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Episode 128: Kit vs. Flodesk
591 Plays3 years ago
In today's episode Krista and I are chatting through two popular email marketing platforms Kit and Flodesk. If you're interested in getting started to email marketing or if you're thinking about switching email marketing platforms you'll want to listen to this discussion.
For show notes visit...https://daveyandkrista.com/convertkit-vs-flodesk/
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Transcript
Introduction to Email Marketing Platforms
00:00:05
Speaker
In ConvertKit, it's called a visual automation. In Flowdesk, it's called a workflow. Basically, what these things are are sequences, automated sequences that people can go through, like a welcome sequence or a five-day challenge, something along those lines. Welcome to the Brands at Book Show, where we help creative service-based businesses build their brands and find more clients. I'm your host, Davy Jones.
00:00:35
Speaker
the brands that book podcast is back. And in today's episode, Chris and I are chatting through two popular email marketing platforms, convert kit and flow
Audience for Email Marketing Discussion
00:00:45
Speaker
desk. If you're interested in getting started with email marketing, or if you're thinking about switching email marketing platforms,
00:00:51
Speaker
you'll want to listen to this discussion. So we've also recently relaunched our YouTube channel. In the past, YouTube's really just been a place where we house tutorials for our template users. However, if you listen to the podcast, you know that for a long time now, we're talking like years, I've wanted to do more videos and now that's finally happening. You can find a five to seven minute YouTube video that compares Flowdesk and ConvertKit.
00:01:17
Speaker
on our channel so be sure to check out that I'll put the link in the show notes and from what I'm told it really helps if you subscribe like and comment on the video and watch the whole thing so please consider doing so if you're so inclined
00:01:32
Speaker
more of those to come every Wednesday. And that's not all. We're also running a giveaway. You can learn more about that on our Instagram. But the gist of it is that you can win a free template from our shop and it's super easy to enter the giveaway. So lots going on. Anyways, be sure to check out the show notes at DavyandChrista.com for the resources we mentioned during the episode. And we want to hear from you. Let us know what kind of content you'd like to see on the Brands at Book podcast as we move forward. To leave your feedback, just send us a DM on Instagram.
00:02:02
Speaker
at Davey and Krista. Now, on to the episode. All right, we're
Podcast Relaunch and Production Challenges
00:02:12
Speaker
back. Another episode of Brands of Book Podcast. It has been a while since we recorded an episode. Yes, I mean, I think we had summer vacation. We both got colds.
00:02:21
Speaker
Yes, like it feels like it was more than a cold, but it definitely wasn't the Rona, but it felt, it basically knocked us out for about two weeks. Yeah, I'm still going. So if I sound congested, forgive me. It sounds fine. So something else that's going on though is that we did intentionally break from releasing content. So even before some summer colds and vacation and things like that, we decided we were going to take a little bit of time off, just share some of our old episodes. One, because we have a lot of really great
00:02:49
Speaker
old episodes and content share and some fascinating interviews. But in addition to that, we have launched our YouTube channel. So you might have seen that on social media. If you follow us, if you do not, then go ahead and check out our new YouTube channel. We've had a YouTube channel for a while. It's been mostly tutorials.
00:03:08
Speaker
Right. But now we're doing, we're just releasing more content there. YouTube is a, as I've said on the podcast, very interesting channel that I've wanted to take advantage of for a long time. Like years. Yeah. And we could talk all day. People heard me and we've had other guests on the podcast. Trina Little is actually somebody who's helping us with the YouTube channel. And she's been on the podcast before way back when it seems like talking about the advantages of YouTube. So, you know, I'll spare everybody that.
00:03:37
Speaker
But it's been something that we've been wanting to do for a long time.
Davy's Journey and YouTube Venture
00:03:40
Speaker
And finally, I've found the courage to do it. Yeah, I'm very excited for you. Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny, you know, it's something that I think Graham Cochran has told me about a million times. It's just like, just do it, you know, like just.
00:03:52
Speaker
Just turn the camera on and record and then go from there. And so finally, I feel like something clicked and I was like, okay. It also helped shout out to Tyler Harrington who came out and spent probably two days or so hanging out with us, making sure equipment and lighting and things like that were set up correctly. But then also, I think one of the most helpful things was we sat down to record a video. I think it was on show at SEO, so check out that. And the whole time I would stop and be like, dang it, I'm redoing this. He's like, no, Davey.
00:04:22
Speaker
Just keep going. Which I tell you all the time, you always, I guess, overthink things and think it's not perfect enough. I know. So, but anyways, finally, finally that something clicked. I think in part two, like Tyler, you know, using his magic editing skills, edited a rough cut of it in like 20 minutes, showed it to me and I was like, oh, that actually isn't too bad. Yeah.
