How to create beautiful emails that your audience wants to read
Creating beautiful newsletters for artists and crafters to send, that convert to sales can be effortless, uncomplicated, and enjoyable.
Using simple yet powerful tech tools helps to get into the flow and rhythm of writing that connects with your audience, so you’re sending emails from the heart.
Learn why you need a newsletter list, and some (secret) features inside email marketing platform Flodesk.
My number one tip for anyone starting or growing their creative business is to have a newsletter list. Yes – everyone!
Over the past 15 years sending newsletters for Petalplum has been my constant best way to connect with my community, grow my business, get invited to teach nationally, and generate an income that supports my family.
I know it might feel scary to start a newsletter list – there are so many reasons why you might be resistant. And I get it; it took me a few years to get going with mine, and then to get better at it all.
In the olden days of my business, newsletter platforms were clunky and not user friendly at all. Thankfully that has changed, and it’s easier than ever for you to start a newsletter list, grow your audience and make money!
You can get a newsletter list set up over the weekend! With my very favourite newsletter platform, Flodesk, you’ll be sending an email to your loyal audience in only a few days.
Flodesk is one of the simplest sites I’ve ever come across – in any situation. It’s the most intuitive platform, with barely any learning curve. (Let me tell you; I’ve tried some that made my head spin and took me weeks to even understand let alone start using – and I’m tech savvy).
Why having your own newsletter list is so important:
I’ve written before about why it’s so important to have your own newsletter list, but briefly:
You don’t own your followers on social media – you can lose access anytime (and I’ve seen well-established artists and brands have this happen)
People check their emails multiple times in a day, meaning you get direct access to them, not lost in the social media algorithm.
You can connect directly to your community and audience through nurturing or sales emails
Social media platforms are built to keep people inside those apps, which means getting them to click out to your website is much harder. With emails you have direct links to people booking your workshops, buying your online courses, or commissioning an artwork from you.
Newsletters have a much higher return rate of income (compared to social media) for any cost and time invested. The roi (return on investment) for newsletters is said to be anywhere from $10-$40 return for $1 invested.
I personally don’t think of my newsletters in these terms of specific monetary roi – because I know it’s much more than that. And especially when using a platform like Flodesk which has (super) affordable pricing for your creative business.
Why the tech you use makes a difference and matters:
Anytime I work with a client, or suggest platforms for them to use, one of the most important things I take into consideration is usability.
If you don’t feel comfortable using something and find it difficult, then you’re less likely to actually take action. A newsletter list where you’re not sending emails… well, that’s like wasting your beautiful paint because it requires too much setup or clean up.
Some newsletter marketing platforms are convoluted, but Flodesk is designed for you to jump in and start straight away. The interface is beautiful, easy on the eye, and just makes sense.
As an artist and designer this is important to me. I want to use things that are lovely and provide aesthetic value to my audience and customers. I also want to make sure I’m not spending too long on the tech and admin side of my business.
I know you and I both want to get back to our creative work. Create, write, and send the newsletter. Then pick up your needle and thread, your paintbrush, sit down at your pottery wheel….
Streamlined, easy to use templates and set-up:
Flodesk has a stack of beautiful templates ready for you to start writing and adding in your images, as well as links to your shop, and the lovely things you’ve making.
You don’t need to be a designer, or know any complicated tech, no coding, no stress. (Though if you want to design your own newsletter templates, you can easily do that too).
Click, write, insert image, and send it out into the world! Sounds simple, doesn’t it.
It actually is!
The great thing is that you get all the advanced features with all the pricing plans. Many platforms make you upgrade to get the ‘better’ things. Flodesk gives you access to all things on their base plan.
Not just beautiful, but practical and results-driven:
Flodesk isn’t about fashion over function. It truly is fashion and function, and real results all combined. I’ve been using it as my only newsletter platform for my Petalplum business for more than 6 years and have always had great results in how the newsletter looks in inboxes, how people respond to them, and getting the sales, interaction and connection results I need.
While the tools and techs currently in Flodesk are likely all you’ll need, they’re always bringing out new features.
