Are you looking for the best email marketing platform for small businesses? I am an online small business owner and I absolutely love Flodesk.
Flodesk is an easy to use, super affordable, and beautiful email marketing platform.
In this article I am going to break down some of the basics- what is email marketing, why you need to be doing it, why Flodesk, and how to get started.
Plus, I’ll be sharing my special affiliate link which gives you 50% OFF your first year if you decide to dive in!
Please not that in addition to being a user of FloDesk (I have two separate accounts!), I am also an affiliate. In this article I will be sharing my affiliate link. I am receiving an affiliate bonus and do receive a commission of you chose to use my affiliate links.
What is Email Marketing?
Before we dive into the best email marketing platform for small businesses, let’s take a second to discuss the basics.
What is email marketing?!
I am certainly not an email marketing expert, but I am a successful business owner who uses email marketing to serve my audience and make money.
Simply put, email marketing is using email as a way to market and promote your programs and services. The goal is to get the right people (your ideal client) to sign-up to your email list. They give you their name and email in exchange for the valuable content you will be sending to their inbox.
Most people sign-up for an email list through an intriguing opt-in, AKA a freebie. As soon as they sign-up, your email marketing platform will send them an email with the freebie.
Then you continue providing valuable content to the subscriber. They can always unsubscribe, but quality content keeps them hooked in.
In addition to free content, you send offers for paid content that will help your ideal client. While not everyone will buy your products, the right people will and your business is able to make money.
Email Marketing is Non-Negotiable
Some small business owners might not have an email list, or even feel like they need one. But I always say that email marketing is non-negotiable. If you want to stay in business and thrive, you need a list.
Let’s think about how you get clients- many people use social media. But what happens if a particular social media platform changes their algorithm and your followers no longer see your content? What happens if you are hacked or banned? You lose the audience you worked so hard to grow.
With email marketing, you can communicate directly with your audience. Your message pops right into their inbox. We don’t have to hope a social media algorithm will show our stuff.
I am still all for social media, but email marketing is the non-negotiable next step.
Through email marketing, you can get the right people into your world, serve them, and find your paying customers.
Selecting the Right Email Marketing Platform
The first step to email marketing is that you need an email marketing platform. We aren’t doing our emails manually through our gmail accounts. We are relying on platforms that we can set-up and automate.
There are free email platforms available, but the problem is once you grow the costs can really skyrocket. Most email marketing platforms charge by number of subscribers. I’ll share a bit of my email marketing story below… this is what led me to FloDesk in the first place.
A good email marketing platform always you to create landing pages for people to sign-up for your list, create automations to send out any time (hence, saving you time- you can even make money in your sleep! Your email marketing platform works for you 24/7).
My Email Marketing Story
I started my first email marketing list in 2019. I won’t name names, but I used a free version of a very popular email marketing platform.
The idea of FREE really drew me in. The features were limited. I wasn’t able to do automations. But hey- it was free… but then a really good problem happened.
My Really Good Problem…
A year or two into blogging, my SEO game through my primary blog The Geriatric Dietitian took off. In a matter of 6 months my email list grew from a couple hundred to nearly 10,000 subscribers.
Then my emails stopped sending. Why? Because with this platform you had to pay for the number of subscribers. I had exceeded the limit for their free program. And with the number of subscribers I had, this would be hundreds of dollars per month to upgrade.
This wouldn’t be that big of a deal if I had the time and energy to really leverage my email marketing game- but I didn’t. During this time, I was still working a full-time job while being mom to two younger kiddos. My small business was a side hustle.
I also started to calculate what would happen as my audience grew… the price would go up and up. It felt like you were being penalized for successfully growing your list. I understand that this business model works for some businesses- but for this small business owner, I couldn’t justify the cost.
So, I began searching for a better email marketing platform for me.
I Found Flodesk!
In a Facebook group another peer had mentioned how much they love Flodesk and shared their affiliate link which would save me a whopping 50%. And their prices even without the discount were a steal!! A fraction of what the other email marketing platform wanted.
The reason it was so affordable was that you could have an unlimited number of subscribers. They simply charged an affordable flat monthly rate- they wouldn’t charge me more as I grew my list.
