Today I’m sharing more of a “secrets of creative business ownership” post than a post about what we’re eating for dinner or how I refresh our home in the spring; I’m sharing one way that I’ve been able to very intentionally grow my online community while being a work-from-home mom. One way that I’ve been able to save time and be more efficient with my very limited work hours as a work-from-home mama. Today I’m sharing ALL about why I left Mailchimp, and then ConvertKit, and Why I Started Using Flodesk. That might be the longest title I’ve ever given a blog post, but I wanted to capture your attention from the beginning. And I’m not being dramatic. I feel like a Flodesk evangelist, and I want everyone to love and use Flodesk.
I recently broke up with ConvertKit (and before that, I was a Mailchimp girl for almost a decade) when I fell head over heels for FLODESK. Flodesk is a revolutionary new email service provider that basically makes sending beautifully, thoughtfully designed emails a JOY and a PLEASURE for all of us who know what we like to see in an email but don’t know how to get there on our own.
In November 2019, I was sitting in a coffee shop painfully going back-and-forth between ConvertKit and Photoshop, trying to design a pretty email. My friend Jen walked in and sat down next to me. She looked at my computer screen, (probably laughed inside a little), and promptly asked if I’d heard of Flodesk. I hadn’t, so she sent me the details. I immediately signed up for the FREE TRIAL, and on the last day of the free trial, I signed up. I got locked in at $19/month for forever (which is 50% off their regular rate of $38/month, which is still a STEAL). I had been paying nearly $70/month with my old ESP.
For almost 8 years, I glugged away on Mailchimp. I rarely sent emails, because they were labor intensive, time consuming, and not enjoyable. I WANTED to send emails that were beautifully designed and full of substance. I’d spend HOURS designing sub par blocks in Microsoft Word or Photoshop or Spark or Canva (…sound familiar?). I was never completely satisfied and was always frustrated, so I rarely sent out emails.
I knew it was possible: I received emails from companies all the time and these emails were beautiful and well designed. I simply didn’t have the knowledge to do it or the time to learn the skills necessary or the money to outsource it. So for roughly 8 years I accepted Mailchimp as the only option. Somewhere along the way I started paying for my mailing list, but still rarely invested time in that community.
In early 2018, I took a course on how to nurture your mailing list. At that time, I became convinced I had to leave Mailchimp. So, I looked around a bit and settled on ConvertKit. ConvertKit was going to make it easier to segment and tag my list, something that Mailchimp had lacked, so I was happy enough. But my emails still didn’t look the way I wanted them to. They were long, boring, and very labor intensive. I wanted a combination of eye catching design and written text paragraphs, but the eye catching design was not within my reach. For about a year and a half, I made do with ConvertKit. I was paying nearly $800/year for a service that I was still spending too much time figuring out, trying desperately to give my emails some visual interest. I was still so frustrated.
Jen always solves my design dilemmas (she designed my website and my shop and my logo). So when she entered that coffee shop and told me about Flodesk, I knew this was going to be the answer.
The first two screenshots are from my Mailchimp days of sending emails with just paragraphs of text. Nothing interesting or beautifully designed, because I didn’t have the time or knowledge. The last two screenshots are from an email I sent out in December using Flodesk. Night and day!
And here’s one final screenshot of the beautifully designed pop-ups that are available through Flodesk. I never before had these on A Daily Something because I didn’t know how to design them in such a way that was consistent with my branding and eye-catching. Flodesk makes it all so simple.
Honestly, if you have a mailing list or are thinking about starting a mailing list, I highly recommend checking out Flodesk. They are doing incredible things, and it’s so fun to be a part of something that’s solving the problem of designing emails for literally 1000s of users.
Let me know if you have ANY questions!
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Hehe you got my attention! And wow this was packed with so much knowledge and incredible feedback. Consider me a fan!! ❤️
<3 <3 <3 and likewise ;)
What template do you use for your emails?? I’m in love
Did you have any trouble taking your list out of ConvertKit? Any roadblocks?
No roadblocks at all! It took me about 8 hours to get everything switched over…lists exported and imported, workflows set up again, opt-in forms designed, etc.