How to Craft Gorgeous Newsletters – Flodesk Review

If you’re ready to up your small business game, stay tuned as I share with you how to craft gorgeous newsletters that subscribers will WANT to read, as well as a review and overview of how I use it. This post has been sponsored by Flodesk and contains affiliate links. It is a service that I personally use and pay for monthly!

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Over the course of running this blog, I’ve built up an email list of over 90,000 subscribers that is now a core part of my business. Thanks to the generosity of Flodesk, my current email marketing platform that I’ve been with for a few years, I am now able to share some email marketing tips for creative entrepreneurs.

Whether you run a craft business, a blog, or any other type of small businesses, I’m excited to share with you why I’m still with it (my longest sticking with any newsletter service) as well as some tips.

Before we start, just a heads up: if you use my code MOMSANDCRAFTERS you get 25% off your first year of Flodesk!

Why your business NEEDS a GOOD email list

As a fellow creative, it can be so hard to reach people. We’re expected to be everywhere at once. And just when we think we made it big on a platform, the algorithms change.

The truth is that social media relies on virality. What small businesses need is consistency. Consistent cash flow. Consistent traffic. And while viral sellouts can be really cool, they are often unsustainable, misleading, and unreliable.

That is why I will swear up and down by having a solid email list. While your email list can be variable with reach, it does not depend on virality. It is a stable foundation to any business when powered by a reliable email marketing platform.

Why I’m using Flodesk since 2020 – and not planning on switching

Yes, I’ve been using Flodesk since 2020! Before that I used MailChimp and CovertKit for a couple of years each. I’ve been with Flodesk for the longest, and I hope this shines some light on why.

My experience switching

When I was first building up my email list with other services, I was told that my emails need to be “plain text”. That means, no frills bells or whistles. The truth is, as a creative, that is just the wrong approach for me. My readers are creatives too. They need pretty.

When I switched to Flodesk, I was amazed at how easy it was to create gorgeous email designs with the drag and drop builder and easy to use interface. But I was concerned with reach.

However, what I found was that as soon as I verified my domain (which was easy using their instructions) my reach only improved.

My newsletter model is mostly free printable crafts that readers download. I found that the forms were so easy to customize to look great on my website. My emails still mostly use the plain text format but within a pretty framework.

And when I do want to create a much nicer “specialty” newsletter I can do that too, within minutes, thanks to Flodesk’s beautiful templates and email templates.

Favorite features

There are so many cool features to Flodesk, and they’re constantly evolving. I’m going to highlight a few of my favorites.

Besides the extremely clean aesthetic overall, the uncluttered design and feel that keeps my scattered brain focused, here are some fabulous features.

Email marketing

There are so many email marketing tools within Flodesk. Here are a few favorites:

• Link Actions – when a reader clicks on a link I can add or remove them from a segment based on that (Flodesk’s Link Actions make this seamless). I use that to segment my readers based on craft interest with excellent segmentation capabilities, so that I know which ones like crochet, which ones prefer paper crafts, and which ones enjoy basically every craft I share.

• Integrations – Since I also use services like Grow, integrations make things work seamlessly.
• Automations – Flodesk features visual workflows that give you the ability to have automated workflows, all arranged in a very visual flowchart. This is a set-up-and-go strategy to work harder rather than smarter.
• Branding and Favorites – There are many tools to help assemble beautiful emails quickly, including branding features, the ability to save styles, and the ability to save blocks to favorites.

I’ll be sharing actual email marketing tips using these tools shortly.

Flodesk Checkouts

While I was already a Flodesk customer, they started offering Flodesk Checkouts. I was unsure about it but decided to give it a go, and yes, it’s at least paid for itself. It’s perfect for e commerce businesses selling digital products like subscriptions, digital products, freebies, services, courses, and more.

Some of my favorite features are:

• You have a tabbed view of the sales page, the product page, and the product delivery. Instead of having to set up each thing individually, it’s all in one tabbed view.

