If you are working on your email list, you know the first step is to choose your email marketing tool. For small business owners trying to do everything on their own, it can be so overwhelming looking at all of the email marketing software options, email templates, email campaigns, open rates – just EVERYTHING that goes into choosing an email provider for your small business. You want beautiful emails that are eye-catching, easy to read, and get great click through rates. I have been using Flodesk for several years, so let’s take a look at Flodesk for your small business email marketing tool!
Update: Flodesk offers affordable, transparent pricing that scales with your subscribers. Get 25% off your first year with my code ASHLEYMIK.
What is Flodesk?
Flodesk is an email marketing software that is incredibly easy to use. This new software is led by Martha Bitar and Rebecca Shostak and they emphasize a user-friendly interface for small business owners. You can build a landing page, use opt-in forms, and get your very first campaign running in under 30 minutes. (Trust me, I timed it.)
In fact, you can join using their free trial for 30 days and I’ll walk you through how to get started building your list in under 30 minutes with my free course. You can also use code ASHLEYMIK to get 25% off your first year of Flodesk.
That is my code and affiliate link because I have been so happy with them, I love sharing it with new subscribers. Let’s talk more about the features they offer!
Flodesk Account Features
The number one thing I love about Flodesk is that you get unlimited emails and email addresses (subscribers). Other email platforms charge you by a tier based on how large your list is, but Flodesk offers a flat rate. I love that because before I was so worried about how much my list was going to grow and how much I would have to pay for it that I actually stopped trying to grow my list and share it on social media.
When I switched email providers from Mailchimp to Flodesk, I started trying to actually grow my email list to market my digital products. Thank goodness for that! Let’s break down the other features.
Flodesk features:
- Free plan for 30 days
- 25% off for your first year
- Unlimited subscribers
- No limits on emails (or extra fees!)
- Inline forms and full-page forms options for sign-up forms
- Flodesk University for free training & support
- Beautiful templates
- Automated email sequences
- Segmenting email addresses
- Advanced features like countdown timers, if/then commands, and more!
- Supportive Facebook Group
Flodesk makes it so easy for first time email marketing for small businesses. From your opt-in forms to your sales pages to your very first welcome email and beyond, Flodesk is a great way to build and establish relationships.
Unlimited Subscribers
Sometimes other email platforms will have special offers for their tiers, but Flodesk pricing includes unlimited subscribers and no limits on your email newsletters to your mailing list. As I mentioned previously, when I was with another email platform I was afraid to get a lot of people on my email list due to the cost, but when I switched to this new platform and used Flodesk as my email provider, I was able to focus on growing my mailing list without fear!
Opt-in Forms
Flodesk includes many easy to use templates for their sign-up forms. Choose from:
- inline forms
- full-page forms
- a pop-up form
Or, you can use any combination of the sign-up forms they offer to grow. There is no additional cost and the forms work on desktop and mobile devices. I have used the full page forms before I set up my custom domain, and then moved to more inline forms throughout my blog. I also have a pop-up form for getting new email subscribers when they visit my site!
They also offer some more advanced forms like the following:
- Link in bio – Create a link landing page that showcases up to six links, plus an opt-in form
- Video forms – Embed a YouTube or Vimeo video directly on the opt-in form
- Spinner forms – Include a spinning prize wheel that allows users to win an offer or coupon
One thing I’m looking forward to is the launch of countdown forms. These create a sense of urgency, driving visitors to act quickly before time runs out (leading to higher conversions!), leverages scarcity by making an offer available for a limited time, which leads to increased opt-ins. Plus, countdown forms become a waitlist after the time expires, so users who missed out can still opt-in for future promotions.
The timeline for that development is in just a few weeks at the time of this post, and I can’t wait to test it out for Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions!
Best Practices
Flodesk makes it easy to adhere to best practices for email marketing. Double opt-in is easily selected, it automatically suggests the best times to send, they have templates to help you create your first welcome sequence, and they are working on new features all the time!
Sometimes when you are just starting with a new email marketing platform it can be tough to figure out, but Flodesk makes email marketing campaigns so simple. Use the Flodesk forms to create your sales page, Flodesk emails for delivering your freebie, then keep going with the templates to build your subscriber list. It is easily the most user-friendly platform I have tried.
Flodesk’s Templates
The Flodesk platform is one of the best email marketing platforms for ease of use and your brand identity. You can easily set your brand color palette, choose custom fonts, and drag and drop components in the Flodesk email builder. It is the most intuitive email builder I have ever seen and the design features help you create the perfect email easily. From your very first email you’ll be hooked!
Another great feature that I love is that you can duplicate emails from previous sends. If you used one of their pre-designed templates and customized it for your business, it’s great to just duplicate, tweak, and go. And there is no extra cost for using the library of templates! It is the right tool for creating beautiful and functional emails.
As you’re customizing Flodesk’s templates, you can choose from any of these blocks:
- Layouts
- Image
- Logo
- Video
- Text
- Countdown
- Link bar
- Button
- Divider
- Spacer
- Social links
- Footer
- Address
Layouts are the custom blocks that allow you to insert images and text easily, or you can keep it simple with image and text blocks in their drag and drop editor. The user experience is so clean and simple.
