Showit + Email Marketing

I’m answering the most frequently asked email marketing questions: What is email marketing? Why is it important/do I really need it? How does it integrate into my Showit website? What is the best email marketing tool?

Remember the infamous Instagram Crash of 2021? Instagram (and Facebook) went dark for several hours as the result of a self-inflicted router update that caused massive systemic disruptions globally. The outage ignited panic for businesses and creators over-reliant on certain platforms for commerce. And then again, just a few days ago, Amazon Web Services suffered a major outage halting activities on cloud-based websites, sending folks scrambling. What was the big takeaway? “Holy shit, I need an mailing list!”

Email is the most effective digital marketing strategy

Email marketing might seem old school, but it’s actually the most effective digital marketing strategy. Email marketing works by sending targeted emails to a list of subscribers who have opted in to receive messages. Businesses use email marketing to build brand awareness, promote products or services, drive sales, and foster customer loyalty. The process typically involves using email marketing software to segment lists, personalize campaigns, automate sending, and track performance. The primary reasons why small businesses and personal brands must make room in their marketing portfolios for email is:

Direct, unfiltered access to audience

Unlike social media followers, you truly own your email list. Email marketing guarantees messages land directly in subscribers’ inboxes chronologically alongside bigger brands and competitors (no matter how greatly their advertising spend outpaces yours). Email marketing is not subject to changes in algorithms or platform policies (or ahem, router updates) which can severely limit your reach. This ownership provides control over your business communication, making your email list a reliable and independent channel for connecting with your audience

Higher reach and engagement rates

A bajllion people use email, making it one of the most reliable communication channels. As a result, businesses leveraging mailing lists can expect consistently higher engagement and open rates compared to other digital marketing strategies.

Builds long term brand trust

Email marketing fosters trust by allowing small businesses and personal brands to communicate directly with customers in a permission-based environment. A well-managed email list, and authentic, relevant communication helps establish credibility and keeps subscribers engaged, educated, and interested.

Showit does not have a built-in email marketing platform; however, third-party apps seamlessly embed into your site

An email marketing platform is a software tool that helps businesses send marketing emails to subscribers, manage email lists, and track the performance of their campaigns. Unlike some other website builders out there, Showit does not have a built-in email marketing tool. (Showit stays in its lane, and leaves the email marketing stuff to the experts.) However, third-party applications can be integrated seamlessly for a beautifully branded user experience. A very rudimentary order of operations:

1. Select an email marketing platform with Showit compatibility
2. Create various opt-in forms and workflows in your selected email marketing platform
3. Embed your opt-in form codes in the Showit website builder

Whether you’re nurturing leads or engaging customers with updates, choosing the right platform can make or break your email marketing strategy.

Flodesk is the best email marketing tool for small businesses

There are numerous email marketing options out there, but Flodesk is my favorite because: it’s super easy to use; the emails are freaking beautiful; there is built-in e-commerce capability; and it’s super compatible with Showit (no advanced coding knowledge required!).

Before I get into the details of why I love Flodesk, here is a flash comparative analysis of Flodesk, Kit (formerly ConvertKit), and MailChimp. (Some others you may have heard of: Klaviyo, Hubspot, Brevo, Omnisend, ActiveCampaign.) Flodesk emerges as the clear winner for small businesses and personal brands after assessing the email marketing solutions by critical features, user experience, and cost.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming…

Flodesk is incredibly user-friendly

The user interface just. makes. sense. It’s clean, intuitive, and everything seems to be just where you’d expect. Like Showit, it uses a drag-and-drop editor. With plug-and-play ease you can easily make changes and additions to emails, templates, and workflows (triggering emails to send to certain audiences at certain times). Flodesk also provides robust and incredibly easy to understand analytics to help inform decision-making. Interpreting data about the effectiveness of email campaigns (opens, clicks, bounce rate, etc.) enables small business owners and personal brands to gauge the interest of their audience to create content that resonates and converts.

It creates stunning emails

When Flodesk first hit the market, it was branded as a “design first” email marketing tool–and it still delivers on the hype today! There are dozens of templates, forms, and workflow sequences to choose from. Each are fully customizable with your brand logo, colors, fonts, images, etc. It’s basically your beautiful Showit website delivered directly to your audience’s inbox. Pretty cool huh? Sharing your news, sales, or other value adds has never been so hot dayummm gorgeous.

It integrates seamlessly into your Showit website for a branded user experience

Can you copy and paste? Then you can embed various opt-in forms into your Showit website. It’s literally that. easy. You may be asking: “Why is this relevant if I’m working with a website designer?” As you grow your list, you may choose to segment recipients. Email segmentation–or grouping recipients into smaller cohorts based on preferences and behaviors–enables you to create and direct targeted content that aligns with interests and purchasing habits of selected audiences. So, if you decide to change opt-in forms later to strengthen email segmentation, you can easily copy and paste new opt-in forms to your website as needed.

Interested in support with Flodesk? I can help! I can set up your account, create your welcome sequences, design newsletter templates, design custom opt-in pages on your website, and show you how the platform works so that can jump in with confidence!

Let’s chat! Drop me a note here.