Operational Programs

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone!

In our hope of transitioning all of our email communications over to Marketo (we're still operating some things like our newsletter and client communications through ConstantContact, ugh) we're sending out a blast on Friday to 3 different groups of stakeholders with a company announcement. Each group will be getting a slightly different email. Email 1 will be going to a group of board members of a specific organization, email 2 will be going to partners we have worked with as part of this organization, and email 3 will be going to all of our clients. 

Should I set this up all in one program and make the channel 'Operational'? I'm not even sure exactly what that means in terms of a program channel, but it seems like the correct option. Or, should I just set the channel as "Email Blast' and then make each email 'Operational'?

Note: This is an important announcement and will not be seen as 'Spam' by anyone.

I apologize if this is a silly question, I just need to make sure I get this right!

Thank you in advance!
Allison

[Anonymous]

The operational tag is useful for programs you want to filter out of reports.  So if you don't see this email as influencing revenue, this is best placed in operational.

[Anonymous]

Ok, got it. So is that the only way using this tag will affect this program?

[Amber_Hobson]

It depends on if you're using your progression statuses. If Operational doesn't have the statuses that you want a lead to cycle through for that program, you'll need to add them. I know that no matter the email type, we always want the status to update for delivered, opens and clicks.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Amber, that is helpful. We will want to see Delivered and Open rates for sure - is it not possible to see those in an operational program?

[Amber_Hobson]

You can still run reports to get the open rates and such. We use the statuses primarily for our sync with Salesforce. This way our sales group can easily look at a contact to see if they have received an email, opened it or clicked the links.

[Anonymous]

Ok got it, thank you Amber!

[Anonymous]

It is also important to note that emails designated "Operational" bypass unsubscribe preferences, since they are intended for things like critial updates to your customer base, partner base, etc. I use that designation for critical updates and announcements to customers and partners and also for sales alerts to employees, that's pretty much it. As long as it's something like that, you won't be violating CAN-SPAM by bypassing preferences and not offering an unsubscribe option.

[Anonymous]

Yes, noted. This is something that falls in the category of a critical update, so we're all good there. Thank you Tom!