A complete review of Flodesk

Why you should move to Flodesk

My review of Flodesk, the new email service provider, is taking the online world of internet marketing by storm. It’s easy to navigate, wonderfully intuitive, and is breaking the barriers of annoying emails. Here is why I moved from Convertkit to Flodesk.

Note: This post has been updated in July 2021. I felt that Flodesk has moved on significantly enough to warrant an update.

In this post, I will cover why I moved from Convertkit to Flodesk, How much Flodesk costs, and what features Flodesk has. I’ll also cover why I think Flodesk is better than Convertkit for small business owners.

I recently received an email that blew my mind. It was from a fellow creative, not a huge business, just someone who wants to connect. The email looked fabulous, and not only beautiful but sexy.

I had indeed stumbled upon my first Flodesk email.

I immediately took a look. I’d been dreading my Convertkit bill going up to 49$ a month, so I was curious to see how much Flodesk is.

Warning – this is a long post. To help you, here is a list of topics you can jump right to.

Firstly let me explain who I am and why I recommend switching to the Flodesk email service provider today.

I’m an Etsy shop owner with a small blog on the side. I have almost 1000 email subscribers. I was with Convertkit up until this week costing 29$ a month. 

I’m not great at contacting my list. I’d rather not. As my emails just didn’t fit with my brand. I didn’t know what to say or how to engage with them. Sending that compulsory weekly email had become a bit of a chore.

But wait – I don’t have a website yet? – No problem I wrote a post on getting started with a website

Now I feel much better about sending my weekly email, and it only takes moments to compose. This is why I moved from Convertkit to Flodesk. If I can email my list often and with great content, it makes my life easier.

Sign up today for Flodesk and lock in for the better pricing of 19$. That’s half the regular price. Use my special discount code OHSHECREATES or click the discount link for Flodesk here.

Hurry – this link won’t last for long.

Firstly, let’s look at the basics.

What is Flodesk?

Flodesk is the new email marking platform on the block. The two ladies behind the brand are Martha and Rebecca, and they are taking email marketing to a new level right now.

Flodesk is what everyone like me has been waiting for; it brings both practically and versatility to the job of email marketing. The templates look amazing on both mobile and desktop. The platform has all the same bells and whistles but without the clutter. Not only that, but it feels cleaner, less distracting and a lot less scary.

Is Flodesk better than Convertkit? 

Read on… 

What’s so great about Flodesk V Convertkit?

Nothing wrong with Convertkit. They provide an excellent steady service, they allow you to easily segment your list and have a pretty good delivery rate. But for the smaller entrepreneur who has yet to monetize their list (by this, I mean make money), it’s expensive.

I’ve managed to keep my list under 1000 subscribers because truthfully I can’t afford 49$ each month. I delete anyone who I can from my list regularly and encourage unsubscribers on every email. 

Please see notes below if you have a larger email list – then Flodesk may not be the best solution.

But – I won’t be doing that going forward.

How much does Flodesk cost per month?

The pricing structure for Flodesk at the time of writing is 38$ a month. But for this, you can have unlimited subscribers, access every feature and never see your bill increase. You can safely build your list in any direction you want, without worrying that they are ‘your perfect people’.

The Flodesk pricing is unique right now because it doesn’t cost more as you build your list. Unlike other providers, you are not paying extra for all that hard work. 

They don’t double count subscribers if they optin twice on two forms, unlike other email service providers. No confusion there.

And guess what – right now as Flodesk is still in beta, which is why the Flodesk pricing is so attractive –  I can offer you my coupon code of 50% off which, will not last long.

Sign up today for Flodesk and lock in for the better pricing of 19$. That’s half the regular price. Use my special discount code OHSHECREATES or click the discount link for Flodesk here.

Yes, all the Flodesk features and unlimited subscribers in perpetuity for 19$ a month. Use this link to sign up, ensuring that the code at the end is … 

Did I mention you get all of the Flodesk features for that price?

Remember – they are currently in beta, which is why I’m telling you to sign up now. Grab this offer because these girls are going to do great things with or without you.

Why you will love Flodesk?

I’m not going to lie to you – if you are a visual person like me, you will love Flodesk. The platform is both simple and intuitive. I love the visual emphasis that Flodesk has. Honestly, who doesn’t want to create an email that looks like it been sent from Anthropology, rather than my little kitchen table?

Since many of my readers are creatives, they too like the look and feel of Flodesk.

Find out how to create a template for your Newsletter

Which is better? Flodesk or Convertkit? 

Let’s see. 

