When approaching the world of email marketing, one of the decisions to be made is the choice of which mailer to use to send our campaigns. A mailer is nothing more than the program with which we send our emails to our contacts.
There are many mailers around and it is likely that, if you have ever intended to send a newsletter, you will have heard of Mailchimp and Flodesk.
Somewhere in the past, I read something that made me smile and in some ways I find true: in the chronology of mailers, Mailchimp could be the parent and Flodesk the teenager.
Since being on the market longer doesn’t necessarily mean being better, today I would like to compare the major differences between the two mailers to help you make a more informed decision on what kind of tool you can use for your business.
Mailchimp or Flodesk: what is better for email marketing?
Flodesk: Pros and Cons
Flodesk was born in 2019 and immediately presented itself as the most user-friendly mailer around.
The templates immediately caught the eye of many female entrepreneurs: their workflows are really easy to understand and use, as are the forms provided by the platform.
The dashboard is clear and minimalistic which is objectively a big plus for many people.
What I’ve never really understood is whether Flodesk is GDPR compliant. They’re not clear on this and there’s no form set up on their platform that explicitly asks for GDPR consent.
If our business is in the US, you are safe but if you operate in Europe, Flodesk leaves a lot of responsibility to the user (for example, requiring that the use of language in your form is clear and transparent).
Another lack of Flodesk is on the e-commerce side. Flodesk allows integration with Zapier to manage your online shop but it is an extra step that needs to be taken to connect the platforms.
These are the features present in Flodesk:
- Email templates
- Email builder
- Automation
- Landing pages
- Forms
- Analytics
- Workflows
- Fixed price, unlimited subscribers
Mailchimp: Pros and Cons
Mailchimp was founded in 2001 and is now a complete CRM tool (Customer Relationship Management) that even large companies use to manage interactions with customers.
It is a solid mailer that has added many features over time: just think of the different automation customer journeys, different forms and many direct integrations with major e-commerce platforms.
If we compare Mailchimp’s layouts with the beauty of Flodesk‘s templates, the teenage mailer wins.
However, we must also think that what really counts is the content of our email.
If you still want to use a more polished template, you can outsource your email marketing or even buy ad-hoc templates.
The most intimidating aspect of Mailchimp is the interface and its use, which in my opinion is not very intuitive in the eyes of those who face the programme for the first time.
But if we think about the advantages that the platform offers, it is worth learning the basic tools for audience segmentation aimed at the real needs of your audience.
In terms of costs, Mailchimp can be more or less affordable than FloDesk, it depends on the contacts you have and on the features you need to use.
In order to get the best out of your email list is ‘pruning’ it a couple of times per year, meaning archiving or deleting low-quality contacts from your account. It is also good for your deliverability.
These are the features available in Mailchimp:
- Audience dashboard
- Behavioural targeting
- Tags & Segmentation
- Lookalike audiences
- Content studio
- Templates
- Emails
- Automations
- Landing pages, also shoppable
- Digital ads for social media
- Postcards (something I will give a try very soon and let you know)
- Transactional email
- Reports & analytics
- Tiered pricing based on the number of subscribers you have.
Mailchimp can help with websites creations too but I would recommend using platforms that specialise in just one thing (WordPress for websites, Siteground for hosting, etcetera).
Recap
The prettiness and ease of use of Flodesk are undeniable.
I love to use it too with some of my clients because it makes your life easy most of the time!
On the other hand, Mailchimp has more sense for my business now because it allows me to serve my audience better with its integrations and features.
If you do not know what to choose, you can ask me and I will be happy to help.
Or you can also ask yourself these questions:
- Are Flodesk limited features enough for my business? What do I need to implement in my strategy and how I intend to use a mailer?
- Do you need to segment your audience, tag it, honing the communication, integrate your e-commerce with your email marketing? Go for Mailchimp with eyes closed.
I hope this helps you to make a better decision.
Till next time,
Chiara