As your business grows, as your newsletter connections grow, Flodesk is growing. They’ve recently added many new integrations, so you can directly connect different platforms together. I’m using the SquareSpace, Teachery, ThriveCart, and Canva connections, as these are all vital to my business.
These integrations means it’s super easy for me to add people to my newsletter list regardless of where they joined (via a SquareSpace form, or a ThriveCart sales page). And I can make any fancy graphics right inside my Canva account, then directly import it into Flodesk. No more download, resize, upload situation that many platforms need.
As a bootstrapped female-founded company, Flodesk is dedicated to giving us what we need through the whole journey of our creative art business.
Your newsletters will land in your readers’ inboxes looking as beautiful as the artwork you’re offering, while giving you the skills, templates, and know-how to make those subscribers convert to paying customers.
That little signup form above was built in Flodesk, and I added it directly into this blog post. It took me less than 5 minutes to create, design, and embed it here. Now it means once you add your email address, Flodesk will automatically send you the ebook. How clever is that!
That’s just one of the great features of Flodesk. You can also create forms for adding to your social media bio, so you can get those followers onto your list and connect to them directly, away from the erratic algorithm.
You can create any number of forms or pop-ups that you can add to your website, your personal email signoff, any number of places around the web that you share content.
You can even create QR codes so people can sign up to your newsletter list at physical market stalls, workshops, events or exhibitions.
Embedding a form is simple and quick - but basically it’s a teeny snippet of code that Flodesk creates for you, to add into your website. Send me an email if you need help with this; but I also show you step-by-step in my Newsletters for Creatives course. And Flodesk has a heap of help articles to show you how-tos.
Click action links are one my favourite Flodesk features:
Ok, actually I have a lot of favourites, because it really is a lovely to use platform, but one of my best favourites – and I think one that you might not find straight away, and is quite underutilised, is Click Link Actions.
Let me explain what a click link action inside Flodesk is:
Any time you add a link from your newsletter directing your reader to somewhere, either the button link, text or image links, you can add a little ‘link action’.
This is a hidden action that the reader doesn’t know is happening but gives you extra abilities inside Flodesk. I often add someone to a different segment (basically folder) so I can contact them again, if I want.
So, the reader clicks on the link to open my website, and Flodesk does the thing I asked.
A few ways I use the Link Actions is when I have a promo or sale on, when someone clicks the link to the checkout page for that product, I automatically add them to a segment (folder) called “clicked promo link”. Then at the end of the promo sales period I can see all the people who showed interest in that product.
Anyone who purchased the product is added to another segment called “Course name product” (this happens through automations from my website sales page).
I can now send a special email to the people who showed interest (clicked the product link) but didn’t purchase the product. I only started using this earlier this year, but the extra income it’s brought in for each promotion that I do has been remarkable.
Just one simple feature like that helps me talk directly to individual subscribers as meets their needs.
Flodesk offers lots of these simple features that allow you to connect with your audience in the way you want and need, and the way they want to receive your emails.
Flodesk offers 14 days free trial, so you can see if it works for you, then an affordable pricing plan that scales with your subscriber count. No hidden fees: you only pay for what you use. (Please note that pricing shown below is in US$).
And you can get 25% off your first year by using my code PETALPLUM here.
Want to learn more about Newsletter Marketing for Artists, Crafters and Designers? My course is all about connecting with your audience through the art of emails.
I share the necessary tech stuff, but more importantly the how-to of what to write, how to grow your list, creating a rhythm for your newsletters, and sending emails that actually make money for your business, and grow a beautiful loyal audience and community.
There’s heaps of videos about using Flodesk, but I share other newsletter platforms as well - so you can make the best decision for your business.
You can also find lots more info in these blog posts about crafting newsletters that convert, and that your audience will love:
*This post is sponsored by Flodesk. I am a Flodesk Partner and I receive a small commission if you join through my link. Use my code PETALPLUM to get 25% off your first year, even if you pay monthly. All words, thoughts, and experiences are mine – I only recommend things that I use and love using, and / or know will be beneficial to you.
