How to Leverage Email Marketing to Grow Your Business With Flodesk Co-Founder, Rebecca Shostak
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Wondering how to make your email marketing stand out? Get ready to meet Rebecca Shostak, co-founder of Flodesk, the game-changing email marketing platform that's helping creative entrepreneurs revolutionize their communication with their audience. In our enlightening discussion, Rebecca shares her entrepreneurial journey, from her roots in Silicon Valley to building Flodesk—a company that has over $20 million in annual revenue, all without a drop of venture capital.
Dive into the heart of our conversation as Rebecca sheds light on the unique differentiators that have made Flodesk a star in the competitive industry of email marketing. Listen as she deciphers the complex world of list building and uncovers the secret to nurturing a small email list to yield big wins for your business. Discover the Flodesk philosophy that is all about creating a beautiful, on-brand email experience without the technology tussles by putting your brand first.
As we journey deeper, Rebecca shares an invaluable formula for successful email marketing, and reveals why building an email list is important for conversion and sales. As we wrap up, Rebecca offers listeners an opportunity to experience Flodesk for free. So, tune in to this episode of The Branding Business School Podcast and arm your brand with actionable email marketing strategies. You don't want to miss this one!
Get to know Rebecca Shostak [01:56]
Rebecca attended UCLA where she studied design and after she graduated she got her first job in a company where she designed merchandise, album covers, and items to be sold at shows for rock bands. In this job she designed for Linkin Park, Rihanna, Cheryl Crow, and Pussycat Dolls to name a few. From this experience, Rebecca learned how to design for a lot of different brands and she fell in love with the work of creating things in different styles for different audiences and producing things that people love to buy.
Even though Rebecca enjoyed that job designing for Rock bands, she always knew she wanted to start her own business. Growing up in Silicon Valley, the tech culture and entrepreneurship lifestyle was ingrained in her.
How Flodesk came to be [06:35]
Rebecca didn’t start her entrepreneurial journey with Flodesk. At first she started an eco-friendly wedding album company in 2008. In addition to the physical books that she sold, she also sold the graphic design templates that she created for the albums. She eventually ended up selling the book part of the business and started a new business focused solely on templates specifically for photographers. She soon realized that her best selling templates were MailChimp templates, although as she sold the template, she would receive an email in the support box the next day because the ease of implementation in MailChimp wasn’t there. This was when Rebecca noticed that there was a gap in the market for some kind of email marketing solution for people to express their brands in the way they want, similar to on social media, but through the inbox. This sat with Rebecca for years in the back of her mind.
Martha, one of Flodesk’s co-founders, was working at HoneyBook at the time, but she also noticed this pain point for small business owners as well. When Rebecca and Martha ended up meeting for something completely different, they bonded over the fact that this was a huge problem in the industry. Both of them understood the gap in the email marketing platforms and wanted to dive into it and solve the problem together.
Putting the brands first [11:45]
Flodesk’s mission is to create a solution that can put people’s brands first. There was a gap in the market with a lot of legacy platforms that moved onto enterprise and different markets especially as the rise of small businesses became more and more prominent. Rebecca does state that she does believe that it’s imperative for small businesses to invest in their brand, because as more people enter the market, you have to differentiate yourself, and brand identity is one of the very best ways to do that.
Starting a software company without investors [14:19]
Flodesk now drives $20 million a year in revenue and they built this all without the need to take any venture capital. Rebecca shares that one of the first conversations that she had with her dad regarding starting Flodesk, was him saying to not take funding. He offered advice to not give up control of the company if they didn’t have to. Try doing it, validate the idea without investors, because you can always take funding later if you need to. Flodesk has since remained profitable, so there hasn’t been a need to seek out additional funding, but they are not against venture capital. If there is a time in the future where they need to take it, they are open to having that conversation at that time.
Standing out even with less expensive alternatives [17:20]
When Flodesk initially launched, they had a beta deal where you could get 50% off your subscription for life, but it’s really hard to compete with free. One of the special parts of Flodesk, is that they are the only email marketing platform that offers a flat rate with their pricing. Meaning, they do not charge businesses for the number of subscribers or the number of emails that they send out. Many other platforms may have a “free plan” but at some point you would hopefully grow your list and send more emails, but at that point your platform may charge you more and more as you grow. Flodesk doesn’t want their community to feel punished because they’re being successful, and they want people to be confident signing up for Flodesk, knowing that they’ll be able to grow their list and not have their bill change.
By having their brand differentiators, Flodesk has been able to launch right out of the gate charging $39 per month. They’ve also been able to rewrite the narrative for brand marketing as beautiful and stunning. Before launching, you would never see an email marketing platform describe emails in this way, but now you can find even legacy platforms using this language.
Where do we start when it comes to building our email list? [25:12]
Flodesk recently came out with a new product, link in bio, which puts list building front and center on social media profiles. While social media is a valuable marketing tool, it is incredibly important to own your audience because on social media things can change at an instant. Only about 5% of your followers on average see your posts, which is wild compared to having a very engaged email list, where you could see upwards of 50% open rate and half of your audience is getting your communication. If you don’t have any other way to start building your email list, list building from social media is a great place to start.
Rebecca says that if you don’t have a list, you don’t have a serious business, because this is the number one way to drive sales. When it comes to sales you convert 40 times better than social media.
How many people do we need to have on our email list to start seeing ROI from email marketing? [31:36]
Rebecca says that it depends more on the quality of the list than the actual number. Victoria shares that from her experience, the more you serve the people on the list with good, valuable content, the more they’ll be ready to reach out to you when they’re ready for what you’re selling. Rebecca encourages us to think of list building as a bank account relationship. You have to make multiple deposits (serving them with quality content) before you’re able to take a withdrawal (asking them to buy something).
How many emails should we send each month? [36:19]
If people subscribe to your list, they are looking to hear from you, so you should be sending them an email at least once every two weeks. It really does depend on what you offer and your business model, but in this day and age when people are sensitive to digital privacy, if they give you their email address, they really want to hear from you.
What percentage of emails should focus on selling as opposed to only serving? [41:41]
A good formula is to serve, or add value, at least four times before you go to make an ask or sell something. This can absolutely vary depending on what you want to do and what offers you have. For example, if you only want to give a discount once a year, you can continue to serve your list all year long and build those relationships so that when it comes to the time of the sale, you can make the ask. In general, if you have something to sell, you should absolutely add value at least four times before making the ask.
During a launch, how much is too much when it comes to emailing your list? [45:20]
Once you have a highly engaged list that’s really excited about your offer, you can go a little aggressive with emails during the launch. Sometimes people are busy and they see the email come through but then they forget to open it. Having those reminders before the launch ends can absolutely be effective.
Flodesk’s brand differentiator [48:11]
Flodesk keeps its user experience for creating emails and forms beautiful and simple. They prioritize putting your brand first. And lastly, their flat rate pricing differentiates them from every other email marketing platform on the market.
Key Quotes
“Your brand comes first at Flodesk and you can come to us trusting that we have your back when it comes to the way that you want to design every [email] that you create.”
Rebecca Shostak
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