Why I switched from Mailchimp to Flodesk
If you're an entrepreneur, I'm sure at one point you've heard all about the benefits of growing and building an email list. There is so much emphasis on the benefits that it feels like you're doing something wrong if you're not riding the email train.
In the early years, social media platforms had a lot of folks convinced that email marketing would fade into the background and become largely unnecessary, but as we've seen places like Facebook and Instagram start to wane in popularity due to ever-evolving algorithms, the importance of emails and email marketing is more obvious than ever.
If I can be honest with you - email always intimidated me. I heard so much about the incredible value in connecting with your people via email, but I made excuse after excuse about why it wasn't for me.
In 2017, I decided to finally take the leap and I officially started my email list. At the time, Mailchimp and Constant Contact were the biggest names in the game, and Mailchimp was free, so that's what I went with. I started with a whopping 6 subscribers (and they included my mom, my partner, and my best friend - THE IMPACT 😂). I had no plan, no idea what I was doing, and no clue where to start.
I spent years using Mailchimp's free version very sporadically with almost zero organic growth. The clunkiness of the platform often left me feeling deeply uninspired to craft and send an email, and frustrated to tears more than once.
Three years ago, I was craving more community connection, and I realized how much opportunity there was to connect more deeply with folks outside the confines of the social media squares. I set a goal for myself to get better at email and to grow my list to 20 people (at the time, I had only been able to grow it to 11 subscribers). I committed myself to sending a monthly newsletter and that was the extent of my 'plan'. I would sit down each month, feeling a lot of pressure to write something flowery and poetic or life-changing. I'd type an email out in my Notes app and then copy and paste it into Mailchimp and try my best to make it feel like something visually beautiful, and something that I felt excited to send.
And every single month - I struggled.
Mailchimp felt slow, cumbersome, and incredibly awkward to use. It would crash my browser at least a dozen times before I could finally get to the point of hitting send. Eventually, I found myself creating excuses about why I couldn't (and wouldn't) send the monthly email because it left me feeling more stressed than excited.
During that year's slow season, I focused on answering the question 'What is my ultimate goal with my email list?'
I spent hours researching, learning, and trying to reinvigorate my approach to email. I got clear about precisely what was frustrating me about my Mailchimp experience and what I ultimately wanted out of email software, and I very quickly figured out how much it would be worth it to me to be able to solve my email woes.
In the end, it became abundantly clear that Mailchimp and I were not a good match for each other.
I needed to find a new email platform if I wanted to step up my email game, and honestly that felt even more daunting than the thought of just sticking with the struggle of Mailchimp.
Taking the time to get crystal clear about my wants and needs helped me to really understand why Mailchimp wasn’t working for me. It also gave me a specific list of features that I needed to look for in other platforms.
If you're new here, one thing you may not know about me is that I am a huge nerd. I love to learn and can geek out to the extreme when it comes to technology, systems, and softwares. I strive to always be learning something new and love to give myself time and space to dive deep into things on the back end of my business.
Now on the search for a new email marketing software, I became determined to learn as much as I could about what was available, as well as learning as much as I could about the value of email done well.
Very quickly, I realized I was seeing Flodesk over and over and over again in my research. And it wasn’t just from Flodesk ads or your standard influencer-style promo. I noticed some of my favorite entrepreneurs and business owners were singing the praises of Flodesk and how it completely changed their email game for the better. Over and over, I saw people echo the same problems I had with other email services and how Flodesk helped solve those problems for them.
I took the plunge and started a free Flodesk trial. Within minutes of creating my Flodesk account, I felt an exciting and renewed inspiration and motivation to build my email community.
Right away, I was blown away by how easy to use Flodesk was, especially compared to Mailchimp.
I remember logging into YouTube to watch tutorial after tutorial about Mailchimp and still feeling like I was left scratching my head. With Flodesk, everything felt so intuitive and straightforward that I had everything set up and my first email written within 2 days of creating my account.
There are so many things to love about Flodesk (and if you want me to talk your ear off about my love for this platform, don't hesitate to reach out!), but I want to share some of the features that sealed the deal for me when it came down to choosing between Flodesk and Mailchimp.
Customization - One feature I immediately loved about Flodesk is that it is super customizable. It allows you to easily plug in your brand colours and fonts, upload logos, and easily create beautiful, branded emails. Mailchimp always felt a little trickier for me in that regard. There was no ‘brand’ section to upload my colours or fonts, and I often found myself manually changing things to match and feel cohesive. With Flodesk, that cohesion happens automatically and requires very little tweaking on my part when it comes time to compose an email.
Automation - One of the major deciding factors for me was automation! Mailchimp either doesn’t offer the automations I was craving or they're available for an additional fee. My fellow solopreneurs know that every penny counts, especially in the early stages of your business. Flodesk lets you create custom workflows, landing pages, and forms that save so much time. Setting up the custom automations and workflows is incredibly easy, and it has been a massive game-changer for saving time and nurturing relationships with folks on my email list.
Detailed analytics - Flodesk tracks and provides detailed analytics for every email you send, as well as your overall analytics over time. This has been a huge help for me in seeing which workflows are being utilized, which emails are having the biggest impact, and where I have room to improve.
Checkout - Flodesk also recently added a new feature that allows you to sell a product or service directly through email via an email checkout page. I haven’t utilized this feature yet, but I can absolutely see this being a massive benefit, especially for product-based businesses.
Ultimately, the choice between Mailchimp and Flodesk will come down to your specific business and needs, but if my word has any bearing, let me say it plainly: I am team Flodesk all the way.
If you are on-the-hunt for a new email marketing software that is intuitive and easy-to-use, delivers gorgeously branded emails, and allows you to create seamless and effective workflows to save you time and energy, Flodesk is absolutely my number one recommendation!