The Ultimate Flodesk Review [2021] + a 50% Discount for Life!
The money is in the email list and it’s a must for all online businesses. If you’re reserching email marketing platforms, here’s an honest Flodesk review ot help you make an informed choice.
Email marketing is the heart of my business.
And if you don’t learn anything else from me, then know that it should be yours too.
I’m sure you’ve heard that before but it’s so important. It’s a platform where you own the contacts. You control the moves. And it can make such a huge impact on your revenue.
You have some amazing value to share and email marketing is the ideal way to be able to do that.
I’ve also prided myself in learning as much as I can about email marketing and investing in quality email marketing platforms.
Like most entrepreneurs, I started out in the free version of Mailchimp. It’s what I knew and in the beginning, I was so apprehensive about investing in my business (don’t worry, I’ve worked through that block now and know it’s imperative to invest wisely in my businesses.).To be honest, I really liked Mailchimp. It was back in the day where you could have multiple lists in the free version and it all seemed like sunshine and lollipops.
Until I outgrew it. And then it wasn’t.
It was time to invest in the paid option. I had heard rumours of other email providers doing such a better job than Mailchimp and finally, after trying Convert Kit, I settled on ActiveCampaign.
It was love.
It did what I needed it to do and I was able to really up my email marketing game. I was able to create tricky email funnels and all kinds of things.
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It was supposed to be my ‘forever home’.
That was until a friend told me about Flodesk.
Get 50% your Flodesk subscription.
Just $19/month for life with UNLIMITED subscribers!
Table of Contents
Why I love Flodesk
> It’s super affordable
At only $38/month with UNLIMITED subscribers but you can get a 50% discount – $19/month if you use this link. (that 50% discount lasts as long as you maintain your membership)
Unlike most other email marketing platforms, you don’t ever pay more because you have more email subscribers. This is pretty much unheard of. On ActiveCampaign I was about to push over the $100/month mark and I don’t have a big email list. It made the switch over to Flodesk a no brainer for me.
> Flodesk offers a 30 day trial (with no credit card needed)
There’s absolutely no risk in giving it a go! Sign up, have a look around, test out a form and you’ll be able to give it a go without investing any money.
> It’s visually appealing
The option forms are beautiful. On ActiveCampaign I just sucked up the very average looking opt-in forms because it was so functional on the backend. This is a problem of the past! Not only does Flowdesk create beautiful opt-ins that you can add anywhere on your site but you can even create landing pages. Winning!
>Improved subscribing rate, open rate and click rate
As a result, my opt-in rates have improved. One list, in particular, was a real struggle to grow in ActiveCampaign but since moving over to Flodesk, I’ve seen it grow from maybe 1 subscriber every day or two to on average 5 a day. Mind-blowing really! I’ve kept the locations of the forms in the same place but have tweaked wording slightly.
Not only have my opt-in rates improved but so have my open and most importantly my click rates. The first email campaign that I sent out my click rates were 3 times higher and the open rate was 50% higher!
> Easy to use and navaigate
The interface is seriously easy to use. It’s so intuitive. I had only been on the platform for a short period and felt like I knew it so well. You know where everything is housed and it’s all accessed from one very simple page. No searching for ever to find the feature you need.
> There are over 30 premade templates to chose from.
Flodesk comes with 30+ beautiful built-in templates that you can use and brand it as you need. They are seriously beautiful and on point. All you need to do is chose the template you want and edit it. So simple and easy to create beautiful emails and opt in forms.
Another great feature is that it comes with some seriously great fonts already installed! In fact, my main font is there to use! It makes it super easy to keep my emails aligned with my branding.
Despite being on the cheap end of email marketing platforms, it has all the functions that I was using on ActiveCampaign (if you have more complicated funnels and integrations then Flodesk might not be for you).
> It was easy to move over to Flodesk fromActiveCampaign
To move over from any other email marketing platform you just need to export your contacts as a CSV and then import it into Flodesk. It is a very simple process.
Simply click ‘audience’ > ‘+ Add subscriber’ > ‘Upload CSV’.
The biggest hurdle I had with moving marketing platforms was that I didn’t want to move all the funnels over. It seriously only took me a few hours. Time well spent, I think!
What I don’t love about Flodesk
Like with everything, there are going to be things that I’m not completely happy with. Initially, I didn’t think there would be anything on Flodesk that I wasn’t happy with but it turns out there is something.
