Email marketing programs

FCCU. The credit union's email newsletter went out to over 130,000 subscribers but was underperforming with a 5% open rate and 5.6% click-through rate. The content was generic and untargeted. Members with checking accounts but no credit card were getting the same email as members with home loans. There was no segmentation, no behavioral logic, and no connection between what the credit union knew about a member and what it was sending them.

Generator Supercenter. The company had no email program at all: no lifecycle touches, no campaign engine, and no follow-up system for unsold leads. When someone received a quote but didn't convert, that lead went cold. With generators starting around $15,000, every lost quote represented significant revenue walking out the door.

Designed a segmentation strategy tied to real member behavior. I built the logic around what products a member already had and what they didn't. If a member had checking and savings but no credit card, they received a credit card offer. No auto loan meant auto loan content. The emails became relevant to where each member actually was in their financial relationship, not a one-size-fits-all blast.

Established a daily data pipeline with IT. Because the messaging was product-specific and time-sensitive, stale data was not an option. I worked with IT to implement daily batch uploads from the core banking system into Documatix, a compliance-ready platform built for financial institutions, so targeting reflected real member activity within 24 hours. That infrastructure was the backbone that made the segmentation strategy actually work.

Overhauled the newsletter and introduced lifecycle automation. I redesigned the monthly newsletter and introduced automated lifecycle touches like anniversary emails, birthday messages, and product-specific campaigns, all running through Documatix with the compliance layer that financial institution communications require.

Architected the full email program from scratch. Before the team scaled, I personally built the architecture: 20 sales-nurture emails, 10 service emails, and a post-purchase lifecycle program covering birthdays, holidays, referrals, and review requests. Monthly campaign emails ran across all 30 full-service markets, localized per market, with 3 to 4 emails per campaign and weekly sold and unsold list management.

Designed the unsold-lead recovery strategy. No one was following up with quoted-but-not-sold prospects. I proposed an automated drip system to nurture them back toward conversion, developed the full messaging strategy across 10 touchpoints with each taking a different angle: social proof, seasonal urgency, promotional offers, peace of mind, and more. I chose Mailchimp as the platform to execute it.

Built in engagement logic with echo sends. Every email in the sequence had an echo attached. If a lead didn't open the first version, they received a second with a different subject line. The sequence only advanced when the lead engaged, so anyone who completed the full 10-email series had actively opened every touchpoint. They were not just in the system, they were a warm, nurtured audience.

Piloted in one market, then scaled across 18. I launched the system in a single market to validate the approach and the metrics. Once it proved out, I rolled it across the 18 premium-tier markets, including Nashville, Detroit, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Salt Lake City, College Station, Greenville, East Texas, Waco, Lafayette, Lake Charles, and Shreveport. Each market ran its own localized campaign with weekly list uploads from the vendor feeding new unsold leads into the sequence automatically.

Built it to be operationally independent, then transitioned it. I designed the entire system to run on a simple, repeatable process: weekly data uploads, automated drip logic, echo sends. It would not depend on me to maintain. Once it was scaled and stable, I transitioned day-to-day operations to the team. The system was still running exactly as I designed it when I left in June 2026.