FS-DOC-03Operations
Process Runbook / SOP
Email Newsletter Production
[YourCompany.com] · Marketing Department · Prepared by FullSpec · [Today's Date]
This runbook describes how the Email Newsletter Production automation works once it is live, what your team needs to do each week, and how to handle anything that does not go to plan. It is written for the Marketing Coordinator and Marketing Manager who own this process day to day. FullSpec has built, tested, and launched the automation end to end. Your role is covered in full in Sections 02 and 03 below.
01Process overview
Every week the automation platform fires a scheduled trigger that opens the newsletter production cycle. It sends personalised contributor briefs via Slack, waits for copy to arrive in Google Docs, assembles and validates the content, populates a Mailchimp campaign draft, checks every link automatically, and then notifies the Marketing Coordinator in Slack with a preview link and an approve or request-edits prompt. Once the coordinator approves, the send is scheduled in Mailchimp. Forty-eight hours after send, the Reporting Agent pulls campaign and traffic data from Mailchimp and Google Analytics and writes a structured performance summary card into Notion. The coordinator's only required action each week is reviewing the Slack notification and confirming or declining the send.
Process name
Email Newsletter Production
Trigger
Scheduled weekly trigger on the automation platform, firing at the agreed day and time each newsletter cycle
Final output
A sent Mailchimp newsletter campaign plus a Notion performance summary card published 48 hours after send
Agents running
Content Assembly Agent (copy collection, validation, Mailchimp draft build); Reporting Agent (post-send metrics and Notion card)
Tools involved
Mailchimp, Google Docs, Notion, Slack, Google Analytics
Weekly volume
1 newsletter per week, approximately 4 per month
Human checkpoint
Coordinator reviews the Mailchimp preview link in Slack and explicitly approves or declines before any send is scheduled
Process owner
Marketing Coordinator (day-to-day); Marketing Manager (escalation and final authority)
Process Runbook / SOPPage 1 of 4
FS-DOC-03Operations
02Step-by-step: what happens and who acts
What you actually need to do: Your single required action each week is to open the Slack approval notification, click the Mailchimp preview link, read through the draft, and either approve the send or select request edits. Everything else in the table below is handled by the automation. If broken links were flagged, you will also need to fix those URLs in the Mailchimp draft before approving. That is the full extent of your weekly involvement under normal conditions.
Step
What happens
Who acts
Type
1
The automation platform fires the weekly scheduled trigger and retrieves the content brief template from Notion, opening the current production cycle.
Automation
Automated
2
Personalised brief messages are posted to each contributor in Slack, including their assigned section, the required word count, any specific guidance, and the copy submission deadline.
Automation
Automated
3
When contributors mark their Notion tasks as complete, or when the copy deadline passes, the Content Assembly Agent retrieves the linked Google Doc content for each section and assembles it into a single structured payload.
Content Assembly Agent
Automated
4
The Content Assembly Agent checks each section against the brief requirements for length and completeness. Sections that are missing or significantly off-brief are flagged before the build step proceeds. The agent then formats all copy into the correct Mailchimp template variables.
Content Assembly Agent
Automated
5
The automation creates a new Mailchimp campaign via the Mailchimp API, injecting the validated copy, image URLs, and CTA links into the approved template. No manual duplication or copy-pasting is required.
Automation
Automated
6
Every hyperlink in the Mailchimp draft is tested against a live URL check. Any broken or redirected links are flagged in a Slack message to the coordinator with the specific URLs that need attention.
Automation
Automated
7
If broken links were flagged in Step 6, the coordinator opens the Mailchimp draft directly and corrects the specific URLs identified. This step only occurs when there are link errors; it is not a standard weekly task.
Marketing Coordinator
Human
8
The coordinator receives a Slack notification containing a direct preview link to the Mailchimp draft along with an approve or request-edits prompt. The coordinator reviews the draft and responds in Slack to confirm or decline the send.
Marketing Coordinator
Human
9
Once the coordinator approves, the automation schedules the Mailchimp campaign for send at the pre-agreed send time via the Mailchimp API. If the coordinator requests edits, the send is held and a notification is posted to the team.
Automation
Automated
10
Forty-eight hours after the campaign is recorded as sent, the Reporting Agent pulls open rate, click rate, top three links by clicks, and bounce data from Mailchimp and session data from Google Analytics.
Reporting Agent
Automated
11
The Reporting Agent writes a structured performance summary card into the team Notion workspace. If the bounce rate exceeds the prior four-week average, a bounce flag is included on the card. No manual data gathering or spreadsheet entry is needed.
Reporting Agent
Automated
Process Runbook / SOPPage 2 of 4
FS-DOC-03Operations
03Handling exceptions
Situation
What the system does
What you do
A contributor does not submit copy by the deadline
When the copy deadline passes, the Content Assembly Agent proceeds with whatever copy has been submitted. Any sections with no Google Doc content are flagged in a Slack alert to the coordinator, listing the contributor name and the missing section.
Contact the contributor directly via Slack to request their copy immediately. If the section cannot be filled in time, decide whether to hold the issue or remove that section from this cycle and update the Mailchimp draft manually before approving.
A section of copy fails the length or completeness check
The Content Assembly Agent flags the off-brief section before the Mailchimp draft is built. A Slack message is sent to the coordinator identifying which section failed and what the specific issue is (for example, 40 words submitted against a 120-word requirement).
