So this is something we had been struggling with for so long – e-newsletters. You would think it’s a straightforward thing, but it’s not. People who sell products or services or want to make announcements, like we do, have tons of choices when it comes to electronic newsletter mail programs.
For the longest time, we had been studying ConvertKit and signed up to use their free program. They also have paid versions as well. ConvertKit is probably the most beautiful, colorful, and visually exciting e-newsletter program we’ve probably ever seen. The biggest problem, however, is that the program is difficult to use, even for beginners like us.
ConvertKit calls their e-mails “broadcasts” and gives users many options in terms of designing the components and scheduling and separating e-newsletters among different subscriber bases. Yes, for those who are far more advanced in ConvertKit’s technology or receive their training, the options are beautiful, but they’re not intuitive to use and not helpful for people just starting out.
We were instantly attracted to the design beauty and they eye candy appeal of ConvertKit, but getting stuck in the hurdles of signing up and having no clue what to do next ultimately proved frustrating, so we canned it.
We also tested out sending an e-newsletter through FloDesk, which is also a free service. We liked the simplicity of FloDesk, but when we tried to design our first e-newsletter, we got stuck on some of the elements and we found it to be a bit choppy-looking, so we canned that, too.
We had heard of MailChimp and had seen lots of great people using it, but we personally never tried them. We were also long-time fans of Constant Contact. We did try our hand at designing e-newsletters using their free service. It was way more robust than FloDesk, offered us more bells and whistles for free, but we couldn’t make sense of the design elements, so we canned it.
Needless to say, we were getting frustrated because we had been “thinking” about e-newsletters for so long, but we’ve only been sitting on the idea and never actively working with it. We feel bad because so much time was wasted when we could have been connecting with people.
But alas, perhaps patience has won out?
Introducing the e-newsletter service provider winner that captured out hearts: The Newsletter Plug In, a free plugin for WordPress websites. Hooray! We had been working with WordPress for years – – it has been a tool we’re most comfortable using. After a LOT of digging around and researching and testing out different things, we’re super excited to have found a tool that meets our needs and works for us!
