What is Convert Kit? A Free Solution for Email Marketing in 2021
Truth be told, I wasn’t psyched by the idea of Convert kit and Email marketing at first. I am not a blogger. So, I never had the opportunity to understand and work with email automation. Besides, email marketing felt a little old strategy.
Nowadays, the world runs on social media. With the advent of Facebook, Instagram, the volume of marketing has increased manifold. New strategies are coming now and then. Within a month, they all become outdated.
That’s how the world works now. So, it was little difficult for me to absorb the importance of email marketing.
A little while later it hit me.
Scenario 1: I am scrolling down the pages of Facebook or Instagram. I like some ad or I like the post someone has created. I won’t hesitate to ‘Like’ the page to follow its future contents.
Scenario 2: I am scrolling down a blog or a website. Its content is interesting. It suits my taste. I’ll check if they have any Facebook pages. So, I can follow them for future updates. There is no Facebook or Instagram page. Now, I’ll think hard twice or thrice before signing up with my Email for their newsletters.
Why?
Because Email is more personal. We follow so many things on social media platforms. But we let open our Email for very few.
That’s the importance of Email marketing. The target audience is not any random people. They are those who follow your blogs with interest. Those who are willing to stay with you longer.
Now, how does the Convert kit ease our work in this situation.?
What is Convert Kit?
Convert kit is an Email marketing and automation tool. In simpler terms an ‘Email service provider’(ESP). The objectivity is to streamline your Email subscribers and group them accordingly. Its Automation tool is one of the simplest available in the market.
Let me share an observation here.
Take Hollywood for instance. 10 years ago, the priority was the story. Then comes the screenplay, casting, direction, budget, marketing, and VFX. But today, Marketing plays a pivotal role in the industry.
A special mention to the high budget Television series and countless YouTube creators. They have increased the competition to grab the attention of the people. OTT platforms started sidelining the theatres.
Content creators are working so hard to produce new materials. Production companies have multiple experts to take care of each division.
But if you’re an individual with a small team, your complete focus should be on creating new content. You can’t afford to assign people to take care of your subscriber’s list and respond to them individually. Marketing and managing shouldn’t be a time-consuming complicated issue.
That’s where the Convert kit comes into assistance with its tools.
Convert Kit – Email Automation
For example, take an online tutor. Email is her main source of marketing. She teaches 4 subjects. She sends out an email to all her subscribers about the addition of new courses. Not all of them would prefer the same course to join. Their choice varies.
Email automation divides these subscribers. Those who all choose subject number 1, go to one group. Like that, the automation tool group these people individually. The grouping would be important for future communication.
How does this work?
Convert kit achieves this by Trigger and action rules. The tutor can give inputs in the filters inside the trigger. If a subscriber chooses subject number 1, the action is to group that subscriber in Subject 1.
By doing so, we can create such simple subscriber funnels. Also, she can instruct them to send out a welcome message for people who’ve subscribed to the course.
This is a simple example. The number of variables is less. Convert kit offers a visual automation builder. A simple but powerful tool for creating complex automation funnels. It is stitched inside the web page to provide a seamless content editing experience.
One of the best parts of Email marketing is that you don’t need a web page. You can do anything on emails alone. Promote your business, share your experience, showcase your artworks, and such.
If you’re starting something new or already have subscribers, you can kindle the attention of the audience through the landing page.
Free Landing page
In simple terms, a landing page is like a Pamphlet Advertisement. It is a single-page document that conveys the idea of your intention with minimal words. But with a brilliant design. Let me show a Landing page of the convert kit itself.
I created this landing page on the Convert kit. It took me only 2 minutes.
As of now, they have fully customizable 42 landing page templates. A total of 9 categories that cover almost all the marketing scenarios.
You don’t need to worry about how to create a landing page. Also, you don’t need to know to code. They provide drag and drop options to edit everything in their templates.
In addition to this, they have integrated Unsplash for media files. You can also access your Instagram pictures inside the interface. It can be customized for desktop and mobile views.
We can use landing pages individually or we can link it to our websites. By redirecting the audience to our website, we can increase our subscriber base.
Landing pages can be about anything. You can inform your audience about a future product. You can ask their opinion on any existing services. Anything.
Does Landing page matter?
8 seconds is the average human concentration duration. We’re living in a fast-paced world. Our content should be unique, minimalistic but intriguing. That’s how we can grab people’s attention in those 8 seconds. At the same time, it should convince the audience to sign up for our cause.