00:04:47
Speaker
So anyways, check out the YouTube channel. We've got a lot of great content that we've dropped there. One of them is on ConvertKit versus Flowdesk. But if you're listening to this, honestly, there's, you know, generally you're going to find a little bit more content, you know, about a topic in, you know, a 30, 40 minute podcast episode than you would in one of our YouTube videos on the same topic. There are some of course exceptions that certainly, you know, some of our tutorials as well, but you know, of the first videos we're releasing one on show at SEO, one on ConvertKit versus Flowdesk, another one on,
00:05:15
Speaker
Elementor versus show it. And I think the last one of this set anyways was going to be, you know, five tips for a high converting landing page, which ties really well, I think into this topic. Yeah, I think so too. Cool. So glad you're here with me though, because you have a lot of experience embedding forms from a lot of different marketing platforms.
00:05:37
Speaker
Yeah. And I know that you have, you always, when you're working on somebody's email stuff on their website, you know, you're like, oh, thank God they have Flowdesk. Flowdesk. You know, somebody sent me a crazy form to embed for their contact form today, and the form doesn't have a mobile version. And I was like, how do you not have a mobile version of your form in 2021? Yeah. Yeah. That is... That's a bad platform. I told them that.
Importance of Email Marketing
00:06:03
Speaker
Yeah, right. I mean, everything is mobile. It's all about mobile. Yeah. Mobile first for sure. So anyways, the point of this episode here is to dive into some of the differences between ConvertKit and Flowdesk for those of you who are trying to decide between an email marketing platform. And then also we're just going to be talking some generic email marketing stuff too, for those of you who are getting into email marketing that you might find interesting. We have other episodes about email marketing that you should check out and we go into the reasons for email marketing, you know, the money in the list and
00:06:32
Speaker
you know, how it's one of the biggest revenue generators in terms of channels. It's the only channel that you own. Yeah. I always feel a little bit deceptive, not deceptive, that's not the right word, but I feel that's not quite true, right? You have a little more control over it than say, like, you can't control really what Instagram decides to show.
00:06:52
Speaker
Sure. You can't download your Instagram followers list and bring them to a new platform or something like that. Whereas with email, you definitely can. I think what I always like to remind people though is that there is an algorithm when it comes to email. There's a reason why things end up in a spam mailbox or a promotions folder or things like that.
00:07:11
Speaker
So, but it is, you know, I think hands down the channel where we see probably most of our revenue come from.
Flowdesk vs ConvertKit: A Detailed Comparison
00:07:17
Speaker
Yeah. That and Facebook and Instagram ads. Yeah. So those would be the top ones I think. So why are we comparing Flowdesk and ConvertKit? I think because those are the two most popular platforms besides like MailChimp, which we used to recommend, but we don't really recommend anymore.
00:07:33
Speaker
Yeah, and one of the reasons we used to recommend Mailchimp was because it was like the only platform with a free option. It was like there's a user limit and it was kind of limited, but yeah. But ConvertKit has a free option now. So now there's not really a reason to start with Mailchimp. If you're definitely looking, and maybe that's the first thing that we should talk about is price when it comes to email marketing platforms.
00:07:53
Speaker
You can expect, I think, for an email marketing platform to spend in the ballpark of $15, $20, $30 a month to hundreds. Yeah, it varies depending on how big your list is, except I think Flowdesk is always one price.
00:08:08
Speaker
Yeah, and that's one of the big advantages of Flowdesk. So that should be maybe point number one for Flowdesk is that Flowdesk is going to be $49 a month regardless of the size of your list. And that's usually how they figure out that end feature sometimes. So for instance, for a tool agency, we use Entreport and to get access to more advanced features. And if you have more subscribers, you have to pay more each month. ConvertKit is actually similar now. Where ConvertKit is going to start around $29 a month, there is a free plan, but again, it's pretty limited.
00:08:37
Speaker
So let's say it starts in the ballpark of $29 a month, but it's going to go up for access to some of their, what they consider, I think they call them their creator features. Well, you can't do any workflows or automations in the free plan. Yeah. But so let's say it starts at $29 a month. So starting at both, I think ConvertKit and Flowdesk are comparable. You can usually find a 50% off offer for Flowdesk. We have one. So you can check out the show notes for that if you're looking to get 50% off. And I think it's 50% off forever.
00:09:06
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. I mean, you can read the terms and all. So that gets you down to what? I think it's 19, 20? I think it's normally 19 for people if they have that coupon. Yeah, so it gets you down there. So that's something that's worth checking out. But the amazing thing is your list goes from 1,000 to 10,000 people and you're not increasing in price. So that's really, really nice.
