A positioning statement defines a company. It conveys a sense of authority and value. It can make or break a first impression.
ConvertKit is underselling itself.
When we launched Happy Mitten Games back in 2012, we needed a way to directly communicate with our audience. Mailchimp was the obvious choice. It was popular, easy to use, and free for our startup company.
It worked great for many years. However, after I went full time with my second company, I had less time to get things done and a few key problems began to arise with MailChimp.
Writing emails is a time consuming process.
As a business owner, there are a million things I need to do. I could always find something more important than deciding what random thing I was going to share with my audience that week or month. I know consistency is important but what good is consistency if I don’t have anything to say or the time to say it?
And when I do spend the time to write an awesome email…
What am I supposed to do with all of the people who didn’t open it? MailChimp tracks open and click-through rates but it doesn’t give me a way to fix it.
What about when people sign up for my mailing list the day after I send out the awesome email? When sending traditional broadcasts, the email is sent and then gone forever to any new signups. Spending time on writing an email that would only be seen once by some of my audience is a waste.
As a result, I stopped writing newsletters for my mailing list all together (an equally destructive choice).
Fast forward to late 2015. Through the podcasts I listened to and the marketing circles I hung around, Nathan Berry and ConvertKit landed on my radar.
First impressions of websites happen fast. When I originally visited ConvertKit, the positioning statement was my main takeaway and it fell short.
Email marketing for professional bloggers.
I don’t consider myself a blogger, let alone a professional one. Thus, the first impression I received from the site was this product wasn’t for me. Blogging is a lower value position compared to many other positions one can have on the internet.
Note: Many of my clients felt the same. They thought the product was amateur, because of the blogger position. Its only after they tried it that they saw it’s true potential.
However, I couldn’t shake the idea of ConvertKit. It sounded like it could solve many of my email campaign problems. After much research, I made the jump and I’m glad I did.
Why ConvertKit is for more than just bloggers.
ConvertKit has powered my eCommerce business mailing list for four months. I have also been implementing it with a client’s online store for the past two months.
Many of the business owners who could benefit from it don’t consider themselves “bloggers.” I run an eCommerce web agency. I’m not a blogger. My client runs a men’s fashion accessory store. He’s not a blogger. I tried getting another client of mine to see the benefits of ConvertKit and he never bought in. He works in heating and cooling; not blogging.
So how has ConvertKit helped my business and my client?
Reuseable, automated email series. Remember earlier when I said I hate feeling like I can’t reuse the emails I send and that writing emails is too time consuming? ConvertKit allows you to write email series once and reuse them again and again.
For example, I recently wrote a post on recycling your content and I have an opt-in for the mailing list to receive a free PDF on growth hacks.
However, instead of having the opt-in put people in a list to receive monthly updates or tips, they get put into my growth hacks series. It’s roughly 10 emails that explain the things I’m doing to save time and maximize the impact of my content. Each email is triggered to send based on the date of the sign up automatically.
If a person signs up on Monday, they immediately receive the PDF and an email explaining they are about to receive several emails over the next few days about growing their business. The next day they receive growth hacks email 01. Two days after that, email 02 and so on. Each email is sent automatically to every person who signs up.
Still want to send weekly or monthly broadcasts? No problem. You are still able to send updates as traditionally discussed.
Additional Automated Triggers. Beyond the automated email series, ConvertKit utilizes many additional automated triggers. For example, in my growth hack series, I have one email that talks about podcasting and I include a few links to posts I’ve written on podcasting. If they click on those links, the user automatically gets tagged with “podcasting” to let me know they may be interested in future podcasting help or products. I can trigger additional emails related to podcasting to send to these people as well.
Organization of subscribers. While on the topic of tags, ConvertKit offers flexible organization of and interaction with your subscribers. For example, Bob might be part of my growth hacks series and tagged with podcasting. Phyllis might be in the growth hack series as well but has no interest in podcasting. I can choose to start Phyllis on a new general series to figure out her interests while bypassing the general series for Bob and putting him in the podcast series. Last, I can send one or both of them broadcast emails depending on the topic and content.
So much more. Only using ConvertKit for a short while, I know there is still a lot of features I haven’t tapped into yet. It integrates with lots of other platforms and software like WordPress, LeadPages, Optinmonster, Gumroad, and more. You can do a lot with landing pages, forms, automating opt-in gifts, incentives, and more.
I don’t take recommendations lightly. I recently wrote a recommendation post for Siteground as a hosting service because I think they are doing a fantastic job and because I’m frustrated by how many people recommend Bluehost.
The only criticism I have so far is I haven’t settled on the best way to embed forms on my site pages. While embedding with JavaScript is the easiest, I try to avoid adding external calls that slow site performance. I’ve played around with using raw html, Gravity Forms, and JavaScript but haven’t decided on what I like best.
Note: I develop websites for a living so I’m picky about how things like this work. For most users, this is a non-issue.
ConvertKit really is that good. I would argue it’s for many, many more business owners than just the “professional blogger.” Its automation has saved me a tremendous amount of time and made writing company emails possible again.
Interested in trying ConvertKit yet? If any of this resonates or sounds familiar, I highly recommend checking it out here. Plans start at $29/ month and they’re worth every penny.
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