ConvertKit

With a bevy of email marketing platforms available, it can be hard to differentiate one over others. 

Many of them have similar functionalities and have interfaces that are easy for new users to navigate.

The email market is becoming oversaturated, and some have realized that it’s essential to go after a particular target market. 

That’s where Convertkit enters the picture.

The difference with ConvertKit is that they specifically target a growing segment: content creators. When you stop to think about it, this niche seems like a good idea; content creators either have an established audience or are actively growing it. 

Content creators thrive on connecting with their audience, and the adoption of ConvertKit is essential to accomplishing this goal.

 Why? It’s because email marketing is a rapidly growing facet of marketing that is only going to grow more.

Email is the heartbeat of communicating today. But are the features enough to satisfy the appetite of content creators?

Let’s take a deep dive and see for ourselves.

What is ConvertKit?

ConvertKit is a free (with several paid plans) email marketing platform that enables users to communicate with their audience. 

They offer users a fairly intuitive interface and other features, including creating landing pages, forms, and email automation. 

ConvertKit divides its software’s functionality into three buckets: growing your audience, connecting with your fans, and earning a living. Each bucket has specific features to accomplish these goals. 

But, as we’ll find out, these buckets may not necessarily do the best job at meeting these goals.

Click here to check out ConvertKit risk-free.

Who is ConvertKit best for?

ConvertKit aims to separate themselves from the rest of the email marketing pack by targeting their software to content creators. 

Whether you’re a vlogger, blogger, podcaster, or any other type of content creator, ConvertKit says they’re the one for you.

Of course, they don’t just limit themselves to content creators. Anyone and everyone can use their software. 

However, many of the features they offer are very much catered to audience building and engagement. 

Thus, if you’re a small business with an established audience, you may not get maximum value from everything that they offer.

How do you use ConvertKit?

So, how does ConvertKit work, and what does it look like?

We’ve signed up for a new account under their free plan model so let’s find out.

After signing in to your account, this is what their dashboard will look like:

Right off the bat, you might be thinking, ‘Wow, this looks a bit busy.’ And you’re right. 

We won’t dive into every feature, but here are a few of the notable ones. 

Let’s start by navigating to ‘Quick Actions’ on the right panel and click on Create a new…and we’ll select Email Template.

Here are some templates that you can choose from to kick off your email marketing fast, without sacrificing any of your brand’s sexy good looks & charm.

While you can also choose to ‘Create an HTML template,’ the lack of templates to sift through is not promising for an email marketing platform.

We’ll go back to the Quick Actions panel and try our luck with creating a landing page. 

As you can see, there are plenty more design options to choose from, which makes total sense for an email marketing platform (sarcasm alert). 

There are so many different designs that you can filter through them by category. 

If you’re a content creator looking to run a social media contest or a lead gen campaign, the vast selection of templates to choose from is excellent.

If you’re perhaps just looking to get people to register for your newsletter or want to run a lead gen campaign, you can also do so through forms. 

Like landing page templates, there’s a solid selection of form templates to choose from.

Alright, the last thing we want to show you is Broadcasts.

Broadcasts is ConvertKit’s terminology for email campaigns. 

You can find all your previous ones and create a new broadcast here.

One thing that is painfully obvious when you create a new broadcast is just how empty it is. 

Maybe this is done by design, but creating a new broadcast will require you to know exactly what you want in it.

You can add other elements to this broadcast by clicking the ‘Add content’ section, but it just isn’t a very intuitive process.

ConvertKit Pricing

Let’s talk about money, namely, how much a membership will cost you. The answer to this will depend on how many subscribers or followers you have. 

If you have less than 1,000 subscribers, you can get away with using a free plan. The features under this plan will be limited, but you won’t have to pay to get started. 

You can toggle between paying monthly or yearly. If you choose to pay yearly, you will receive a discount that amounts to roughly 15% off your total bill.

If you want more value, bump up to a Creator plan for only $29 per month or a Creator Plus account for $59 per month. 

These plans are priced for content creators with less than 1,000 subscribers.

But let’s say you have a bit of an established audience and have 5,000 subscribers. 

ConvertKit has a sliding pricing scale that changes the price of their plans based on your total number of subscribers. For 5,000 subscribers, this is what you should expect to pay:

Here’s a chart that will give you an idea of how the sliding monthly pricing model can quickly get up in price.

ConvertKit Features

Email Versatility

The biggest thing you will want with any email marketing service is the ability to send different types of emails.

ConvertKit lets you do just that.

You can send a one-off Broadcast (a new email) such as a new product or contest announcement.

If you want a welcome series of emails for new subscribers, you can create a drip-email campaign. Taking advantage of the drip emails is also a great way to re-engage inactive subscribers.

Lastly, you can also create autoresponder emails.

Autoresponders are a type of automated email that is sent to people that complete the desired action.

A thank you email that is sent to a new subscriber is an example of this.

Visual Automations

We have to admit; the user experience with visual automations is pretty cool. 

The appeal behind visual automations is so that you, the user, can visualize the customer journey. 

You can map out automation from the moment they enter your funnel to the time they make a purchase.

Within visual automation, you can define the parameters for the emails your subscribers will receive for completing the desired action. 

You can also carefully space out your emails so that it doesn’t seem like content overkill.

There is plenty of value with this feature, and leveraging it will give you great insight into your subscribers’ behavior. Plus, we really can’t get enough of how clean this looks!

Variety of Landing Page and Form Templates

We’re very specific to point out that there’s plenty of great variety in landing pages and form templates.

However, the same cannot be said for email templates, which is a shame. 

Being able to choose an email template that is customizable should be a core feature. After all, email design is the fourth most important element that is regularly tested.

That’s not to take away from the diverse set of templates you can choose from if you want to create a form or landing page. 

Because there are tons! What’s great about these templates is that they are easily customizable as well. 

If your blog or website is on WordPress, use the WordPress plugin to have your ConvertKit form displayed on your site. 

Creating landing pages is simple & straightforward.

A big bonus here is that the landing pages are responsive – which helps to ensure the page user experience is great on a computer or a mobile device.

Selling Digital Products

Content creators that sell digital products such as an ebook or a learning course can monetize their products on ConvertKit Commerce.

ConvertKit Commerce enables users to make a one-time or recurring purchase. 

This feature is great for content creators that have a digital good that they want to focus their energy on selling. 

ConvertKit Commerce does lack the completeness of an e-commerce platform like Shopify, but this is done by design.

ConvertKit Pros and Cons

Pros

• Free to use
• Good selection of customizable landing pages and forms
• Forms can be embedded on WordPress websites
• Offers light e-commerce capabilities 
• Drip campaigns and autoresponders save you time and can re-engage cold subscribers or leads.
• Visual automations is intuitive to use and easy to map out the customer/subscriber journey

Cons

• A small collection of email templates to use
• Creating a broadcast requires you to have an idea of how you want your email to look.
• Sliding subscriber pricing model can quickly escalate costs
• Lack of robust reporting on email metrics

Final Recommendation? Two thumbs up. ConvertKit is a great tool, and if you’re looking to scale your marketing and sell more through automation, definitely give it a try.