An Introduction to Mailing Lists (pt. 1 - Platform Overview)
An email list is one of, if not THE most, crucial pieces of your marketing tools you can have in your toolkit.
Why?
A mailing list is the only thing you actually own when it comes to your marketing. Social media could disappear tomorrow and if that’s the only way you’ve been engaging with your community, you’d be in a jam. All of your followers would be gone and you’d have no way to get in touch with anyone who’s interested in your offerings or anyone who would benefit from your knowledge.
By cultivating an email list you set yourself up for a successful marketing future in the face of a total social shut down or just in the event that you have something you want to share with people who really truly care about what you’re putting out there. Because the people on your mailing list have chosen to be there. They’ve chosen your content, your knowledge, your opinions, and they trust what you have to say - beyond your aesthetically pleasing, perfectly curated feed photos.
And why does that matter?
It matters because these people are your people. They’re the ones who are going to be most likely to purchase your courses, buy your templates, recommend your services, and forward your brilliant digital blasts to their friends.
It’s crucial, it’s clutch, but where do you start?
Your mailing list is the only thing you actually own when it comes to your marketing.
Step 1
Pick Your
Platform
There are a few to choose from but in this guide we’re looking at the top three players: Flodesk, Mailchimp & Squarespace.
(*note another key player is Convertkit but I’ve never used it nor known anyone personally who’s used it, so I haven’t included it in this list).
Pros
The MOST aesthetically pleasing
Send unlimited number of emails per month
Drag & drop templating (aka easy to use & customize)
Simple set up
Intuitive long term management
Easy to set up automations
Easy to set up list segmentation (easy to set track where subscribers came from)
Built in landing page design
Social platform integration
Cons
Coding is required for website integration (simple enough, but not built in to any platform)
Limited analytics
Moderately high monthly price
Mailchimp
Pricing
Tiered Monthly Pricing
Free • $10 • $15 • $300
Pros
Industry standard so it’s got lots of integrations with other services & site platforms
Powerful analytics
Built in landing page design
Cons
Steep learning curve
Coding is required achieve clean customization
Limited built in customization options
Complex and nonintuitive backend - lots of hidden elements and components buried in dropdown menus and subpages
Coding required to make email collection forms clean and on brand
Squarespace
Pricing
Tiered Monthly Pricing
$7 • $14 • $34 • $68
Pros
Seamless integration with Squarespace (duh)
Beautiful templates
Same easy drag and drop builder you’re used to with Squarespace
Cons
Can only send limited number of campaigns & emails per month
VERY hard to create segments (read can’t create segments - have to create separate lists if you want to have different funnels, then export those lists and REimport them to your full main list)
Limited analytics
