Do Unlimited Email Marketing with Flodesk

This article was written when Flodesk was in the initial days. Flodesk disables account and then re-enables it after few emails. They have lost my trust. You do not want to fall for the low price to get your account disabled later and losing the subscriber data.
As of 2021, I recommend everyone to stay away from Flodesk.

Flodesk is something you didn’t know you needed until you actually used it. In short, Flodesk handles your email marketing. But introducing it like that switches people off. For instance, when I first heard of it, I wondered why the world needed another email marketing solution. 

When I first opened the website,though, I was blown away by how awesome the design of the website was. It was to the point, clean and classy. And this is built into the DNA of this product. So how did it perform when put through its paces? Let’s get into it, shall we?

Flodesk Email Marketing Software

I’ve dealt with multiple email marketing software in the past but everyone’s go to is Mailchimp or Convertkit. And whenever I check any new email marketing software, it always compares to Mailchimp or Convertkit. This is because of Mailchimp/Convertkit flows and automations that make life much easier. You can also create good looking emails from the templates, set up forms, collect data, analyse stats, list contacts, segment contacts and much more. The emails are guaranteed to stay out of the spam folder and all of this is free, more or less. You face problems when it comes to scaling up your online business. The cost of Mailchimp sky rockets and there are many gotcha’s that can make life hell.

So now that we’ve outlined the problem, let’s take a look at flodesk. Flodesk is much, much simpler compared to any other email market tool. It is stunning to look at. This may seem like a small thing but it makes a big difference. If you’re going to spend a sizeable chunk of your time looking at a tool, aesthetics makes a big difference to eye and mental strain. And Flodesk makes the flow buttery smooth. 

Let’s get started with setting up our account. Click on this link for a limited time offer of 50% off on Flodesk unlimited emails.

First of all you will need to login. It is is free to try it out. If you do want to buy it, use my discount code to get 50% off. It is $19 per month or $209 per year. No extra fees. Unlimited emails, Unlimited contacts and all features unlocked. While it may not be free, it is much cheaper than any alternate of the same calibre. Click here to be redirected to the login page. 

After logging in, you will have to complete the usual 2 step verification. Simply click on the link in the email that is sent by Flodesk.

As soon as you login, you are faced with the onboarding page. This is a step by step process to get you up to speed with the service. Here, too, the simplicity and clarity of Flodesk shines. True, a similar onboarding is done on every other email marketing service but nothing as simplified as Flodesk. And it looks amazing.

Right off the bat it hones your focus to what needs to get done without distractions from too many options.

Let’s choose a topic to send out to my contacts. I went with a Webinar Invitation. It is fast become the go to medium of instruction on the internet. Click on the customise button to start writing out the email.

The internet is a multi-device network and Flodesk knows this. They provide a multiple form factor preview of the email you will be sending. When you send an email you will know exactly what your contacts will be seeing.

Of course, there are legal requirements to sending out promotional emails. They need an address. Since this was a test email to myself, I decided to have some fun with the address. Don’t tell google I borrowed their details.

Flodesk also prompted me to add social accounts to my email. These small features make it a polished offering in my opinion. I was simply clicking next without changing much to get an idea of the flow. But these reminders made sure my email had no missing parts.

Customising the form was a breeze. It was easy to navigate the different sections. It was similar to Mailchimp but the interface was cleaner with easier to use. The design is ready to go requiring very little tweaking from me.

Next I had to add my name and email ID from which I would be sending the email. Make sure to verify your domain to improve deliverability. I give a more detailed explanation of this a little bit later.

Choose a subject line. Remember to be succinct and to the point. The first thing that anyone reads, apart from your name, is the subject of your email. They will only click on it if it gives them something they want. This is a process of trial and error so you don’t have to get it right on the first try. However, keep in mind that the same way you do not like irrelevant emails, so your customers.

Flodesk provides multiple options when it comes to delivering your emails. You can group different types of people into segments. These can be used to target specific content towards specific people. For instance, content for women or men can be segmented or if I wanted to send something for tech oriented people like developers. You can add your contacts or individuals into Flodesk separately or do it before you send an email. 

Most of us would use the CSV method to upload our contacts. CSV or comma separated values is a way of storing text. These files end with a “.csv”. You can open them with a spreadsheet software like Excel or LibreOffice Calc. They open up like regular spread sheet files and can be edited. 

To upload a CSV into flodesk, simply click on the link at the bottom of the pop up page. That is a pre-formatted CSV file. Copy paste your list into it, save and upload. Bham! You’re almost done with the emailer. 

If you want to add anyone you missed in your list, or prefer adding your contacts individually (for whatever reason), you can do that too.

