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A
Anonymous
November 28, 2017
Question

Operational Emails and Engagement Programs

  • November 28, 2017
  • 4 replies
  • 4328 views

Hi,

I'm told that we can't include operational emails in nurture streams in Engagement Programs...is this 100% accurate? How does everyone else then talk to their customer/user base where marketing supporessions like unsubscribe don't apply? It seems odd that we can't use something as amazing as a nurture program to talk to our customers about updates/software usage tips etc...what is the alternative here?

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4 replies

M
matjazz
Level 6
November 28, 2017

Hi,

accurate. Marketing emails have to have unsubscribe link.

What you can do is to craft a nice copy in front of an unsubscribe link that will motivate people to stay on the mailing list (or use some guerrilla approach and put unsubscribe link on something that's basically impossible to spot and click, ie ".", however I don't recommend tricking customers like that).

Otherwise you can use smart campaigns to somehow simulate engagement program behaviour and send out operational emails.

Best;m

Dan_Stevens_
Dan_Stevens_
Level 10
November 28, 2017

Where did you hear/read this?  Have you tested this?  We have the option to mark our emails as operational in our EPs:

A
Anonymous
November 28, 2017

Marketo Support - and they pointed me to this

https://docs.marketo.com/display/public/DOCS/Make+an+Email+Operational

specifically this section: -

Caution

Operational emails weren't designed to work with engagement programs. Thus, an engagement program will ignore an email's operational status. Please keep that in mind when working with them.

Dan_Stevens_
Dan_Stevens_
Level 10
November 28, 2017

Good to know.  Although, I have to agree with the logic here.  Even though you're sending emails like this to existing customers, I wouldn't consider these operational.  A user should still have the right to opt-out/unsubscribe from these types of emails.

Kevin_McMahon1
Kevin_McMahon1
Level 4
November 28, 2017

Agreed - customers should have the right to opt-out too. Operational emails should not contain any marketing content and failing to do so can have legal repercussions. Here is a good discussion of when to use an operational email.

Justin_Laberge1
Justin_Laberge1
Level 4
November 28, 2017

I think you need to consider the context of your messages when creating operational emails.

As a client, if I'm opted out of marketing emails, the only thing I need to see from you is: Invoices, Service Notifications (outages, issues, technical problems ) or Customer service communications.

Michael Collins wrote:

How does everyone else then talk to their customer/user base where marketing supporessions like unsubscribe don't apply? It seems odd that we can't use something as amazing as a nurture program to talk to our customers about updates/software usage tips etc...what is the alternative here?

You don't communicate to them at all. By doing so it risks your companies reputation and potential ability to communicate in the future. Find creative ways to reach them without using email

A
Anonymous
November 29, 2017

I take the point, but the Customer Support team who are responsible for the content simply asked whether it was possible to insert something like an operational 'system' message into the nurture stream...we'll deal wit hthose separately, which i agree is probably a better approach.

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