Unless you’re new around here (in that case, hi!) or you’ve been under a rock, you know I love Flodesk. Like, really, really love.
Like, built-my-whole-business-around-it kind of love.
I also really love that Flodesk is so simple to use. And look, here’s the thing. I’ve worked inside of *other* email marketing platforms (hard side eye to some most of them), and when I say Flodesk is intuitive, I mean it.
But before you jump in to using Flodesk, there are a few settings you should peek at and optimize for the good of your email marketing aesthetics and functionality.
Pop into your account and follow along, starting with your settings up in the right-hand corner of your account.
OVERVIEW
This section is easy to skip over, but there are two quick settings to lay eyes on before you go shooting off pretty little newsletters.
Flodesk Handle: Look, you might not think this is important, but if you have a brand new account, it’s going to be some weird mumbo-jumbo auto-populated gibberish (think mangoboy412-stars or something like that). Now, left unchanged? That weird gibberish is going to show up in the URL bar when someone finds one of your opt-in landing pages, and it’s going to scream “scam link” like you wouldn’t believe. You want it change this handle to your business name, ideally. Like this ⤵️
My business name is Moxie & Fourth, so my handle is moxieandfourth. Got it? Good, next setting.
Timezone: Not the sexiest setting you’ll ever change, but you’ll want to make sure this is set your home timezone.
EMAIL SETUP
Default Sender: This is where you’ll designate how you want your emails to come through “from”. I have strong opinions on this, but do what feels best. Ever sign up for a brand or company’s email list, then received an email from “Lisa”? And then you’re thinking… “Who is Lisa?” Long story short, people are signing up for your business’s email list, so your business name should be in the “From Name” in my humble opinion. Want your name in there? Then do something like “First Name | Business Name”.
I’m full of strong opinions today, so here’s another one. You should have a custom domain and professional email address, like hello@yourbusinessname.com. Need an example? Here’s how my setting looks ⤵️
DOMAIN SETUP
Okay, put your IT guru hats on, it’s time for some nerdy settings. Admittedly, these can be a little tricky, but that’s another reason I love Flodesk—they’ve made this part as simple as possible and that’s because it’s important. Verifying your domain helps keep your newsletters out of spam, and that’s definitely something we want to avoid, ya know?
→ READ THIS TO GET YOUR DOMAIN VERIFIED
BRANDING
I’ll argue that this section of your Flodesk account might be the most important, because branding consistency is so, so, SO very important in marketing. This is where you’ll upload your brand assets —logo, brand colors, and brand fonts — so that everything you send out to inboxes is cohesive.
→ STRUGGLING WITH BRANDING? HEAD HERE.
You’ll also want to make sure that you set your company details, your address (legally required!), and social links so that all of this pertinent info can be pulled and populated seamlessly into your newsletters by the Flodesk gods.
OPT-IN SETUP
Hot take? Don’t stress over this section too much. In fact, you can skip right over the “double opt-in email” and “thank you page” settings, because those only relate to a function that is turned off by default inside of Flodesk.
If you want to tweak the look of the Preferences Page, this is where you’ll do it! You can also allow your audience to self-segment here, but that’s a lesson for another day. Today’s all about the basics, so don’t stress over this one too much.
INTEGRATIONS
This is an optional one, but if you want to be able to pull your pretty IG feed into your emails, you’ll want to make sure that you’ve integrated your Flodesk account and IG account in this setting area.
GIVE FLODESK A WHIRL
Want to give Flodesk a fair shake? Good, then do I have news for you:
→ You can grab a free trial and 50% off if you start a Flodesk account by using this link.
→ I created a few sample newsletters for you to test drive. Grab them right here!
👋 Hey, quick note: Sometimes I include affiliate links in my blogs – ya know, because paying my bills is cool and I also have a gardening problem. But also because I wholeheartedly love the platforms and resources I use in my business and I want you to use them too. So here’s a legal head’s up that you may occasionally click through on a link I’ve shared and that means I make a few bucks on affiliate commission. Thank you for supporting Moxie and Fourth – and my startling flower seed collection.