• Super fast transition for customers, one of the main reasons I use Flodesk Checkout for larger products that require more of a sales page to showcase them is to ease the customer’s workflow for better conversions. While I CAN create a landing page on my blog and link it to an e-shop listing, each time the page needs to load I risk losing the customer. Flodesk Checkout moves really seamlessly through the process.
• Plug-and-go templates, each sales page is really ready to go, including the post-sale download page. Just plug in the new info.
• Customization – There’s lots of low-tech, highly visual customization that can be done.
• Upsells, it also seamlessly integrates upsells (that is, “add-ons” that can be included in a product). On my e-shop I never converted upsells, no one actually bought them. On Flodesk Checkout, people often do if it’s planned to work well with the initial offer.

Practically Speaking: How I use Flodesk + Email Marketing Tips for Creatives

I use Flodesk almost daily, whether it’s setting up a form, sending out a newsletter, or offering a new bundled listing.

I’ll share below how I PERSONALLY use it but also some additional ideas for different business models using this email marketing platform.

Getting Subscribers

People always ask me how I get subscribers and there are two aspects to it: getting people to sign up for a newsletter, and the technical part of it.

Opt-in Incentives

Hands down the most effective way to get people to agree to have you in their inbox is to offer them some value in exchange! My personal strategy is by offering free downloads. Since I sell lots of templates in my Etsy and other ecommerce shops, I’m offering real value when I share something that’s free.

Email-blocking craft templates also serves as a copyright and hotlink protection to protect my intellectual property (and is in fact why I first started doing this.)

But what if you’re not a blogger like me? The trick is to offer something that directly solves the problems of your target subscriber.

Here are some more ideas for opt-in incentives:

• For those who own your own ecommerce site, consider a pop-up form with a small discount for those who join. You’ll see many retailers do this and it’s highly effective. In fact, it’s the reason I am personally on so many email lists! It allows you to retarget those who have been seriously considering buying (they wouldn’t have joined your list for a discount if they weren’t already thinking about it).
• For Etsy shop owners of digital products, offering a free sampling of what you might have in your shop. If you sell crochet patterns, offer one for free. This should be a good one but not a top seller; in fact, go for something relatively simple. I personally have craft templates and coloring pages as my incentive.
• For Etsy shop owners of physical products, while you CAN take the approach of a shop discount, it’s not as effective when you can’t just have a pop up on the site when people are already shopping. You can run giveaways via social media or advertising to encourage sign-ups.
• Overall, giveaways are a good strategy that I’ve used in the past as well. The trick is to offer things that aren’t universal; rather, those that are very specific to your product line or business.

Signup Forms and Landing Pages

Now let’s talk about the technical aspect: how people can sign up. Flodesk offers different types of sign up forms and landing pages.

The landing pages are really a key component here. For those who don’t have a dedicated site, having the ability to build a nice landing page helps you avoid all those technical details.

You can use both standard form pages or Checkouts to deliver a free download. Checkouts is ideal for higher-value offerings where you want to share more details about it. For on-site discounts, a pop-up is very effective.

Flodesk’s form styles include:

• Link in Bio (no need to pay for a separate service!) You can see mine here.

• Popups – my favorite for ecommerce discount opt-ins
• Inline – what I typically use for free templates on craft tutorials

• Full Page – this is like a mini landing page. I’ve also used it as a shorter opt-in for a free offering that isn’t necessarily attached to a blog post. It’s good to have just to refer people to a “sign up here” page. See mine here.
• Video Popup or Full Page – These are great for webinar offerings or to create a person-to-person message encouraging people to join.
• Spinner – Great for ecommerce – and you can do both a discount and a giveaway opt-in simultaneously.
• Countdown – for limited time or timed offerings. These create a sense of urgency that encourage signups.

There are so many options and each one is so easy to set up because of Flodesk’s plug-and-go options.

After you set up a form, you can choose from a “thank you” note, or direct subscribers to a specific page.

You’re previewing the form as you design it – no coding skills needed. Here’s what it looks like as I design it on the backend:

And here’s what it looks like on my site:

Crafting Gorgeous Newsletters

Of course, there’s the ability to craft newsletters – but again, with plug and go templates from Flodesk.

I send out newsletters every time I publish a new post. I also send out some seasonal updates. Since I share content in many different categories, I segment my readers based on which forms they signed up with, and when I send broader seasonal updates to larger parts of my list, I can also further segment them based on which posts they click.

