As there are many tools designed for online marketing, I shall concentrate on two of these tools, that is, Convertkit and Flodesk. I’m going to take you through the common feature of the two tools, the unique features of each tool, see how practical each tool is, and the pricing.
At the end you should be able to choose one depending on your personal needs. Which of the two should you choose as an email marketing tool?
About Convertkit
Convertit - this is a full-featured email service provider created by Nathan Barry. It is mostly used by bloggers, podcasters, online course creators, YouTubers, and more. It is used to promote the latest projects and collect subscribers with beautiful landing pages, and sign-up forms, and make your work stand out.
About Flodesk
Flodesk - this is a simple and streamlined email marketing tool that helps to create a workflow, custom emails, segments, and popups that are aesthetically pleasing and easy to use. its founders are Martha Bitars and Rebecca Shostak. It was created with a design-first approach. It is well suited for businesses and bloggers.
➢ Email Templates
• Flodesk
It has an in-built email template. While they are simple and modern, they are also sleek, relying on pictures and a block formatting down the page. Currently, Flodesk offers about 30 email templates for
subscribers. You can customize each template to focus on images or text as needed or you can layer both together to build something new and exciting using your font and color.
• Convertkit
Similar to Flodesk, Convertkit also has a drag-and-drop builder that you can use to modify your emails. The default Convertkit email templates are pretty plain. The lack of code in customization makes it easy to modify the emails.
➢ Automation
• Flowdesk
Automation helps to save time. Flodesk uses a drag-and-drop editor to create a workflow. This can take you as few as seconds but save you loads of time. It also helps in reducing delays. Flowdesk gives you four customizable templates to choose from, so you can easily advertise, welcome, nurture, and convert with ease.
• Convertkit
Automation in Convertkit works by sequencing. Sequences are simply a series of related emails that you can send sequentially. They can be triggered by a series of actions for example subscribing, commenting, giving a like, e.t.c. and also they can be triggered in combination with other sequences.
➢ Form Builder
• Flodesk
This form builder complements the work of designated landing pages for creating eye-catching landing pages. The form builder helps in creating:
• Website pop-ups
embeddable forms packed with all manners of fonts, colors pictures, and links. • Your own-call-to action button
• Convertkit
Helps to create opt-in to gather subscribers. Designing stunning opts-in will engage your audience immediately. it can help you to convert followers into fans. Form customization is possible to create one which suits your needs.
➢ Pros and cons to consider
Flodesk
Pros
- Easy to use- no coding or technical experience is required making it widely used across a population.
- Beautiful templates-Flodesk houses very beautiful templates. The beauty of using these templates is that they already look good, you only need to edit the text, perhaps add a few images, and include your logo.
- Simple pricing structure-unlike other companies that have multiple plans with different features and bill you depending on the number of subscribers you have, Flodesk has one plan and charges the same fee no matter how many subscribers you have.
- Affiliate marketing and MLM friendly- as long as you follow the following requirements you are free to do affiliate marketing and MLM through Flodesk. The regulations include: ➢ Include all legally required disclaimers
- ➢ You don’t use shady affiliate and MLM programs that will sell material related to adult entertainment, cryptocurrency, gambling, or illegal goods.
Cons
- Very simplistic-the ease of use comes at a cost, it lacks some of the advanced features nor is it as flexible as other competitors
- Pricing can be a bit steep for those others starting up-$ 19 for one with no or just a few subscribers hence it is not sustainable.
- Limited customer support-many email marketing offer live customer support whether through chats or phone calls. Flodesk doesn’t offer this level of customer support.
- Integration- Flodesk is not capable of directly integrating with other marketing tools. To achieve this you need a third party called zapier.
Convertkit
Pros
- Ease of use- the user interface is easy to use and yet a highly powerful automation builder • Easy WordPress integration-as convert kit is specially made for bloggers, they make WordPress integration very easy with embed codes and forms.
- Tag-based subscriber system- the subscriber system is tag-based and not list-based. This adds flexibility when it comes to segmentation.
- Dynamic emails-you can make use of powerful merge tags to personalize your emails. • Autoresending- you can easily resend your broadcast to people who have not opened your campaign.
- Visual automation builder- the automation builder offered by Convertkit is very advanced compared to those of others which lack flexibility.
- No charge for duplicates- the charge is based on several unique subscribers.
- Live chat and email support-convert offer 24*365 live charts and email support. • Integrations-they have great integrations with the majority of the digital marketing platforms and tools. They also have a powerful zippier integration in place.
- Updated constantly-new features are constantly being rolled on Convertkit every month.
Cons
- Limited A/B testing you can do A/B split testing only for subject lines, you cannot do it for sender name or sending time.
- Lack of cold subscriber customization- by default convert kit adds subscribers who are inactive to the cold tag. But there is still little you can do about it when it comes to customization. • Lack of template customization- for making some changes one needs to dig into the HTML and make some customization.
- Lack of test emails for autoresponders- you can send test emails to yourself only for broadcast but not for autoresponders.
Final verdict
I think Convertkit is quite useful especially to individuals and businesses as it is user friendly and highly flexible to fit customer’s specifications