Here is a list of reasons to love the new email marketing platform

Free email templates

These are perfect if you don’t know what to send to your list. You need inspiration and want to send something pretty in the next hour. They are pre-formatted, and all the heavy lifting has been done for you. 

Upload images directly from Unspash inside the email editor.

If you don’t have any amazing images of your own to use, you can just upload them from Unsplash directly in the email editor.

All of this makes it pretty difficult to make an ugly email in Flodesk.

Does Flodesk have free Landing pages?

Yes, Flodesk has a selection of free landing pages which you can use on your blog to collect email addresses for the freebies you create.

No need to install 3rd party apps to make your landing page look fab. They are right here and made for you. Easy. 

Does Flodesk have mail sequences?

Wondering what to send in your Welcome sequence, your sales sequence or even just to get to know your list. They have beautiful free templates for those.

In Flodesk you can find a number or Sequences ready-built out for you. Just add in your message, change to your branding and you are good to go.

Can you segment your list?

Yes, you can. Perfect for those of us juggling two or more different lists of sign-ups. I have Sign-ups from my Etsy shop and those who engage with my website although some appear on both eventually. 

In order to Segment your list, you can create as many segments as you wish. A segment is a group of people who have something in common. They may have joined your email list from a particular optin, or clicked a link.

Can I segment my email list in Flodesk when they click a link?

Yes, this is done during a workflow, which happens when you send a series of emails to your Segments. It cannot as yet be done in a regular newsletter.

Automation is also included.

I created an email to deliver my freebie in moments and then follow on with my Welcome series. You can see how easy it is in this video. 

Deliver your freebie and create a welcome series in Flodesk

Beautiful Email creation in minutes with Flodesk

Because they provide so many pretty predesigned templates, all the stress of formatting your emails is removed. You can also design your email from scratch if you prefer.

I found the process very similar to blocks in WordPress. Add a block, fill it with your text, images, or buttons, and then add another one.

All these make it one of the best tools for bloggers today.

Open rates

If you are curious about your open rates – there are statistics to help you too. My email with Convertkit had around a 21% open rate. Not bad. The first email I sent with Flodesk hit an 18% open rate, but those that opened clicked more and that’s what I wanted.

Open rates do tend to go up and down depending on how engaged your audience is. For example, if you send your audience a freebie and they mostly download it, chances are they will open the next email too. However, if you have not emailed your list in a long time, also known as a cold list – this will affect your open rates.

Essentially you want a clean list – of subscribers who are raving fans and open every email you send. It is better to have an email list of 3000 engaged people than an email list of 20k with an open rate of 1%.

For this reason, you should clean your list regularly.

Click here if you would like to view it in the browser

As I said before, I email my list around once per 20 days, so I’m going to use Flodesk to whip this up to once a week at least.

It gets better!

Will you write to your list more

I covered about 2hrs worth of courses that went into how to format your emails, how to improve open rates, and how to make them look pretty in Convertkit. What to say, how to say it. 

So much so that I never actually wrote to my list. I felt my emails were so bland, and not reflective of my brand. I don’t know any CSS and felt disappointed that my emails just look a bit blah.

Each email would take me half a day to complete. It was tedious work.

I’m not sure if Convertkit has improved its service now.

But the future is bright!

The future looks like this. These gorgeous templates are part of the free features in Flodesk.

When I have a new post on my blog, I can draft a pretty email in about 4 minutes and get it scheduled to go out the next day. This leaves me more time to produce content on my blog and keep my Etsy shop up to date.

Smiles all around. Since everyone bashes on about talk to your list, warm your list, and keep your list engaged. I’m looking forward to writing these next ones, and I have three already drafted.

This in itself is a massive weight off my mind.

I’ve probably been emailing my list around once every 20 days at best. But from now on, I can see myself improving that by a considerable amount. 

I might use the same six templates for different emails and keep them consistent. Like these.

What integrations does Flodesk have?

At this moment, Flodesk supports Instagram and Shopify. Connect your shop to pull your customers into Flodesk. Once they make a purchase on Shopify, they are added automatically to your Flodesk account inside a segment.

If you want to connect more apps – you can connect to your Zapier account and create a Zap to add those emails to your Flodesk account. I use Zapier to connect my landing page to Flodesk.

More integrations are being added as the platform evolves.

So what are the downsides of Flodesk? 

As I said before, Flodesk is currently in beta, which means it is still a work in progress. But for the price, they are doing a fantastic job of shaking up the email service providers which dominate the market.

And why not. 

Viewing where your sign-ups are coming from

In Convertkit, there is a graph to show where your sign-ups are originating I can’t see this in Flodesk. No big deal for now, and I’m sure it will come later. You can sort through your list using the segments so it is easy to find a list of them.