00:09:27
Speaker
ConvertKit has some, and we'll talk about this when we get to the feature set. There's the typical plan that I think increases with subscribers. And then there's another higher tier plan that gets you some more quote unquote advanced features as well. So anyways, the nice thing about email marketing platforms in general, and this is true of both these platforms, is that it will scale with you. Whereas we found something like MailChimp isn't quite as scalable. It doesn't have as many automations built in.
00:09:56
Speaker
It's just a little bit trickier. Yeah. I would say it's less intuitive. Yeah, it's less intuitive. Yeah. Whereas ConvertKit, I think, is highly intuitive. Same with Flowdesk. But with price even, more in terms of scale, the more subscribers you get, the more money you should be making, right? Because each subscriber, hopefully each lead is worth X amount, and so on and so forth. Anyways, moving on from price, what should we talk about next? Design, because I love talking about design. All right, take it away.
00:10:26
Speaker
I mean, if you're going to compare the two, hands down, Flodesquins, it is so much more beautiful. It's so much more intuitive. They have a lot of built-in designs and beautiful fonts included too, which is awesome that really make it easy to add images and text and match your brand and design beautiful landing pages and design beautiful emails.
00:10:48
Speaker
Whereas ConvertKit is much more basic. The forms that you can embed on websites are really simple. You can't even override them with code. So they're kind of going to look the way they look. You can change like a few fonts, colors, some little things on the forms, but definitely not to the extent that you can change things on Flowdesk. And then the emails themselves, you could get really technical with CSS and HTML and change a lot, but most people it's way over their head and not worth the time.
00:11:17
Speaker
And I would say, would it be fair to say that their email builder is really like what put them on the map? Oh, Flotist? Yeah. Yeah. I think so. Yeah, for sure. So I would say both of them have their strengths, right? I mean, like some of you listening, you might have a brand where it makes sense to send more plain text or maybe that's what you prefer. Right. And that's totally fine too. And from an email deliverability standpoint too, I think that there's an argument to be made for a more plain text email. More likely to land in the inbox than let's say the promotions tab.
00:11:47
Speaker
Yeah. But a lot of us, I think in the creative industry, right? We care about aesthetics. Yeah. And there's really not an easier platform to design a beautiful email than Flowdesk. Yes, true. And I'll say, I've recently moved a client that I'm helping doing some funnel building for.
00:12:03
Speaker
move on to Flowdesk. They've been nothing but happy with the platform. And again, just working in there and setting up the different automations, it really is intuitive. And there's a few little things that I'm like, ah, that's kind of odd as there is with I think any platform. But every time I'm in there, I'm like, ah, should we move the Deviant Crystal list to Flowdesk?
00:12:25
Speaker
So anyways, I think at the end of the day, if you care about how your emails look, then Flodesk is the platform to go with. Yes, and I would think a lot of people listening to us probably care about the way their emails look. Sure, sure. I just think if that's going to hold you up from sending emails, then maybe convert kits the way to go so that you're not sitting there.
00:12:43
Speaker
Oh no, they're like pretty out of the box and you just have to change a few things. Okay, you're right. Anyways, let's talk about some features as well. Maybe we'll start with form and landing page creation. Okay. Cool. They both offer landing pages. They both offer forms. Like I said, Flowdesk probably offers more options to change colors and fonts. You can even get very visual with letter spacing and font variations. ConvertKit does have that stuff built in, but it's much more limited.
00:13:13
Speaker
So typically, if somebody has a Flowdesk account, I tell them to make their landing page in Flowdesk. Whereas if they have a ConvertKit account, we typically make their landing page in ShowIt or WordPress and then embed a really simple form. Because if we go that route, we can make their page prettier.
00:13:30
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I would say if you're looking for a native landing page builder though, that's one area I think where ConvertKit right now is currently the better platform. Okay. Is because they have more advanced features when it comes to landing pages. I think it depends on what you need. If you just need a simple landing page, maybe full desk because they're pretty.
00:13:49
Speaker
No, absolutely. They absolutely are pretty, but I feel like what will be awesome for Flow Desk, and maybe this is the case, you might know, when you're able to take advantage of the email builder and basically apply that to the landing page, if you could, in Flow Desk, you could build a landing page with the same email builder. That would be amazing. You can. It is the same. Are you sure? The visual editor? Yeah. Yes, it's the same. No. Yes.
00:14:18
Speaker
I feel like most of the Flowdesk landing pages I see are simply like paragraph text and a form. And that's it. There's not like more sections to it.
