![\"Erin](\"https:\/\/resources.loveandcompany.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2025\/05\/Erin-Melton-Headshot_Covenant-Woods.jpg\")
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When I joined the Covenant Woods leadership team in 2021, I walked straight into a situation of transitions and challenges.<\/p>\n
The marketing director had retired, the CEO announced his retirement and a lot of underlying issues needed to be addressed. By the end of 2022, we had dropped to 85% as a lack of strong sales leadership led to challenges amongst a team that worked partially remote during COVID\u2014handling tours virtually and occasionally in person. Despite having strong salespeople and history of success as a team, we yielded only 12 sales that year.<\/p>\n
Within this setting, I was named corporate director of marketing and sales in 2023 and charged with rebuilding occupancy. And I knew things needed more than incremental change; we needed a complete reset.<\/p>\n
One of the first things I did was untangle sales from marketing. Salespeople were helping plan events and edit content. That had to stop. I told the team: \u201cYou focus on tours, building your funnel and connecting with prospects. Let the marketing team do marketing.\u201d It wasn\u2019t about control\u2014it was about clarity and performance.<\/p>\n
I also changed marketing agencies, who weren\u2019t working out in a variety of ways, with a small creative firm that I knew and respected. They were helpful in some ways\u2014they redesigned our website beautifully\u2014but they lacked the infrastructure and strategic depth we needed. No reporting (literally). No data-driven insights. No lead generation plan. Just content.<\/p>\n
As good as their content was, I needed more than a creative partner who could make a pretty website\u2014I needed a marketing partner who could help drive census<\/em>.<\/p>\n In September 2023, I attended the LeadingAge Virginia\/Maryland marketing symposium. That day changed everything.<\/p>\n Love & Company presented, and as I sat in that room, I realized we were missing nearly every piece of modern marketing infrastructure. I had a talented team doing good work, but we weren\u2019t tracking the KPIs that mean the most. We were relying on traditional advertising and direct mail, as we always had, and not asking ourselves important strategic questions.<\/p>\n It was a moment of clarity. We\u2019d been coasting on reputation alone.<\/p>\n So, as we entered annual budget time, I asked my CEO, \u201cPlease keep our marketing budget open. I want Love & Company to assess us and tell us what we need\u2014before I commit to anything else.\u201d And I\u2019m so glad I did.<\/p>\n Love & Company\u2019s assessment process was unlike anything I\u2019d experienced. They didn\u2019t just meet with the marketing team and pitch ideas. They engaged our leadership, our staff and even our residents. I intentionally stepped back to give them room to speak honestly\u2014and what came out of that was powerful.<\/p>\n This approach made the operations team feel part<\/em> of marketing for the first time. Facilities staff, dining staff\u2014everyone started to realize how their roles supported marketing goals. We\u2019d been working in silos for so long that we didn\u2019t even realize it wasn\u2019t normal.<\/p>\n Sales and marketing became a shared mission.<\/p>\n And truthfully? I thought we were too small for a national firm like Love & Company. As a small single-site, I didn\u2019t think we were large enough to be \u201cworth it.\u201d But they worked with the budget we had\u2014and made it work really<\/em> well.<\/p>\n Two things in particular changed.<\/p>\n First, we had a clear marketing strategy. Prior to Love, we had no real marketing plan\u2014just a list of what ads we\u2019d placed and what we thought they\u2019d done. They brought us data-driven guidance. Suddenly, I could see real ROI. We had reporting. We had visibility. And best of all, my emails always got answered the same day. That alone is priceless.<\/p>\n Second, and maybe more importantly, our unique message was finally getting out.<\/em> Before, our story was stuck in the past\u2014Richmond Home for Ladies, Civil War era roots. We\u2019re proud of our rich past, but we have so much<\/em> more to share: our extensive farm-to-table garden, our Woodhouse Catering business and the real community life that makes this place special. We\u2019re doing incredible, innovative things\u2014and none of it was being shared. Love & Company helped us tell that story in a way I didn\u2019t think was possible.<\/p>\n To help us tell our new story, Love & Company brought in a topic-based content strategy, introduced digital campaigns and created a bundle of videos so vibrant and authentic that it literally gives me chills. Suddenly, people started showing up to tours already knowing<\/em> what makes us special. They come in informed. They ask the right questions. They know<\/em> who we are before we even shake hands. That\u2019s huge.<\/p>\n The result? Our sales team is doing more, shorter tours. They\u2019re spending more time in the \u201cselling zone,\u201d not doing admin or chasing down basic info. Our time spent in Sherpa\u2019s (now Aline) \u201cselling zone\u201d has jumped by nearly 50%. Love\u2019s best practices sales training was a big part of this improvement, too.<\/p>\n It\u2019s funny; I recently gave a presentation to our residents explaining the workflow that goes on behind the scenes, and their jaws dropped. They had no idea all that goes into leading prospects through the sales journey. They thought you just come in for a tour and you get a hug at the end!<\/p>\n We\u2019re not just seeing results in sales. The entire community feels different.<\/p>\n Directors are proud to be part of marketing. Line staff take ownership of how they contribute to the experience.<\/p>\n And here\u2019s the real shift: My partners in operations now know that marketing isn\u2019t just postcards and events. It\u2019s a system. It\u2019s data. It\u2019s storytelling. And when that system works, we all win<\/em>.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve always believed in this community. But it wasn\u2019t until we partnered with the right marketing team that our potential truly started to shine.<\/p>\n The volume of leads? The highest it\u2019s ever been.<\/p>\n The quality of those leads? Better educated, better qualified and more engaged from the start.<\/p>\n And census? We were at 87% in October 2023, when I asked Love & Company to do an assessment. And now we are holding strong at 95% with a waiting list that has doubled in 2 years.<\/p>\n We\u2019re working smarter, not harder\u2014and it\u2019s all because the heavy lifting of marketing is finally happening behind the scenes. And it\u2019s being done well<\/em>.<\/p>\n The best way I can put it is this: \u201cLove\u2019s got that, so I can focus on this<\/em>.\u201d I can focus on my team, on census, on growing our wait list and on coaching and strategy and resident engagement\u2014because I trust Love & Company\u2019s knowledge and talent to deliver great outcomes on the marketing side.<\/p>\n And trust like that? That\u2019s everything.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Erin Melton shares her experience of revitalizing the marketing and sales strategies within the organization after facing significant challenges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40301,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"Insights from a Sales & Marketing Leader: The Power of Hitting \u201cReset\u201d","_seopress_titles_desc":"Erin Melton shares her experience of revitalizing the marketing and sales strategies within the organization after facing significant challenges.","_seopress_robots_index":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guest-contributors","category-industry-trends"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.loveandcompany.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.loveandcompany.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.loveandcompany.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.loveandcompany.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.loveandcompany.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/resources.loveandcompany.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.loveandcompany.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.loveandcompany.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.loveandcompany.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.loveandcompany.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}A Wake-Up Call<\/h2>\n
Hitting \u201cReset\u201d With a Comprehensive Assessment<\/h2>\n
Now the Story Gets Told\u2014Beautifully<\/h2>\n
Marketing that Makes the Sales Team Better<\/h2>\n
Marketing Is an (Operations) Team Sport\u2014And Everyone Feels It Now<\/h2>\n
Why I\u2019m Successful Today<\/h2>\n