If you are looking to connect with your customers in any way, you need to have a mailing list. Other terms used to describe this is a newsletter service, email marketing service, whatever it may be. The goal is to gather the email addresses of your customers to have direct access to them. Social media is great, but the algorithms can change at any moment, the services can go down, but if you have an email directory, you don’t need to worry about any of that.
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Which Email Marketing Service Should You Use?
Flodesk! I have tried out a few different email marketing services, and nothing compares to the quality of the newsletter that you can create with Flodesk, or with the locked in price that is provides.
Why Use Flodesk?
Here are some really great features of Flodesk to help solidify why this is the only platform worth investing in:
- It is really easy to use, and there is an entire “University” of courses to help you when you need it, a support email, as well as a Facebook group with dedicated workers to respond
- You can create good looking emails without using any code
- They have a ton of templates that you can personalize for your business
- You can set up workflows and automations, so if someone optins and subscribes, you decide what emails they receive then, as well as the series that follows
- You can categorize your subscribers, based on different characteristics (e.g., based on the different optins they subscribed to, etc.) and then market to each segment differently
- You can incorporate optin signups on your website or via landing pages through Flodesk (that allow you a webpage to get signups even if you don’t have your own website to host it)
- They do not raise their prices as your subscribers increase
- Free 30-day trial
- Using my link, you can get 50% off the first year of your subscription!
How to Get Started Using Flodesk?
You can sign up using the button below. Using this link, you will get 50% off the first year, which equates to $19/month for the first year.
If you currently use another email marketing service, it is very easy to transfer your contacts over. Before starting with Flodesk almost two years ago, I was using Convertkit and was able to get a file from Convertkit and place it right into Flodesk.
How to Set Up a Mailing List?
This whole concept is that you either create optins that are freebies in return for email addresses, or if you sell a product online, you offer a discount on their initial purchase in return for their email address. The whole goal is to get email addresses to be able to email people directly, to make sure you are being seen and heard!
In order to set up a mailing list, you need to figure out what you are going to offer in return for the email addresses that you are going to “mail” to. You might think that you will just set up a “subscribe” button on your site and that will get you subscribers. However, I will tell you from personal experience that that method is inefficient and will not do you justice in the end. A very minimal percentage of subscribers to my site sign up that way (although I still have that as an option on my site for some reason!), and normally when they do, they also sign up for one of the freebie resources that I am offering.
So, in order to set up a mailing list, you need to start with the optins. That way, you will have email addresses to market to!
Ideas for Optins
When it comes to optins, you need to really dig deep into what it is your customer (or website visitor) is looking for when they reach your site or social media. What would make them want to give you their email address?
Some examples I have seen are:
- Having a popup optin on your sales page on your website offering a discount for their first purchase to appeal to those people looking to buy. These are very common and effective because people are already interested and this might be the push they need to (1) make a purchase, and (2) optin to your list. Even if you do not sell product on your website, you could offer a product coupon code that they could use while making purchases in the grocery store.
- Creating an optin that offers a free resource in exchange for an email address. One of my most effective optins is a freebie resource for How to Select and Store Produce, because that is what people are visiting my site for. If you are a grower/packer/processor, some ideas would be to create a 5-recipe guide, a behind the scenes e-book into the specifics of your operation (even if it’s shared publicly, compile it all into one place), or advertising for a giveaway of free produce or like a “free month’s supply of avocados.”
- Putting an optin on produce packaging. (One specific example was where they had a large giveaway of money they were offering if people visited their website, and when you did, you had to sign up and provide your information to get into the running.)
- Team up with an influencer in a social media campaign. This isn’t very common, but a produce company will team up with an influencer to get access to their followers to get more email optins into the giveaway. It is more common to do this via social media channels, but the real trick is to get them to sign up to the listserve instead of them just starting to follow your company on social media.
How to Use Optins
Optins are great, but you need to be strategic about them. Some things to think about when you are envisioning them are:
- On which pages will you put them on your website?
- Will it be a popup or a static image throughout a post or on the side menu?
- Will the popup show up at the beginning, after X seconds on the page or when the user is exiting the page?
- Will you have a separate landing page (where the page is dedicated to the optin) for it?
When using landing pages, I have two different examples of how they can be done using Flodesk: through your website and through their website.
Flodesk Landing Pages
Pros: You do not need a website to create a landing page (essentially a page on the internet), it is really easy to set up and link to
Cons: There is not as much flexibility with creativity and design as you have with your own website, the link you share is a Flodesk link instead of a link from your own site
Website Landing Pages
Pros: You are creating a page that will have a link to your website, you can add any other additional information (e.g., product reviews)
Cons: It is a lot more work and you need to put some creativity into it, you will still need to include an optin form from Flodesk
How to Set Up Flodesk Optins on a WordPress Website
If you have a website already set up, you incorporate the optins from your email marketing service into your website. I use the Headers and Footers free plugin by Digital Liberation to take the code provided by Flodesk to make it so that the pop-ups will show up on my website. If you decide to use Flodesk, you can use this plugin or other ideas or options offered by Flodesk University or the Flodesk Facebook Group.
How to Set Up Flodesk Optins without a Website
With Flodesk, they allow you to create landing pages, which are essentially pages on the internet. It is a page to lead people to. In this case, you are leading people there to optin to something, even if it’s something as simple as a waiting list.
These landing pages you can create can exist on their own, without needing to be hosted on your website. Flodesk hosts them, which makes it really convenient if you don’t have a website or do not want to create your own landing page on your own site. (Side note: the landing pages on Flodesk do not yet have the design capabilities that you can find on an actual website.)