Ask the relevant contributor to revise and resubmit their copy, or make the edit yourself in the Google Doc. Once the doc is updated, trigger a manual re-run of the assembly step from the automation platform dashboard, or notify FullSpec support if you are unsure how to re-trigger.
Broken links are found in the Mailchimp draft
The link-check step flags any broken or redirected URLs in a Slack message to the coordinator, listing the exact URLs that failed. The approval notification is still sent, but the broken-link flag is included prominently so the coordinator cannot miss it.
Open the Mailchimp draft using the link in the Slack message, locate the flagged URLs, and replace them with the correct live links. Once fixed, respond to the Slack approval prompt as normal. Do not approve the send while known broken links remain.
The coordinator does not respond to the approval prompt within the approval window
After the configured approval window closes (agreed during setup, typically 4 hours), the automation does NOT schedule the send. It posts an escalation alert to the Marketing Manager in Slack, stating that the approval window has passed and the send is on hold.
The Marketing Manager should either approve the send directly in Slack or confirm to the coordinator that it is safe to proceed. If neither party responds within a further agreed window, the issue is skipped for this cycle and the next scheduled trigger runs as normal the following week.
A duplicate newsletter cycle is triggered in error
If the trigger fires twice in the same cycle window, the automation checks for an existing Mailchimp campaign in draft status for the current issue date. If a duplicate is detected, the second run is halted and a Slack alert is sent to the coordinator.
Confirm in Mailchimp which draft is the correct one and delete the duplicate. Reply to the Slack alert to acknowledge the issue. If duplicates recur, contact FullSpec support at support@gofullspec.com so the trigger logic can be reviewed.
Mailchimp, Notion, Google Docs, or Slack is unavailable
The automation platform retries failed API calls up to three times with a short delay between attempts. If the tool is still unavailable after three retries, the step is paused and a Slack alert (or, if Slack itself is down, an email to the coordinator) is sent stating which tool is unavailable and at which step the workflow is held.
Check the relevant tool's status page to confirm whether the outage is widespread. If the outage resolves within a few hours, the automation will resume automatically on its next retry. If the tool remains unavailable for more than 24 hours or the issue is time-critical, contact FullSpec support at support@gofullspec.com for a manual workaround or fallback procedure.
Process Runbook / SOPPage 3 of 4
FS-DOC-03Operations
04Who to contact and when
Fill in the rows below once your team is confirmed and the automation is live. Keep this table updated whenever a team member changes role. The FullSpec rows at the bottom are fixed and do not change.
Role
Name
How to reach them
Marketing Coordinator (process owner, day-to-day)
[Your name]
[Rep email]
Marketing Manager (escalation, final approval authority)
[Your name]
[Rep email]
Mailchimp account administrator (API key and template access)
[Your name]
[Rep email]
Notion workspace administrator (database permissions)
[Your name]
[Rep email]
FullSpec builder (technical issues, automation changes, re-triggers)
FullSpec Team
support@gofullspec.com
FullSpec support (questions, incidents, urgent errors)
FullSpec Support
support@gofullspec.com
For any situation where the automation has stopped unexpectedly, a live send is at risk, or you are unsure whether it is safe to approve, contact FullSpec support at support@gofullspec.com before taking manual action in Mailchimp. Acting in the tool directly without pausing the automation can cause duplicate sends.
05Ongoing maintenance
Whenever a contributor is added, removed, or changes section
Update the contributor list and brief assignments in the Notion content brief template. The automation reads from this template each cycle, so any change takes effect on the next trigger without a technical update.
Marketing Coordinator
Whenever the newsletter template or section structure changes
Notify FullSpec at support@gofullspec.com before making changes in Mailchimp. Changes to template variable names or section layout can break the Content Assembly Agent's injection logic and must be mapped and tested before going live.
Marketing Coordinator notifies FullSpec; FullSpec updates the build
Monthly spot-check (first issue of each month)
Review the Notion performance summary card for the most recent send and confirm the data looks consistent with what is visible in Mailchimp and Google Analytics directly. Flag any discrepancies to FullSpec support.
Marketing Coordinator
Weekly, after each send
Glance at the Slack alert log for any flagged exceptions from the previous cycle (broken links, missed contributors, retry warnings). If any flags appeared and were resolved, note them. If the same flag appears two weeks in a row, raise it with FullSpec.
Marketing Coordinator
Whenever a team member joins or leaves
Update the contact table in Section 04 of this runbook. If the departing person held Mailchimp API or Notion admin permissions, rotate the relevant API key or transfer access before their last day, and inform FullSpec so credentials can be updated in the automation.
Marketing Manager plus FullSpec support
Quarterly volume review
Check whether the newsletter frequency, subscriber segment structure, or contributor count has changed materially. If the team is now sending more than one issue per week, or if new sections have been added, the trigger schedule and agent configuration may need updating. Share the updated numbers with FullSpec for a brief review.
Marketing Manager plus FullSpec
The most common maintenance issue for this process is a change to the Mailchimp template structure, such as renaming a content block or adding a new section, without informing FullSpec first. This breaks the Content Assembly Agent's variable injection and causes the draft to build with empty or misplaced sections. Always contact FullSpec at support@gofullspec.com before making structural changes to your Mailchimp template.
Process Runbook / SOPPage 4 of 4