Sign up forms using Convert Kit
Sign up forms let you increase your subscriber’s list. Also, it helps you group your subscribers.
Convert kit offers 4 styles of sign up forms.
Like the landing page templates, these come with customizable designs. Also, we can use unlimited signup forms. Automation can be also applied to Sign up forms. We can customize sign up forms to do specific works.
Let’s take the tutor example again. She can customize the signup forms. So, those who opt-in for her course can receive a free overview of other courses. All this can be automated.
We can integrate these Signup forms with all the popular website builders.
Privacy is an important aspect when it comes to personal emails. Convert kit gives the option of Attaching consent checkboxes within the forms. Also, you can redirect the visitor to the General Data Protection Regulation page.
Email Designer and Broadcast
In an Email-marketing based service, writing one is an important process. Convert kit provides many templates for writing an email as well. They’ve simplified the attaching image process and editing.
They have an Auto de-duplication feature. It prevents subscribers from getting duplicate emails.
Through broadcast, we can send emails all at once. Let’s say, the tutor has to send a newsletter every month for her students. She can write the content, attach the newsletter, and send it. Also, she can schedule it for later. Broadcast also allows the user to choose their subscriber’s group.
Price
The Achilles’ heel of every beginner is the price.
Convert kit offers two plans.
1) Free Account
This plan would be suitable for all those beginners who are trying to test the ground. Under this free plan, you can manage up to 1000 subscriptions.
Except for a very few features, all the remaining are included in this free package.
- It comes with Unlimited landing pages and sign up forms.
- Unlimited traffic.
- Email broadcasts and subscriber tagging.
They also have a ‘Refer a friend’ scheme. For every referral, you can add 100 more subscribers to the total. It comes with a 10 referral limit.
2) Complete Account
This plan starts at USD 25/month for 1000 subscribers. With the increase in the number of subscribers, the subscription fee would increase. For 900,000 subscribers, it costs USD 3333/month.
In addition to the features available in the free account, it comes with a few more.
- Automated funnel and Email sequences.
- Premium support.
- Integration with 3rd party tools.
- Free migration from other models.
If you want to check the complete account model, they offer a credit card free 14-day trial.
They have a Subscriber Centric policy. It means they don’t count the same email as a different person when they sign up in different forms. They calculate them as the same subscriber.
Why is this important?
ESPs charge their clients based on the number of subscribers they have on the list. If they count the same customer twice or thrice, it would affect the client. Also, they’d have to pay more. Convert kit doesn’t do this double counting.
A few other things
1) Convert Kit Resources
The documentation available within their page is more than enough. We don’t have to seek 3rd party assistance to get to know these tools.
They have 26 ‘How to’ guides which cover every aspect of online marketing. For starters, they have tutorials to understand how this works.
Apart from that, they conduct live workshops to reach more audiences. Also, to teach them the new nuances of marketing. For those who couldn’t make it to live workshops, they have an on-demand workshop option.
2) Comparison
There is one other thing on their web page that raised my eyebrows.
The compare column on the right. It is not a detailed in-depth comparison. But I appreciate the courage to include this column. Instead of ‘Market alternatives’, they’ve used the name of their competitors.
Convert kit doesn’t hold a monopoly over Email service providers. They have prominent alternatives like Active campaign, Drip, Ontraport, Mailchimp, Get response, Sendinblue, Constant contact, and Hubspot.
For the top ESP comparisons, click here.
3) Convert kit commerce
This is a new feature introduced early this month. The purpose of this tool is to sell digital products inside the convert kit setup itself. We’ll get to know more about this in the future.
In conclusion
As mentioned earlier, the creators should focus only on the content.
Creating a new product or a new idea, surveying the subscribers about the product, to keep the subscribers in the loop every step of the way, sending them a newsletter every week or every month, the welcome message for new subscribers, creating a specific funnel for a group of customers. These are the processes that should assist the creators to achieve their goal. They should not be a hindrance.
It is not a detailed in-depth comparison. But I appreciate the courage to include this column. Try for yourself and experience the simplicity of this hassle-free marketing tool. The beginners out there can utilize convert kit to start their passion projects. They need not worry about the initial investments. We have also reviewed Mailchimp. Check that out too.
If you want to test the market with some free tool, Groovefunnels is a great way to start. It is not an alternative to Convert Kit. There are few features overlap. You may benefit from it.
