Truth time. I am not tech savvy. During my time as an assistant, tech questions were my worst nightmare. Any time my bosses’ devices malfunctioned, a small part of my soul died. I knew that finding the answer was going to entail a very deep dive on Google, a few failed customer service calls, and several runs to Starbucks to stay caffeinated 🙂 Kidding… kind of.

When I started to build my email list, I initially turned to Mailchimp, the email marketing service. After a lot of trial and error, I managed to figure out how to launch a welcome email sequence. The content was basic and the design was juvenile at best – but anyone starting a business knows that you have to pick and choose your financial battles, and at that point, hiring an email marketing designer to appeal to my audience of 10 was not in the cards. So this is what I wound up with:

This was my automated email that went out with every new blog post. You laugh, but I spent HOURS putting this together. I was SO PROUD of myself for figuring out how to set up this RSS feed. (I still am. Hey – I’m not techie!) But we can agree – it’s next to horrible. But rather than pay to fix the visual shortcomings, I focused on building an audience – which I did! In fact, I even hit 2,000 subscribers! Great, right? Well, sort of. Mailchimp is free up until you hit 2,000 subscribers. All of a sudden, I was paying $50 a month to stay connected to my community.

I knew something had to change, but I didn’t know what. Recently, I was chatting with my social media manager, and she mentioned a new email marketing platform she’d begun using called Flodesk. She told me it totally changed email marketing for her and that I needed to check it out. I was initially skeptical – I hadn’t yet disclosed to her exactly how technologically impaired I was! But she’s been amazing to work with, and I trusted her instinct, so I gave it a try.

You guys. Complete game changer. This is what my emails look like now:

I mean… the proof is in the pudding. And I remain technologically challenged.

I absolutely love FloDesk for so many reasons (including the absolutely gorgeous templates), but mainly because you can segment your audience into extremely specific niches, create multiple opt-in forms, and design work flows to target desired niches with different opt-ins! This is HUGE when you are using lead magnets to attract subscribers. With multiple opt-in forms and different work flows, I can appeal to the specific interests of my audience.

Here is a sample work flow I created. I’ve been so fortunate to partner with Final Draft for my blog relaunch, and they’ve given me an exclusive discount code to offer my readers. I started my designing my opt-in form letting my readers know that if they share their email with me, I’ll shoot them the offer. Then, I created a very specific audience for that opt-in, which I called “Final Draft Opt-In.” Creative, right? From there, I designed the following work flow:

So:

1. Someone opts in to receive my discount code
2. The opt-in triggers my warm welcome email
3. I scheduled a ten minute delay
4. The discount code email goes out

These are just some of the ways you can custom design your workflows! And you can create MULTIPLE opt-in forms for all of your many lead magnets and design email sequences around them. It’s email marketing magic.

The best part?

Use my code and get 50% off your subscription. This means you’ll pay $19 a month for unlimited subscribers. You guys. The choice is so clear!! FloDesk has come to give us non-techie people hope for a more glamorous email marketing future.