00:14:27
Speaker
I don't know if there are a lot of template options. Hold it up and look. There's a few different formats. It's typically like, you can go pop up and inline. And then there's, it looks like one template for the full page where it's like image. But that's what I'm talking about the full page. Like if you wanted to build out a more intricate, full page landing page.
00:14:48
Speaker
With testimonials and all those things. Yeah, exactly. And in about section or whatever it might be, then you can do that with ConvertKit. Okay. Whereas with Flowdesk, I think that you get a beautiful template. There's no arguing that, but you don't get... It's not like you build a landing page in Flowdesk like you build an email.
00:15:07
Speaker
Right. So if we're going to, but when I do convert forms, I typically embed them in a show. It's like anyways that I can really make it pretty. Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, in general, you're right. In general, we recommend people use their website builder, right? But if you are somebody who's like, okay, well, maybe I'm not good with my website builder. I don't want to, you know, maybe my website's outdated. I know I need to update it, whatever the case might be, but you can't build your landing pages in your website.
00:15:31
Speaker
then I think if you need a robust landing page builder, you don't want to pay for a third party tool like lead pages, so on. ConvertKit right now offers more robust landing pages. Flowdesk is rolling out my stuff so fast. I would have think that that's probably in their roadmap. Oh, I agree, but I'm just saying where things stand right now. I know, today. You can obviously tell. Chris is like, let's just record an episode on Flowdesk.
00:15:56
Speaker
You can tell where she stands. And to be fair, for a good reason. But like Krista said, from an embedding form standpoint and making forms look good, Flowdesk, it's going to be easier to do that than it is going to be for ConvertKit. Moving on to more features when it comes to ConvertKit and Flowdesk, visual automations and workflows, those are the same things. They're just called different. In ConvertKit, it's called a visual automation. In Flowdesk, it's called a workflow.
00:16:26
Speaker
Basically, what these things are are sequences, automated sequences that people can go through, like a welcome sequence or a five-day challenge, something along those lines where somebody fills out a form and then they automatically get those emails without you having to go in and manually send each one.
00:16:41
Speaker
They can be triggered based on different actions that somebody might take. So maybe somebody clicks a button in a certain sequence and that puts them in another sequence. Maybe somebody registers for a webinar on your website and that throws them into some sort of follow-up reminder sequence. But you can do that in both Flow Desk and ConvertKit. You've been in both, which one do you like better?
00:17:02
Speaker
Honestly, they're really similar. I think they have all of the same triggers now because Flowdesk has kind of released new ones this year. So they seem really similar. I think if you need to do a little bit more intricate type stuff, ConvertKit's probably still the better option, but Flowdesk really isn't that far behind and you like really have to get pretty intricate in order to need the features. I think that ConvertKit has the Flowdesk it doesn't have yet.
00:17:28
Speaker
Yeah, honestly, I can't think of off the top of my head what those features would be. Yeah, and I can't either. But I know I've probably seen a few more options in ConvertKit that I have in Flowdesk.
00:17:39
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And I still think they might have a few additional triggers or maybe different actions. I think at the end of the day, Flowdesk's workflows are a little bit more visually appealing than ConvertKit's. Definitely. Yeah. Visual automations. I think at the same time, they both work really well though. Yeah. I think so too. I think they're both great. Yeah. I think they're both really good. I will say one of the things that I appreciate within ConvertKit is just how many integrations they have.
00:18:06
Speaker
Yes, so many. You can integrate with just about everything. And you don't need Zapier to do it. Exactly. Because basically, I mean, if you have a Zapier integration, if a tool has a Zapier integration, then they can integrate with pretty much anything out there. And so that's important. And Flotisk has a Zapier integration. So pretty much all your other marketing tools can be connected if you want to connect them, right? Yeah. But it is so much easier when there's a native integration because typically it's a click of a few buttons and things are connected.
00:18:34
Speaker
And zaps sometimes get turned off or sometimes stop working. So if you have too many zaps and too many integrations in order to get things connected, we found that they might break. So that is one of the reasons why we have not moved our list from ConvertKit to Flotescat. Probably the number of automations that we have, which is a lot. And then it has a native WooCommerce integration. So we don't have to use a zap for that.
00:18:59
Speaker
Yeah, and all that is, you know, just having been on ConvertKit for so long, I'd say that's the single most reason or single biggest reason why we haven't switched. If we were starting over, you know, we might... Use Flow Dust. Yeah, we'd probably use Flow Dust. Yeah, our emails will be much prettier.
00:19:16
Speaker
Anyways, but ConvertKit has been around so much longer that they're going to have so many more integrations and other tools are going to have more integrations with them.
