Onboarding and Adoption Nurture Programs

[Aynot2000]

Hi, looking for advice on how other orgs are using Marketo to send operational type onboarding emails in a nurture/engagement type program. We have a a series of nurture programs to assist with walking net new customers through tasks that need to be completed for onboarding. These contacts are elidgible to receive this content as it it operational and does not contain marketing messages. We have just learned however that by design, Marketo will not and cannot send to contacts who are operational (i.e. not subscribed to marketing). Curious to see if and how others are leveraging Marketo to send onboarding programs. 

[Katja_Keesom]

Hmm, first of all, a person is never operational, your process of course can be.

It is also not true that Marketo cannot send emails if there is no opt-in. Technically, by making an email operational, you can even disregard people who have actively unsubscribed and send your email to them. That being said, I would always use that option with lots of caution, as it can also backfire by people registering complaints and your sending domain being blacklisted.

With the use case you describe, I would not use an engagement program, as I suspect your process will have certain milestones for a person when you want something to happen. With an engagement program you are bound by a sending schedule like "every second Tuesday", which does not really work well with that scenario. You could however use a Default Program in which you set up multiple processes that are related to eachother.