Email marketing is not dead.

It still works and in fact, when done right, it can have some of the highest conversion rates out there.

Why & How I use email marketing

 

I use email in a whole lot of ways depending on the project I’m working on. As I built out my website and blog, I first setup mailchimp but quickly realized I needed a different tool for the job. I wanted a tool to help me build my list and to sell online products and courses.

Just look at some of these stats.

There are over 4.35 billion email accounts accounts. This figure is predicted to reach 5.59 billion by 2019 which is a growth of more than 26% – Radicati Group (2015)

55% of companies generate more than 10 percent of sales from email – Econsultancy “Email marketing census”(2014)

88% of marketeers say email marketing is bringing them a positive ROI. – ExactTarget “2014 State of Marketing”

Email is almost 40x better at acquiring new customers than Facebook and Twitter – McKinsey & Company (2014)

122,500,453,020 emails are sent every hour. – MarketingProfs (2014)

Yes, people are getting more email than ever so to standout in the clutter, you need to provide highly relevant value.

Not just generic value, rather you need to provide personalized value for your specific target audiences.

Why Should You Listen To Me?

I started in email marketing in the early 2000s using Outlook Express. I then moved on to my first email marketing program called Bluehornet.

Since then I have built multiple lists for myself and clients on almost every single email marketing software available.

• HubSpot
• AWeber
• Mailchimp
• Campaign Monitor
• Active Campaign
• Bluehornet
• Jangomail
• Constant Contact
• SendGrid
• Jumplead
• Salesforce Marketing Cloud
• and more….

Doing email marketing right comes down to the right tools, valuable content, campaign planning and execution.

First you need the tools to build your subscriber list and then you can start creating content for your emails.

In this post, I’m going to review a relatively new email marketing application called Convert kit.

What is Convert Kit?

Convert Kit is an email marketing program that includes optin forms, landing pages, email subscription management, list segmentation and automation.

It’s main feature is Sequences that allow you to create drip email courses/campaigns.

Who’s it for?

• Bloggers & Online entrepreneurs
• Online Course publishers
• Online entrepreneurs selling digital products
• Authors and book promoters
• Marketers looking for a great email funnel builder
• Any business that wants to capture leads and follow up with automated email sequences

Problems I had with other email marketing providers

Each program has it’s advantages and disadvantages. Some of them are cost related some are related to company policies or application workflow.

None of them did what I wanted for this website.

• HubSpot is awesome but was overkill for this website.
• AWeber cool but still too many features for what was needed
• Mailchimp was my first choice but in reality it is designed for newsletters, not marketing.
• Infusionsoft again is like Hubspot. Overkill and too complicated for our learning website
• Campaign Monitor was just too expensive.

Why I love Convert Kit

In two words, Simplicity & Inexpensive.

And that’s why I love Convert Kit.

It’s simple to learn and easy to use.

It has all of the features you need without all the clutter of unnecessary add-ons.

Favorite features in ConvertKit (ie. sequences, opt-in forms, automations)

Sequences

Sequences are where Convert Kit shines for me.

Think of them as online email based courses. Visitors subscribe to a sequence(course) and Convert Kit delivers each message in the sequence and timing you decide?

When creating a Sequence, the UI is well laid out to provide a simple step by step way of building your content.

You can see below how it guides you through the process with templated outlines and tips built right into each step.

They bring their years of experience right into the app to help you write valuable content that engages & converts.

The interface for adding more emails to a sequence is easy too, you simply drag and drop to get the order you choose.

Forms

The optin forms are fairly simple to setup too. You get three options to choose from shown here.

Here’s an example of the inline form embed. As you can see, very clean and all it took was a simple copy and paste into the WordPress post. Enter your email to see how it works.

Landing pages

Landing pages are easy to build as well.

I built this hosted one in less than 5 minutes. The UI walks you through the process so you don’t have to struggle through any real technical things to get it done.

Automations

Automation rules are the glue that holds together parts of a email marketing workflow. You can use them to join two sequences together, add customers from Gumroad, and more.

It’s simple to create automations.

It’s just, “If this happens, then do this.”

Automation Blueprints – I’m starting to see more “Blueprints” in applications like this. HubSpot uses Campaign and blog post blueprints that help you out with a starting point to get you going quickly.

Convert Kit also has Blueprints for a variety of common automations including.

• Automated sales funnel to track your interested subscribers and customers, offer automated upsells.
• Opt out of certain emails, but not all emails. Create custom unsubscribe links for your Sequences or launches. Allow your subscribers to adjust their email frequency.
• Internal survey to indicate sub-topic interest.

Segments & Tags

Segments let you group subscribers together for broadcasts and Tags help you organize your subscribers.

Integrations

Convert Kit integrates with most market leading tools and many others. Integration is always important so that each tool you use can leverage the value that each creates.

Here is a short list of some of the integrations.

Commerce

• Shopify
• WooCommerce

Lead Capture

• SumoMe
• LeadPages
• ClickFunnels

Membership + Courses Sites

• Teachable
• Zippy Courses
• Rainmaker
• aMember

Surveys + Forms

• Gravity Forms

Website Platforms

• WordPress
• Squarespace

Scheduling

• Acuity Scheduling

Giveaways

• Gleam
• ViralSweep

Find even more Convert Kit integrations here.

Why I think people should switch to ConvertKit

If you are new to creating email courses or drip campaigns, Convert Kit is the tool for you.

It’s not just a piece of software, rather it is a email marketing tool that teaches you as you build out your courses and campaigns. If you are selling ebooks, real books or other information products, Convert Kit might be the best tool for you.

Final thoughts about Convert Kit

If you’re an online entrepreneur that is starting out a blog or an audience, and send regular emails, this is the tool for you.

Here again are the main reason I use it.

• easy to use
• Intuitive user interface
• automatic send-to-unopen emails
• simple list cleaning
• aggressive feature release schedule
• Great customer support

If you’re interested in that, you can checkout ConvertKit. It might save you a massive headache.

Learn more about Convert Kit

Do you have experience with any of the other email providers?

Let me know your thoughts or if you have any questions I can answer about ConvertKit, comment below.