Email Analytics
Flodesk offers simple analytic tools for its emails and opt ins. Each email includes the following data:
- Delivery rates
- Open rates
- Click rates
- Desktop v mobile opens
- Who opened emails and clicked links
- Deliverability
- Bounces, unsubscribes, and spam
You can also look at the analytics for your opt in forms by form and for a specific time frame.
Flodesk University
Small business owners and creative entrepreneurs working to grow their number of subscribers don’t have to go it alone. Flodesk has a thorough tutorial platform called Flodesk University, as well as a supportive and responsive Facebook group. There are many content creators in the Facebook group who support each other. The first thing I do if I have a question about a new tactic I want to try is head to the Facebook group to ask for advice. People are always willing to chime in!
Flodesk’s Pricing
As I mentioned before, Flodesk offers fixed pricing. This means that as you grow your email list and add new subscribers, you don’t have to worry about paying more for your email marketing tool! You could have 100 or 100,000 people on your list and you’d still be paying the same! There are unlimited emails offered as well. And, if you use my affiliate link, you’ll get 25% off your first year!
Flodesk Checkout
If you want to have an online store, you might like Flodesk Checkout as an option to sell your digital products. Accept credit card payments directly on Flodesk and automatically add customers to your email list with these Checkout features:
- Unlimited sales & checkout pages
- No platform fees
- Automatically add customers to your subscriber list
- Upsells
- Instant delivery
- Video
- PLUS, all of the email features from above!
This is a great way for online businesses to market and sell digital products all in one platform with Flodesk’s Checkout plan.
Flodesk vs MailChimp
While I haven’t used many, it can be helpful to compare between email marketing tool options. Prior to Flodesk I was with MailChimp, so I thought I would share how the two email marketing software options compare in the following categories:
- Subscriber Caps
- Interface
- Workflow automations
- Customer Support
- Cost
Subscriber caps: Mailchimp offers a free option for their plan, but it is based on the size of your email list. Once you hit that cap, you have to pay by the number of subscribers that you have! I was actively deleting and trying to clean my list daily trying to stay under the cap. It was ridiculous. I wasn’t ready to commit to their price tag, but I was over their limit for the free plan. It felt like a rock and a hard place. Flodesk’s plan is a flat rate – no extra charges for more emails on your list! I have 10x the number of people on my email list since then because I am no longer afraid of the cost.
Interface: I sent emails with Mailchimp, but I was never very proud of them. They were really basic, not actually pretty to look at or read. The Flodesk interface is beautiful and easy to use with a drag and drop email builder that makes your emails look so good!
Workflows: I struggled with automation, segmentation, and creating workflows or email sequences in Mailchimp. I created my welcome sequence and that was it. Flodesk has templates for workflows that you can tweak to fit your own voice. I now have several email funnels, and over 40 opt ins and segments on my list I use to serve different parts of my audience. Plus, I don’t have a hard time keeping it all straight. I use their folders to sort my opt-in forms based on segments and what they are marketing. Easy peesy!
Support: I never felt like I got help from Mailchimp, but Flodesk has a Facebook group that is great for quick questions and expertise from others. Plus, the one time I emailed support about a billing question, they got back to me within the day. Great service!
Cost: This may sound silly, but even paying the low annual rate made me really lock in my email plan. No longer was I just throwing opt ins out willy-nilly and hoping people would subscribe. I started to really utilize my list and serve my audience because I was determined to see the return on that investment. Putting my hard earned money on the line made it real. (Spoiler alert: email is worth it.)
Flodesk Cons
As with any review, I think it’s important to share any cons I’ve experienced with the platform. However, most of these have been addressed through my time with the platform as they’ve developed and added new features! I used to want more analytics, but they developed those. I used to wish they had a countdown feature for urgency in my sales emails, but they added that, too! At this point, I think the biggest cons are:
- limited integrations
- limited A/B testing
It does integrate with Zapier, and since I was already using that I found it to be a simple connection between my Woocommerce store and my email list. Check out the full list of integrations:
- Zapier & Pabbly Connect
- Interact
- Session
- BookFunnel
- Grow by Mediavine
- And many more to come!
The limited A/B testing I haven’t found to be a big deal. You can resend emails to unopens, but you can’t change the subject line, which I know some dislike. You also can’t set 2 subject lines to test on your first send, so some people find that frustrating.
Personally, when I consider all of the great things Flodesk includes and how they’ve been adding to and developing the Flodesk platform over time, I’m happy to wait for more things to be added. The main differences between email marketing tool options just don’t make the extra cost worth it to me!
How to Change Email Platforms
If you’ve decided Flodesk is the right choice, but you’re hesitating because you’re not sure how to change email platforms, don’t stress. It’s not as scary as it might seem! It’s really simple. Sign into your Mailchimp account, and export your audience as a .csv file. Sign into your Flodesk account and upload your .csv. Depending on the size of your list it can be quick or it can take a few hours, but it’s just doing it’s thing while you go have coffee or work on another project! No big deal at all.
I have a blog post where I walked through the process of swapping from MailChimp to Flodesk that you can read here.
Try Flodesk for Email Marketing
If you use my code ASHLEYMIK you’ll get 25% off of your first year after your 30 day free trial. Click the link below to get started!
Teach the Teacher Author 