And as said earlier, you can target very specific groups of contacts that are divided into segments. This is perfect for sending emails to different groups of people without maintaining separate lists.

The next step is to send the email. Now, I don’t know about you but it is very rarely that I send any emails immediately. There are a lot of things to consider. Timing is everything when it comes to marketing. If I send it too late, it will be buried under a lot of emails by the time morning comes around. If it is sent during the day, it might be ignored because the person is busy at work. There are some sweets spots that work. For instance, breakfast time, lunch break and evenings. Once again, there is no hard and fast rule. Just keep experimenting to get this right. 

Which is why the most important part of the email is customising the timing. So we choose the custom option. 

It is super easy to pick the date and time and schedule the email at the time convenient to your customers.

There is the usual warning pop up that confirms that you wish to send the email or schedule the email. If you’re sure click send it or schedule it. If not, go back to your email and double check. However, don’t obsess over the email. You will never get everything right always. Make sure that there are no major issues and send it on its way.

Flodesk Email Marketing Stats

Now that the email has been sent, we have to make sure that it reached. Since I sent this email from myself to myself, the email did go into the primary tab. However, most emailers like this one will go into updates or promotion. This is thanks to Google’s new policy. You can ask your customers to move your email only once to the primary tab. The later emails will all hit home successfully thereafter.

So congratulations! You have sent the email. But your work has just begun. Each email is a only a small step towards your marketing campaign. And all campaigns need statistics. Flodesk gives you all the good stuff. Open rate is how many people opened your mail. Click rate is how many people clicked on any links in your email. For instance, if you have a discount link or free download link. If there is no link in the email, there is no data here. Generally keep a link as a button or something. It’s called a “call-to-action” in the industry. Even if you are simply supply some information to your customers, always have a call to action. First of all, it measures the engagement with your target audience. But more importantly, it brings the customer to your platform.

There are other stats as well. Go through the lot and analyse them for an understanding of your target audience. This information is crucial to tweaking your future marketing plans.

Apart from the emailer stuff you get the usual. Audience tabs displayed on the top bar deals with the contacts. All your contacts are stored here. You can upload your contacts via the 3 options listed earlier. Here you can organise your audience or contacts according to your requirements. 

One thing that must be noted is that contacts can be duplicated in lists and that’s okay. For instance, if you have someone in the tech list, they may also be in the list for gadgets. 

Flodesk Unlimited Email Subscription Forms

Next we have forms. Forms are pretty cool because data collection is the backbone of the internet. All campaigns, military or otherwise, work on the data collected. Not that we want to be waging war, however, you can only give your customers what they want if you know what they want. The best way to do this is to create a form for data collection.

Tip: Keep the form short. Don’t repeat questions in other forms and generally offer something in return for the information. 

You can choose between Popup, inline and full forms. Pop ups are the ones that cover the screen when you first visit a site. Inline are put inside pages of a site and full page forms are only for collecting data. The user is usually directed to full page forms from somewhere else.

Flodesk has organised the forms for specific purposes. Once again, this streamlines the process of creating and deploying a form. And it also looks great.

Domain Authentication is a little bit of a technical topic. Basically, by authenticating your domain there is a greater chance of deliverability of the email. If your emails are going to spam, complete the domain authentication process. It helps to increase the trust that servers can attribute to your email.

From the MailChimp site it says,

“Authentication is critical to the delivery of your campaign, and works like a license plate for email. It provides a trackable identifier that shows your subscriber’s internet service provider you’re a legitimate sender, and it helps your campaign arrive in the inbox.

There are two important types of authentication to consider when sending bulk email:

DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) and Sender Policy Framework (SPF).”

There aren’t many services that can work with Flodesk yet. However, there are many in the works. Flodesk will be working on connecting multiple services with their services. At the moment, Shopify is supported and you can connect your online shop with flodesk to connect the marketing dots. For instance, you can send your customers deals on similar items that they bought before. All automated, of course!

Flodesk Unlimited Email Marketing Software Pricing

Let’s talk about the money. Granted that MailChimp is free to use with limitations, it can be a problem in the future. When your online profile grows, your customers increase. Soon the cost of sending an email becomes exorbitant. But you’re too used to your workflow to change. 

Flodesk has an upfront cost but it remains steady throughout. You have no hidden cost and the service is completely unrestricted. Get in on the 50% off deal while it lasts to reduce the cost even further. 

Flodesk Review Conclusion

I do not hesitate for a moment when it comes to recommending Flodesk. It is clean, beautiful and productive! Get onboard today and begin that marketing campaign you’ve been planning for ages. Flodesk is the right tool for you!