Why Teacherpreneurs Booted Mailchimp for Flodesk
Overnight, Mailchimp has become a dirty ex-lover. What happened?
Admitting you use Mailchimp to other TPTer’s is almost as embarrassing as the number of lovers spam accounts TPT has let in.
A few years ago, most teacherpreneurs started their email lists on free Mailchimp. Then many switched to ConvertKit once they got the hang of email marketing. ConvertKit had a few features that teacherpreneurs thought they needed.
It also added status.
TPTers knew if someone switched to ConvertKit, they were over the 2000 subscriber limit. And if someone had 2000 subscribers they knew what they were doing. (Really it just meant they knew how to grow their list. Not actually sell to their list.)
By 2021, Flodesk was the only “starter” company worth courting for TPTers.
It makes you wonder what’s the underlying lesson? Is Flodesk better than Mailchimp or ConvertKit? More importantly, have better tools come out to help us market our teacher businesses?
Turns out it has more to do with our teacherpreneur learning curve than the power of the email service provider.
(Sorry, Mailchimp…it’s not you. It’s me.)
We Were Looking for an “Email Marketing” Student Teaching Experience
We learned how to write lesson plans, not sales letters. We learned how to grade homework, not edit in persuasive messages. We learned how to tie post-potty shoe laces, not string together welcome sequences.
After we studied teaching in college, we got to practice and learn all the practical things about being a teacher before we actually started teaching.
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise when we wanted to see how email marketing worked before we committed. What if we sent emails that no one read? What if they read our emails, but never bought our stuff? What if it took forever to write and create one email?
And if any of that became true, we’d break up with email marketing and find something that worked. (Btw, please tell me you’re using UTM codes to verify email is working. You are, right?)
We wanted to date test out email marketing. And Mailchimp was our first companion. But there were problems in our relationship.
We Didn’t Know What We Needed
We wanted a Match.com email marketing experience. Set it and it will constantly send new lovers leads our way.
But Mailchimp wasn’t that kind of email provider. The monkey is steady, simple, and in it for a long term relationship. He wanted to steadily send nurturing newsletters. He didn’t do complicated automations and funnels.
We wrote better headlines. Which led to higher open rates. And since more people were opening, more were clicking. And if they weren’t clicking, we could figure out what we needed to change so that more teachers clicked. Our email marketing relationship started out well.
But we kept pushing the chimp to send our funnels. We thought we needed more out of this relationship.
We Were Taught Funnel, not Nurture Marketing
Big marketers taught us that we needed lots of email features. What we didn’t know was that our small TPT businesses didn’t need these features.
We were being taught funnel marketing, not nurture marketing.
We were being taught to set up funnels that were too complicated. (Falsely pitched to us as, “Set your email funnels up and you’ll never have to email again!”)
We were also being told to segment our lists. We took that to mean that we needed to segment every third person on our email list with immense tagging.
We were taught we needed complicated automations and welcome sequences that lead into more sequences. And sequences about sequences…and then we just got lost trying to put all of this into Mailchimp. We “needed” an email marketing companion who could do automations well.
So clearly we “needed” ConvertKit.
(Sorry Mailchimp. We were trying to get too serious too fast…)
Mailchimp was feeling used and took away the 2000, and eventually 500, subscriber limits. And also limited testing features and automations during the free trial offer.
Not being able to try before committing made Mailchimp no longer so irresistible to TPT sellers wanting to start email marketing.
That’s when Flodesk swooped in and batted their one price fits all banners. For TPTers trying to keep costs low, Flodesk seems like an easy choice. (Especially for those who weren’t using UTM codes to verify if they were making money on email marketing.)
Those who were ready to get serious with email marketing settled down with ConvertKit.
The Starting Point Has Changed
Now that Mailchimp has broken it off with us and our wanting to try before we buy, where do beginners start?
It’s sink or swim. Do or die. Make money emailing or go dance on TikTok.
If you are wanting to try email marketing, consider starting with your Note to Followers. It’s an email platform built into TPT. And it’s preloaded with your fans. Yes, you can only email once a week, but are you really going to email more than that when you start?
No, you’re not.
It's more important than ever to start your email list with knowledge, specific strategies, and why you’re emailing. TPTers booted Mailchimp because they didn’t understand what they needed from an email service provider. (Psshhh…we didn’t even know there were different types of email marketing...)
Now email service providers are only giving 14 or 30 day free trials. Which kind of feels like we’re only testing out their buttons and making sure they work. (Um. Of course they work…?!)
You can’t learn about email marketing from a 2 week trial and an email list of 7 people.
(And having ConvertKit doesn’t make you successful at email marketing.)
But you can learn how to write fun, nurturing, high converting emails with Note to Followers.
The underlying lesson isn’t that Mailchimp is bad. It’s not that Flodesk is better. Or worse.
Choosing an email service provide is not about the features. It’s about giving you the ability to send weekly nurturing emails. And when you’re starting out, you don’t need to be worrying about funnels, automations, and sequences. You need to be learning how to write emails really well.
And if you want to snoop on some emails that have that down, you should click here.
If you’re looking for a Mailchimp alternative that’s free, consider your Note to Followers. Your followers already love your stuff. Write to them. Persuade them. Sell to them.
And when you’re ready try an email service provider that TPTers Don’t Talk About…
Beehiiv. It’s an email and blog platform in one.
Free for the first 2500 subscribers. That’s enough time for you to digitally fall on your face, stumble over a few words, and awkwardly admit that you forgot to sign your emails.
By the time you get passed that, you’ll be on your way to being a professional email marketer.