Channel / Program Status Best Practices - Part 2

[Brian_Law_MKTO]

Here is a summary of recommended statuses and steps for the most common channels.

I recommend numbering your statuses and adding “Success” to the success status. It will make it clearer and easier for everyone to understand which status is success.

Channel	Program Type	Statuses	Step
Email Send	Email	1 Member 2 Engaged - Success	10 20
List Import	Default	1 Member 2 Do Not Use (Hide step)	10 20
Online Advertising	Default	1 Member 2 Engaged - Success	10 20
Operational	Default	1 Member 2 Do Not Use (Hide step)	10 20
Nurture	Engagement	1 Member 2 Engaged - Success	10 20
Seminar	Event	1 Member 2 Registered 3 No Show 4 Attended - Success	10 20 30 30
Tradeshow	Event	1 Member 2 Visited Booth 3 Engaged - Success	10 20 20
Web	Default	1 Member 2 Engaged - Success	10 20
Webinar	Event	1 Member 2 Registered 3 No Show 4 Attended – Success 5 Attended On-Demand - Success	10 20 30 30 40

The step in a channel is to prevent you from accidentally allowing a record to go backwards in status. If you make a mistake and need to set a record to a previous step this can be a problem. If you never make any mistakes then let the steps be progressive. If you are prone to making mistakes then consider making many of the steps the same like my example above. Remember if you remove a record from a program to fix the membership status you will reset the membership date.

As mentioned in an earlier post, Marketo will automatically set a record to the first program status when a record fills out a Marketo form on a Marketo landing page or when a record is imported directly into a program. If you have multiple program statuses you have to remember to set success for that program. If you are concerned that your team will forget to set program status I recommend only having only one program status for your channel.

Example:

Channel	Program Type	Statuses	Step
Online Advertising or Web	Default	1 Engaged – Success	10

[Jason_Hamilton1]

Another good one Brian!

[Anna_Blanchet1]

Great idea to use the same number on multiple steps. I didn't realize that was a possibility!

[Brian_Law_MKTO]

Thanks Anna! Happy you like the suggestion. You can also have multiple success statuses but except for events (e.g. Registered = Success, Attendance = Success), I wouldn't recommend it cause it might be more confusing then helpful.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the information Brian. It's very useful. Question for you:

If you've created a program and assigned a channel to it and then later want to change the channel to the existing program, can it be done? And what are the implications?

In this situation both program channels reside in the "Default" program type.

Thanks

Enrique

[Brian_Law_MKTO]

To change the channel of an existing program you will need to remove all members of the program, change the channel and then re-add members with the correct program/channel status. You will need to manually reset the program success date for each record. Since records will have a new membership date the change may impact your program membership reporting if you filter by period cost time period.

[Rachel_Egan]

Hi Brian Law​, over the past few months we realized that we need a couple more steps in a few of our channels. I have a few questions:

• If I need to add an additional step between 20 and 30, is best practice to just add it in between the existing steps (i.e. put it in as 25)?
• If we have steps that need to be switched around, what are the implications of changing the step number? If I have a number that says "5" but I want it to be "50" (and every other step multiplied by 10 as well... so 1 would be 10, 2 would be 20, etc.), will that mess anything up? What if I want to switch steps 50 and 40 so that the latter is now first? I'm not sure I have any of those situations right now, but it was just something that came to mind.
• If I change the Status name, so change "member" to something else, will that change throughout all of my programs and reporting? Will it mess up any of the workflows?

Thanks so much!

[Erin_Rustigian]

If you hide a member status, what will happen to existing program members that have that member status?

[Brian_Law_MKTO]

Hi Erin, I recall if you hide the status there will be no change in the programs where members have the status you hid. You just won't be able to add records to the hidden status going forward. I believe you can't delete a status if any record has the status in a program. Have a Happy New Year!

[Anonymous]

Any recommendations for statuses that capture the number of times an asset was downloaded? We want to track the number of times a lead downloads an asset, specifically the very first time and last time.

[Brian_Law_MKTO]

Hi Derrick, I like to use the lead/person performance report with custom columns (smart lists) to track the number of times a record does something. Thanks.