Limitations of Both Platforms
00:19:23
Speaker
That's been one of the nice things about ConvertKit. If we move on to some other features like A-B testing, there is really not much A-B testing on either platform. Yeah, you can just test A-B subject lines in ConvertKit and that is it.
00:19:36
Speaker
Yeah, I want to say ConvertKit has something else you can test, but I can't remember at this point. So what that means is you can put in two different subject lines. It'll send it to a smaller group, see which subject line has a better open and click rate, and then deliver the rest of the emails with that subject line.
00:19:56
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So it would be really nice to see some more robust A-B testing from both platforms and not just subject line stuff. And then even beyond that, I think one of the complaints that I see about ConvertKit, about the subject line testing is the criteria for what wins. So I'm getting into the weeds here a little bit.
00:20:16
Speaker
It would be nice, for instance, if you could set whether the winner is based off open rate or click rate, because you might have an open rate that is the same between the two subject lines, but the click rate of one is way higher. And so you might opt to, well, I want, but you can't set that in ConvertKit. I'm pretty sure it's just set off of open rate. So anyways, same thing with reporting, to be honest. I would like to see some better reporting in both platforms.
00:20:41
Speaker
As you can probably guess, Flowdesk reporting is prettier. It's easier to understand. The way they lay it out is really nice. I would say at least I was working with a client and I should look up this, but landing page conversion rates, I don't know if they do much reporting on that. You can see how many people who land on your landing page and then how many people who complete the form. That would be something that those are metrics that are really helpful to know so that you know whether your landing page is working.
00:21:09
Speaker
So I'm not sure that that's something that Flodesk is currently doing. But even ConvertKit, if you want extra reporting from ConvertKit, you have to pay to be part of, I think it's called their creator plan. And so as a result, we're on their creator plan. We get some more information around deliverability, which is helpful. So if all of the Gmail addresses, let's say, are bouncing, it's helpful for us to troubleshoot why and fix that. But it would be nice if that was just built into the plan.
00:21:37
Speaker
Yeah, you didn't have to be ready for it. Exactly.
Encouraging Trials and Engagement
00:21:40
Speaker
And it would be great to see Flowdesk move into that territory of reporting as well. I think one of the things that I appreciate about EntrePort, honestly, not that I would recommend most people go that direction. And that's what we're using for TIL, is that you can do some subscriber scoring.
00:21:55
Speaker
I think ConvertKit may have rolled out with that as well. But that's always helpful too, just to get a sense of like, you know, one of the things I liked about MailChimp, for instance, is like, they'll kind of tell you how active that, or at least they used to, and I haven't used MailChimp forever, but how active a subscriber is, you know? So those are all things. I think around reporting, there's a probably areas of improvement there. And same with A-B testing. Anything else to add from there?
00:22:19
Speaker
I don't think so. I don't look at that many reports. That's definitely all you. I do like the fronted form building. Make it look pretty. That's my job. Yeah. So anything else to add to this conversation? I don't think so. I mean, both of them have free trials, I believe. So you can get in there and test. I don't know if you can send an email from full desk before paying. Maybe you can.
00:22:40
Speaker
I think you can within your trial. If you're interested in a trial for both, we have links in our show notes. They are both affiliate links. Of course, if you decide to sign up, we get a commission for you signing up at no extra expense to you.
00:22:57
Speaker
The Flodesk one does save you 50%. Yeah, the Flodesk one does save you 50%. Of course, if you sign up using our links, we are very appreciative of that. You can find those in the show notes, but like Krista said, sign up for a trial of both. Try sending just even a broadcast email. A broadcast email is just a single one-off email to a few people or even just as a test yourself.
00:23:16
Speaker
see which one you like and see which one you feel like is more intuitive. But these are, you know, we recommend both these platforms. And so we're doing this comparison, right to help you choose the best platform for you. But these are both platforms that we think people will be happy on.
00:23:30
Speaker
Yes, definitely. And if you find it, you have some extra time, but who has extra time these days? Head on over to YouTube, give the channel a subscribe, and check out some of our videos. And let us know if there's content you'd like us to see on YouTube. Shoot us a DM on Instagram. Let us know. A lot of the content that we create is based on questions that were asked over and over again. One of them being, hey, which email marketing platform should I use?
00:23:53
Speaker
So that kind of stuff really does help. And we love knowing that people are finding content helpful. So if you're finding it helpful, please let us know. Thanks for tuning into the Brands That Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing and leaving a review in iTunes. For show notes and other resources, head on over to dvandchrista.com.
00:24:23
Speaker
you