I was sold on price alone… but then when I realized how easy it was to use and how pretty the emails were. Whew! I was all in. I immediately became an affiliate so I could share this platform with my peers (with my own 50% off deal!). In fact, I even made a freebie to show others how to use the program (more on this below!).
What is Flodesk?
OK, let’s get to it. What is Flodesk??
Per the company: Flodesk is the world’s most intuitive email marketing platform designed to help small businesses grow, nurture, and monetize their list—beautifully.
In my words: Flodesk is my favorite email marketing platform. It allows me to create beautiful emails to serve my audience and monetize my small business.
Why Should I use Flodesk?
Flodesk has many features which I love.
I will break them down below, but here are my 3 selling points on Flodesk:
- Flat rate pricing– you don’t get penalized to grow your list, meaning you don’t pay per subscriber. It is truly unlimited!
- Beautiful templates– when I first started using Flodesk, my audience noticed. My emails became so much prettier- thanks to their easy to use templates
- Easy-peasy usage– Flodesk is easy to use. It is intuitive and simple. Sometimes tech is hard, but Flodesk makes it easy for users.
Flodesk is best known for email marketing, but it really does go beyond that. But to start, Flodesk makes it easy to design emails people love to get with stunning templates and the world’s most intuitive builder.
You can grow your list with:
- landing pages
- pop ups
- and embedded forms
You can make money while you sleep with workflow automations.
And run email marketing like a pro with advanced segmentation and robust analytics!
Flodesk is Easy to Use- The Format
I keep mentioning that Flodesk is easy peasy to use. Let me break down what your account will look like when you log-in…
At the top of your screen there are only 6 options… simple and clear:
- Emails– this is where you send your individual emails
- Forms– this is where you create landing pages, pop ups, and embedded forms
- Workflows– this is where you create your automations
- Checkouts– this is where you create things to sell
- Audience– this is where you manage your subscribers
- Analytics– this is where you view data specific to your account
Once you click into a section, it is intuitive and easy to use. Flodesk has so many templates and it gives you the opportunity to build something from scratch.
On the right-hand side of the screen there is a drop-down menu for different setting options including:
- Overview
- Email setup
- Domain setup
- Checkout setup
- Branding
- Opt-in setup
- Integrations
- Plan + billing
- Share Flodesk (affiliate opportunity!!)
- Get help
- Sign out
I don’t use this section often- I used it the most when setting up my account.
Affiliate Program
Since I mostly speak to side hustlers and small business owners looking to diversify their income streams, it’s worth mentioning Flodesk’s affiliate program.
Just by joining Flodesk, you are gaining an additional stream of income. You can refer Flodesk to friends, family, colleagues… and in my situation I can share it with you guys!!
In your account settings there is a Share Flodesk option. In this dashboard area they provide your affiliate link. When you share your link you can save your people 50% for their first year.
The dashboard also includes a Success Kit to help you make affiliate sales, a place to share your PayPal email for payouts, and analytics of how many people click/join through your link.
I always want to mention that you must disclose any time you share an affiliate link- let people know you are an affiliate and can earn a commission (or bonus) if they join through your link.
Getting Started with Flodesk
Are you ready to get started?! You can sign-up for Flodesk now using my affiliate link: CLICK HERE
When you join through my affiliate link you will get 50% off your first year of Flodesk!!
And if you still aren’t sold, be sure to check-out my freebie on How to Use Flodesk MINI-COURSE. This is a FREE mini-course where I will walk you through all of the steps for signing-up, setting up, and using Flodesk.
You can go through the course first, then sign-up once you know exactly what you are getting. My affiliate link is in the mini-course too- so you will still get that 50% off the first year deal.
And the other fun part of opting into my freebie is that you will be joining MY email list, so you can see how I do things from a consumer side. You can always unsubscribe, but I hope you find my content value enough to hang around for a while!
Wrapping it Up: The Best Email Marketing Platform for Small Businesses
If you’ve made it this far in the article, thank you for reading!! I appreciate you and wish you all the best in your side hustle and business endeavors.
I hope this article clearly showcased why I believe Flodesk is the best email marketing platform for small businesses. It’s super affordable with flat monthly rates, easy to use, and creates some darn pretty emails.