You can filter your subscribers by date and where they originally joined your email list. However, Flodesk does not provide analytical data as to when and how they joined.

Individual subscriber details – say how many emails the subscriber has opened, but not which emails. Perhaps this will come later, but again – it’s not a priority for me. 

What other statistics does Flodesk provide?

After sending an email – you can see some useful statistics on how well that email did with your audience.

• Email Delivery rates
• Email open rates
• Email click rates
• Who opened which links and how many times
• Who opened your email and how many times
• Opens on desktop or mobile

Is Flodesk better than Convertkit?

These ladies only went live in the FB group for the first time the other day – and yet their product is selling itself repeatedly. They seem genuinely honest in their tactics and are graciously overwhelmed by the response to their new email marketing platform.

For my needs as a small business owner, Flodesk is better than Convertkit.

Flodesk targets the more feminine marketers, who cannot invest lots of money in their email service provider but want good all-around service. Understanding the concept that email marketing takes time, and not everyone enjoys it. But this platform makes it pleasant.

Great ideas come to life and in a straightforward, no-nonsense way. 

They have thought about the end-user and made a frustrating part of running a business into a little bit of prettiness.

Don’t forget you can get a free trial of 1 month now – no credit card, no commitment. Just sign up and see. 

Sign up today for Flodesk and lock in for the better pricing of 19$. That’s half the regular price. Use my special discount code OHSHECREATES or click the discount link for Flodesk here.

Have I convinced you yet? 

Don’t take my word for it – the other day these ladies managed to ‘break the internet’ with their sign-ups because everyone was jumping on board. They ran a challenge that showed us how to create those beautiful emails and send them to our list. 

They even let us keep the templates inside Flodesk, if you weren’t part of it, you could still get started. 

Sign up for Flodesk here.

Wondering what to include in your Newsletter?

How do I transfer my email list from Convertkit to Flodesk?

These are the steps I took to set up my desk account and move from Convertkit. 

A few notes

• Flodesk used segments to group together emails from people who are interested in the same thing. In Convertkit, you would know this as tags.
• Flodesk uses workflows to move subscribers through an email funnel such as your welcome series or marketing funnel. In Convertkit these are called automatons.
• There are no rules in Flodesk. And for me, that’s a good thing because I never truly understood them.
• Forms are the same in Flodesk as in Convertkit. These are the sign-up forms you embed on your website to capture the email address. You can deliver your freebie, a message or redirect to another page on your site upon signing up. 

How do I move my email list over to Flodesk?

This process was surprisingly straightforward, and I kept all my tags and segments which I had built up in Convertkit. 

Note – it is easier to have both screens open next to each other so you can move from one to the other quickly. 

Complete the set-up of your account

1. Open your Flodesk account settings and add set up your email – you will need to verify the email you are planning to send your emails from.
2. Set up the domain advanced settings. This will help your delivery rates. But it is not necessary if you want to get started. My host provider is Siteground, and I quickly followed the instructions and added the settings to my Cpanel.
3. Add your brand preferences. Here you can upload your logo, so it appears automatically at the top of your emails. I was able to do this easily, but I’ve seen some who use a photograph which looked fab I must admit.

How to import Subscribers from Convertkit?

1. Next, we want to import your current subscribers from Convertkit to Flodesk. Think about your tags now – are they correct, do they still make sense with your business model. If you want to change them, the name or combine them – we will cover this in a moment.
2.  Download a CSV file from Convertkit of all your subscribers onto your desktop.
3. Next, navigate to the audience and subscribers in Flodesk.
4. Choose – Upload a CSV file and click ok. This will have automatically created a segment of all subscribers. Hopefully, they match with the same amount in Converkit, so you know you have everyone.
5. Now use your Convertkit tags or segments to grab another CSV file of subscribers. But this time when you upload it call it the tag or title you want it to be known as. So for mine, ‘only interested in free stuff’ – because these subscribers have previously told me that’s all they are interested in.
6. I also made a segment called Library blog subscribers and Etsy shop tips as these are the tags I used when finding them in Convertkit.
7. Continue uploading your CSV files based on your tags or segments in Convertkit. This will mean that some of your subscribers will appear in several segments, much like in Convertkit.

Note: If you use the tag in a sequence in Convertkit. Exclude those and come back in a few days and add them once they have completed the sequence in Convertkit.

Sending your first email

Use Segments to tell Flodesk who you would like to receive that email. Either add segments off your list or exclude segments. You can even add individuals also to receive this particular email.

Keep your list organized. Adding a segment of cold subscribers.

This would be a good option if you wanted to import all of your cold subscribers and send them a one-time email to get them to either stay or go.