> Flodesk doesn’t integrate with much at the moment
It doesn’t integrate with much. At the time of writing the only external platforms that I could see that it integrates with is Shopify, Zapier and Instagram.
It is however in its BETA phase and I anticipate that this will change as they grow and develop.
The Flodesk Dashboard
I know that before I sign up to a new platform, I want to have a look around to see what it looks like. Let’s take a look.
When you log in, you’ll land on this page showing you your emails that you’ve sent. This is also the place where you’ll create a new email by clicking the ‘New email’ button in the top right corner.
Creating an email
Once you click the ‘New email’ button, you’ll arrive on this page. On the left of the page there are a few options relating to the purpose of the email you are about to send. Click through them and see which templates you like and select one that suits the style of the email you are creating.
Once you’ve selected your template, you will land on a page like this. You can preview the template in both desktop and mobile views.
If you’re happy, then click ‘customise’.
This will bring you to where all the magic happens.
You can edit each block component to suit you. You can change fonts, colors, branding elements and images. You can also delete blocks that aren’t relevant and add other elements that you need.
Once you are happy with your email and are ready to schedule or send it then click ‘Next’ in the top right corner.
You’ll then be able to select the email you want to send the email from (you can add two emails to each account), you’ll edit your title and preview, then select a segment and schedule or send.
It’s pretty easy to send out single emails!
Creating automations (called 'Workflows' in Flodesk)
Every business owner needs to embrace automations! They are a great way to help, educate and sell to your audience without you doing much more work! Let’s look at how to create Workflows in Flodesk.
From the home page, click ‘Workflows’ in the top menu. This will bring you to the page below.
To create a new work flow, click the ‘+ New workflow’ button in the top right corner.
You’ll then be able to select from a number of templates. Chose the most relevant and click it. Follow the prompts until you get to the actual workflow.
Simply select each email and edit them individually.
You will need to add a trigger for the sequence. This is a segment that you have already created. Once a person opts into a form with a segment, they will enter the workflow.
Creating forms in Flodesk
So far you can see that it’s pretty easy to navigate Flodesk, creating forms is no different. Not only are they easy to create but they are also super easy to imbed. I know that in the past, this has been a challenge for me with other email marketing providers. You don’t need to worry about plugins or anything complicated, you simply embed some code and then you have a email opt in for right there.
Start by clicking ‘Forms’ in the menu and then ‘New form’ in the top right corner. You can chose from a pop up, inline or full page form. Select what you need and then chose a template and the segment you want to use.
Edit the form and when you’re ready, select ‘Next’ in the top right corner.
You’ll be asked a few questions such as ‘Do you want a double-opt in?’, ‘How long to wait until the pop up is seen?’ and if you want to be notified when someone subscribes.
You’ll be given code for the pop up and inline forms and a URL for the full page forms. Place it where you need and then you’re ready to go!
Flodesk analytics
We all want to be monitoring our stats to see what’s working well and what we can improve on.
You are given quick stats for emails, workflows and forms when you click the little analytics icon on the left bottom corner of the email or form. For full stats, click the ‘View full’ where you can see your open rates, click rates, unsubscribes, deliverability (which I always find super high with Flodesk), devices used and Spam reporting.
It’s shown in a visual format and is super easy to see and analyse.
Integrations
This is probably the most disappointing aspect of Flodesk. At the moment they only integrate with Instagram, Shopify and Zapier.
They are currently in the BETA stage and do promote that they are working on integrating with more platorms in time. I guess you can always use Zapier to connect your Flodesk account with other platforms that you need to run your business.
For a business that’s just starting out, then I’d say that you have most everything that you need to run a simple business.
Flodesk Pricing
This is perhap the best thing about Flodesk!
They charge a flat rate, it doesn’t matter how many subscribers you have! You can have 0 or 100,000 and you’ll pay the same amount. It’s unbelieveable and unheard of in the email marketing platform market. This alone should get you to at least trial it for 30 days (for free).
Flodesk charges $38/month unless you have use referral link, then you get it for $19/month FOREVER. When you use this link, you’ll be able to sign up for $19/month.
We don’t know when this will change. The founders have said that this is the intro rate for the BETA phase so make sure you jump on it now!