So if I have someone sign up for an adult coloring page, I’ll send them adult coloring page updates. But when I send my winter newsletter and they click on a different paper craft, I can segment them as also interested in paper crafts.

Flodesk’s templates are actually sorted by goal of the email – not by style. I think that’s pretty cool. Categories include “share news, welcome, inspire, say thanks, make money…” I stick to plain text for my very content-focused business, but I also do add some visuals. I suggest using A/B testing on subject lines or visuals, by sending to different segments, to optimize open rates and engagement.

They have gorgeous signature options, and I always have an embed of my Instagram account at the bottom. I also use their buttons to allow those who don’t really want to read to easily find my post. I add things like this to my favorites and styles to let me craft newsletters quicker.

I set my brand colors as favorites so that I can stay consistent, and things like button styles, font styles can be saved to favorites to further streamline the newsletter creation process – even when designing from scratch.

The email creation works with a block-based format. Blocks include ecommerce embeds, countdowns, polls (which can be used for segmentation) and more.

I can keep on talking about how to use Flodesk’s email features for days but I’ll leave you to experiment more for yourself! It’s a standout email marketing platform for creative businesses.

Automation

An extremely powerful way to use Flodesk and in general to use email marketing for creative businesses is with automation. It’s called working smarter not harder.

Flodesk’s workflow automations are their automation tools. Once again, they have templates for delivering a freebie, re-engagement, abandoned carts, post-purchase, event follow-up and so much more. These automated workflows can power email sequences to deliver free downloads, onboard new subscribers and let them learn about your brand, or even remind them with the abandoned cart feature, which is great for improving sales in e commerce businesses.

One of the most powerful tools for sellers is the “abandoned cart” feature. This reminds potential buyers that they haven’t purchased yet, and offers an additional opportunity to get them to seal the deal with a coupon code. Flodesk’s seamless Shopify, Wix, and ThriveCart integration makes this even easier to set up even if you’re not using Checkouts.

It can also be used to let new subscribers learn about your brand and warm up to it a bit before starting to sell to them. And I use it a lot to deliver free downloads.

Using Checkouts for Bundle Offerings

I always found building sales pages for my digital product bundles to be SUCH a tedious task.

I like to bundle some of my digital products – offering it at a steep discount for a “buy them all” type of bundle on a specific topic. This is a win-win: it helps me convert larger sales than the small digital sales offer, and it allows those who use these crafts regularly an easy one-and-done download for big value.

However, to really educate potential customers on what they’re buying, I provide a detailed landing page with all the offerings. Creating this has always been a bane in the side of my existence – something I’d spend a fortune hiring out for subpar results.

Flodesk Checkouts solved that for me, and now that’s how I always sell my bundles. It’s really easy to set up and I’m able to offer more of my digital products bundled because of that.

It’s also a tool I plan to use in the future for a super easy subscription setup. Again, the logistics of setting it up is what has stopped me from creating this resource, and with Flodesk Checkouts it’s just so much easier.

How to Save while using Flodesk (Exclusive Discount Code)

Newsletters are one of those tools that should pay for themselves. However, if you’re starting out, Flodesk pricing offers an affordable way to get going, and you may need a little help at first.

The good news is that if you use my code MOMSANDCRAFTERS you get 25% off your first year of Flodesk!

You’ll find that Flodesk is a really valuable email marketing platform. It’s one thing to get a customer or reader for the first time. Once you have a person’s eyes and ears, keeping them is an efficient way to market. In fact, most people don’t purchase something until it’s familiar, that is, until they’ve heard of or seen it three times.

Having a newsletter allows you to remarket to the same people WITHOUT additional ad spend. But Flodesk also has tools to retain those who don’t actually sign up but just visit your built-in sales pages using Meta Pixel for retargeting.

So if you’re ready to easily craft beautiful business emails, whether you’re a YouTuber or blogger, a craft seller with your own site, an Etsy seller, or any creative entrepreneur, go ahead and give it a go!

I have a feeling that like me, you’ll be happy you did, especially as the algorithms change their mind once again.

Don’t forget to use my code MOMSANDCRAFTERS to get 25% off your first year!