Cordwainer Email Campaign Automation

Overview

Prior to signing with AAG, The Cordwainer's email marketing workflow was bottlenecked by a manual, monthly export process that systematically excluded the most valuable leads from campaigns. This article documents the identified failure points and the automation approach agreed upon during the pre-signing meeting on 2025-11-06.

See also: ^[1] | ^[2]

The Problem: Manual Monthly Export Workflow

Erica Lathrop (Sales Director, The Cordwainer) described the existing process:

1. Once a month, Erica manually exports a contact list from Eldermark (the community's CRM).
2. That list is handed off to the previous agency, who loads it into MailChimp to send email blasts.
3. Any lead that came in after the export date is excluded from the campaign.

"If we're sending an email to somebody and my last five leads aren't getting it, and those are the hottest leads because they're my last five leads, it would make more sense for somebody to help me."
— Erica Lathrop, 2025-11-06

Why This Matters

• Recency = intent. In memory care sales, a family that submitted a form in the last 30 days is actively evaluating options. Excluding them from nurture campaigns means losing momentum at the highest-value moment.
• Frequency is impractical manually. Erica acknowledged she simply doesn't have time to pull exports more than once a month, making the problem structural rather than behavioral.
• No automated welcome sequence. The community previously had an automated welcome sequence for new inquiries but no longer does. New leads receive no immediate follow-up email.

Compounding Issue: Platform Fragmentation

The previous agency (Further) operated its own dashboard that did not sync with Eldermark. This forced Erica to maintain two separate systems simultaneously:

• Eldermark — CRM of record for leads, notes, and follow-up tracking
• Further dashboard — Agency-side reporting and campaign management

Leads sometimes appeared in one system but not the other, requiring manual cross-referencing. The result was a fragmented view of the pipeline and duplicated administrative effort.

AAG's Automation Approach

1. Eldermark Admin Access

AAG will be provisioned as an admin user in Eldermark. This enables:

• Direct integration between web form submissions and CRM records (eliminating manual copy-paste entry)
• Real-time list segmentation for email campaigns without monthly export cycles
• CRM configuration improvements to better support Erica's sales workflow

The goal is a single source of truth: Eldermark becomes the authoritative record, and email campaigns draw from live data rather than stale exports.

2. Automated Welcome Sequence

A welcome/nurture sequence will be reinstated for new inquiries. Triggers should fire immediately on lead creation in Eldermark, ensuring no new contact goes cold due to a delayed manual follow-up.

3. Event Invitation Campaigns

The contract includes event invitation campaigns. Under the new workflow:

• AAG builds a 90-day marketing calendar anchored to event dates
• Campaigns are planned backward from each event (save-the-date → invitation → reminder)
• Flyers and digital assets are designed by AAG's in-house designers and delivered as print-ready files for local printing

4. No Campaign Caps

The previous agency limited The Cordwainer to two digital campaigns per month. A concrete example of the harm this caused: when Erica wanted to run a last-minute respite care push around the holidays, the agency told her to wait until the following month because she had exhausted her allotment.

AAG operates on a retainer model with no hard campaign cap. Work is need-driven. If a respite push is needed on November 15th, it goes out on November 15th.

Key Decisions (2025-11-06 Meeting)

Action Items

• [ ] AAG — Request Eldermark admin credentials from Erica after contract is signed
• [ ] AAG — Audit current Eldermark configuration and identify integration points for web form → CRM automation
• [ ] AAG — Draft welcome sequence email copy for new inquiry trigger
• [ ] AAG — Build 90-day marketing calendar at kickoff meeting
• [ ] Erica Lathrop — Sign and return contract; email Tamalyn re: next steps

Generalizable Pattern

This workflow failure — monthly batch exports creating a recency gap in nurture campaigns — is a common problem in senior living marketing where CRM platforms (Eldermark, Yardi, etc.) are not natively connected to email tools. The fix is consistent: establish direct CRM integration or API access so that list membership reflects real-time lead status rather than a point-in-time snapshot.

Related: ^[2] | ^[3]