Ok – happy that you have uploaded everyone. 

let’s move on. 

How do I create forms?

Forms in Flodesk range from inline, popups to whole landing pages. Just make a list of all the ones you need to replace and create them. I only use three forms on my website, so this was relatively easy to achieve. 

How do I get my subscribers to receive a series of emails?

You now need to create your workflows in Flodesk. I know I thought it was going to be tedious also, but Flodesk premakes a Welcome series for you.

Just add a trigger for the sequence to begin – for example, added to the segment Etsy shop help because they signed up on your website on this form –  and then build your emails below. As sign-ups enter your funnel, you can see how many have started and completed the sequence 

For me, this is such a great thing to have. I must have waited almost a year before I started my email list in a way simply because I didn’t know what to tell them in the email. Enter Flodesk premade templates for Welcome sequence, nurture, sales sequence. All pre-formatted for you. 

Pro Tip: Add a wait time of 100 days at the end and that way you have 100 days to add in new emails or even keep the same sequence continuing. 

I have read of bloggers creating a Welcome Sequence with 60 or more emails in it – only pausing it when they have a sale to promote or something time-sensitive. So now is your chance. 

Once you have created your sequence and published it – you can now add your sign-up forms to your website and check they work correctly.

My welcome sequences are relatively short at around 4-5 days. Once this time has passed, and you are happy that your recent subscribers have finished with that Welcome sequence in Convertkit – you can add them to your Flodesk emails using the CVS file as before.

If you add them before, they will trigger the workflow again and receive those emails too. 

Lastly, get those beautiful templates working for you.

Remember if you moved because you never emailed your list or didn’t know what to say to them. Now is your chance to change that.

Use the templates and select what you would like to do with your list today. Share a story, a post, make money etc. 

So we have worked on 

1. What is Flodesk
2. How much does Flodesk cost
3. Is Flodesk better than Convertkit
4. Why is Flodesk so good at marketing automation
5. How to move from Convertkit to Flodesk
6. What features does Flodesk have – such as email templates, free landing pages
7. We’ve also made some comparisons of Flodesk v Convertkit

I am so happy that these young ladies Martha and Rebecca were able to achieve such a smart, intuitive, easy-to-use platform in Flodesk.

I’m grateful to be one of the first adopters, and I’m sure Flodesk will do great things for the future of email marketing. 

I’m certainly a lot more enthusiastic about building my email list through this brand-new email marking platform. 

Remember to sign up now to gain access to all of the features, stats, and templates and lock on now for a great launch price of 38$ or 19$ with the current discount code.

If you are quick my 50% off coupon is still valid. Grab a free month with this link and make your emails something to be proud of today. 

July 2021 update

In July I updated this post for you. Adding in the extras and new upgrades that Flodesk has added. There are more of course – but this post is quite long already. I have included the most necessary ones.

Please go for the free trial first – and spend time inside the platform to ensure it does everything that you need.

Moving on – I’ll be honest, Flodesk for a small marketer who wants to collect email addresses and email their list regularly with pretty emails, I’d say Flodesk is just the ticket. It does everything you need and doesn’t cost the earth.

Where am I now?

My email list has grown a lot recently and it would be remiss of me not to mention some of the downsides of using Flodesk.

I have almost 7000k on my email list. Most of them came from either my Etsy shop for a free print or a single sign up on my website. You see, with a list this large I really would like to send them more things which I know will interest them. I want them to be able to click a link in the email and be sent another series of emails about that topic.

How do you go about this in Flodesk?

Well, essentially you can do this once the person in a Workflow. However – you can’t add an action to someone if they click a link from your usual weekly email. For example – a buyer comes to my Shopify store and purchases a product, I now want to be able to target that customer with further emails suggesting other products they might like.

You can’t do this with Flodesk.

You can add them into a sequence in Flodesk and then move them to a new email series. Also I would quite like to know how well my emails are performing. I would like to know where they clicked inside the email, which you can do in Flodesk by viewing your stats, however – it would be nice to have a reporting feature.

Concluding thoughts – Flodesk is an amazing platform, it does everything you need and more for a small business owner and within budget. I actually didn’t enjoy Convertkit. I didn’t really enjoy writing in the platform and it was quite confusing for a newbie. I am now looking at Mailerlite. I’ll let you know how I get on.

Review of Flodesk, the new email service provider.

Please – if you enjoyed reading this article, please share it on Pinterest today.

Interested in email marketing for your Etsy shop – check out these posts for more free help.

Create a Newsletter in Flodesk

How to start an Etsy shop

How to start an email list

Ways to make money from home