revenue increase, Sheena sends monthly updates to each of her clients. This measurable proof keeps clients happy and reassures the company of the importance of marketing.
