It’s been almost a year since we said goodbye to Mailchimp and HELLO to Flodesk for our newsletter needs. If one of your business goals for 2021 is to gain more subscribers and up your newsletter game, we cant’ recommend Flodesk enough.
With that, there are bound to be some questions about merging Flodesk to your WordPress blog. We’re taking the most FAQ’s and answering them all right here for you today. But first, let’s make sure you’re connecting your Flodesk to WordPress to maximize all the benefits and features of our favorite newsletter service.
How To Connect Flodesk To WordPress For Bloggers
Setting Up Flodesk To Be Used In WordPress
In order to get your Flodesk forms and pop-ups to show up where you want them to on your blog, you’ll need to use the WordPress plug-in called HFCM. (Header Footer Code Manager). HFCM gives you the flexibility to assign your pop-ups that you’ve created in Flodesk to specific pages, tags, or categories on your blog.
The ability to highlight content-specific freebies to an already interested audience is key to capturing their emails and attention. For example, a carry-on travel packing guide freebie pop up on a beauty post will result in fewer signups. But targeting that travel packing guide pop-up to the reader already on your website looking at travel guides will increase your subscriber sign-up rate.
Here’s a step by step guide on how Jessica of An Indigo Day created a freebie for her travel content using Flodesk and the HFCM plugin.
Step One
Create your segment in Flodesk. We’ll call it Travel Carry-On Opt-In
Step Two
Create your pop-up form to capture signups. The Header Code that populates after you create your pop-up and set up your preferred settings will be used in the HFCM plugin.
Step 3
Create a workflow for your new audience. The trigger will be anytime someone is added to the Travel Carry-On Opt-In. Your first email should include your freebie or whatever incentive you promised in exchange for their email. Since I have a general welcome workflow for subscribers called AID Subscribers, I create a condition if someone is NOT in the An Indigo Day Subscriber list, that they get added to. This way they kick into that workflow which allows them to get to know me and my blog content better.
Step 4
Set up your pop-up in HFCM. Add a new snippet in HFCM and title it accordingly. We’re calling this one Flodesk – Travel Opt-In. You can then decide when this will show. Based on tags, categories or specific pages. I want this to show up anytime a reader lands on a post that has a specific tag that I created called Travel Checklist. Add your Header Code and hit save.
When using the HFCM you’ll want to decide if you use pages, posts, categories, or tags. When applying tags or categories, be sure to remember to add these to the posts as you write them to ensure your pop-up will be displayed.
Now that your WordPress is ready to go with forms and pop-ups, you can start connecting with your subscribers. Here are some of our best tips and most frequently asked questions about using Flodesk as a blogger.
Should I Create A Welcome Workflow?
Welcome new subscribers with an engaging workflow once they sign up for your newsletter. You can make a 2-3 email workflow to create short and easy to consume content that your new subscribers will enjoy.
Here’s an example of Cathy of Poor Little It Girl‘s welcome workflow to give you an idea of how she welcomes her readers to her affordable petite style blog.
Email 1
A welcome email with your freebie if you have one, and a personal note from Cathy.
Email 2
Highlighting the top 5 petite style questions she always gets.
Email 3
To show her audience more of her other content, she then showcases a few other categories like her popular beauty posts.
Can You Automate New Posts To Be Sent Via Flodesk?
One of the most common questions we get about Flodesk is if you can automate new blog posts through it. Unfortunately, Flodesk does not support RSS feeds in their emails. Instead, a weekly recap of what went live on your blog is a great way to share your new blog posts and include a personal note.
What Do I Put In My Newsletters?
Don’t overthink your newsletters. They can be as simple as your latest blog posts, highlighting a favorite old blog post to drive new traffic to it, or exclusive quick content. Here is a list of some of our favorite newsletter ideas.