The Algorithm Who? Flodesk + Email Marketing for the Win

Social media is cute, but it’s not where the real conversions happen. 🫢

In this episode, I’m diving into why email marketing is the real MVP of business growth and why I’m obsessed with Flodesk for making it simple, beautiful, and actually effective.

We’ll chat about:

• Why relying only on social media is like shouting into a crowded room (and what to do instead)
• How email marketing gives you a direct line to your dream clients
• Real results from my clients who started sending branded Flowdesk emails
• Why I switched from Mailchimp to Flowdesk (and never looked back)
• The exact tools Flowdesk gives you to grow your list, nurture leads, and boost conversions

If you’ve been dragging your feet on starting an email list, this is your sign to start now. Your list is your business safety net - and it’s time to treat it like the MVP it is.

✨ Ready to make the switch? Try Flowdesk free for 14 days and get 50% off your first year with my link: https://flodesk.com/c/3TZV5G

👉 Explore my services & resources: www.onewildbrand.com

📸 Follow along on Instagram: @onewildbrand

Transcript

Episode 6

===

​[00:00:00] 

Hi everyone. Welcome back to the One Wild Brand Podcast. I'm Amanda Demora, and if you've been hanging around here for a little bit, I always kind of kick off with what's going on in my life, even if it's some silly things. So right now, today is my son's fourth birthday, and just like every parent I'm kind of thinking, oh my gosh.

I can't believe he's four. It's interesting 'cause it feels like we just had him, but at the same time, it doesn't 'cause so much life has happened. It's like it's a decade and a [00:02:00] minute. All in the same, all in the same breath. So. We are celebrating a little bit today with some gifts and things. I actually gave him Candy Land the game this morning before he went off to daycare and after he walked out, I noticed that one of the heads of the pieces was already broken off.

I'm like, okay, this didn't even last two minutes, so we'll do some more gifts later today. And then kind of his. Party tomorrow with his dinosaur and construction vehicle cake that I am very excited to go pick up later from a local woman who bakes cakes. And I've used her for a few different things, but she always does these like beautiful.

Cupcakes with sprinkles and things. She says sprinkling is her favorite thing to do. So I'm excited to see those. And they're [00:03:00] always very, very delicious. And then, you know, we just have school starting soon. Well, my son won't be in kindergarten yet, but he's going to a full day preschool, which is run through our, town actually.

So it's actually in the. Old elementary school that I went to, so it's very cute. I feel as though I might have mentioned that before on this podcast, but it's very sentimental to me. I think when I was younger, mainly like middle school and in high school, I think in my mind I was kind of like, I can't wait to get out of this town.

I'm gonna move to Boston and all these things. That never happened. I have lived in the town that I grew up in my whole entire life and it kind of grew to hold this very special place in my heart. Now, I certainly can see my husband and I leaving [00:04:00] here at some point after our kids are out of school and in college or a little bit older.

But for now, like I said, it's, it's just special and it's very sweet to have your children go to the same schools and experience the same things that you have, especially because my husband is also from the same town, but we just had such a great experience here in the school system and just the community, and I want them to be able to experience that too.

So that's kind of fun. on a bit of a random note, you guys know, I also have a, daughter who is six months old and. I have been using excuses that I want to buy her. Some of the things that I had when I was young that I didn't save or my parents didn't save, and I really wish they did. So, in particular, poll pockets from, [00:05:00] from the early nineties.

I used to love Polly Pockets. I have really gone down this crazy deep dive of buying the ones that I think that I had when I was a kid on eBay. And my husband is kind of rolling his eyes at me because they're just, you know, they're showing up in the mail every few days. I think I've bought about four.

And I'm using the excuse that, you know, these are for our, our daughter once she's old enough to play with them. But actually I'm not really sure that's true. They're just bringing back this warm nostalgia to me and I like to just look at them. And it makes me sad that I don't have any of those things from my childhood.

So there was a little bit of like resentment going on towards my parents as I was buying these on eBay because I just wish I had more items from my childhood. I don't have a lot of [00:06:00] things, and some of that was sort of my fault because I'm sure my parents were like, Hey, do you wanna keep this? And I was like.

No, that's trash or give it to one of my younger cousins or whatever it might have been. But I suppose the silver lining here is I will be sure to set aside some of our kids childhood items for when they're older and you know, when they're older in their twenties or thirties or whatever, they can decide at that point if they want to keep them or trash them.

So we'll see what they do. but yes, Polly Pocket is, and it's not just the actual toys. Like I bought this new necklace that Alex and Ani came out, they launched this like Polly Pocket collection and I bought that necklace and I've bought some stickers and just. Other things like I said, I'm really going down a rabbit hole there, but, but onto today's [00:07:00] episode, which you know that I'm all about strategies and tools that make your business life easier and prettier.

Obviously, with branding and web design. I kind of have an eye for these things, and I wanna talk about email marketing today, why it's non-negotiable and how to make it work for you. And the email marketing platform that I, really love, which is flow desks. And just a little tip here, this is not sponsored by flow desks by any means.

I wish it was, but it is not. This is an actual tool that I really love. I'm a convert. I'll talk a little bit more about that in a bit. And all of my web design clients right now, and in the past, I am strongly suggesting that they move over to flow desks for a variety of things.

So. I wanna talk a little bit about [00:08:00] email marketing. So, , what is it, why is it important? and all of those things. So if you're relying on social media to drive in clients or income, whatever your business might be. I personally work with a lot of, coaches and consultants and things like that.

Female entrepreneurs or solopreneurs, maybe they have a small team, but you're selling a product, you're selling a service, whatever it is. When you are relying on social media, social media is kind of just like shouting into a crowded room. You're hoping the right people hear you, but you're not really sure.

And algorithms decide what fraction of your followers see your content and don't get me started on the algorithm. Because that's just a whole other podcast in itself. Posts disappear within a few hours and that's it. Like your content on there literally lives and dies all in a [00:09:00] very short span of time, like hours or less.

So email is a direct line to. Your ideal audience, your ICA, your ideal customer avatar, the people you are trying to target, so. , Whether they open the email or not is a whole other thing, but that is something we can talk about on another podcast is crafting open worthy emails with great subject lines and preview texts and things.

But if you have a direct line of communication to your audience, it's really a game changer. So you have your own list, no algorithm, middleman. You have their email, which is a reliable way to connect. Emails, go right to their inbox, no hoping, no guessing. It's much higher visibility, much higher conversion potential, and it really gives you the floor.

To get personal and you share a little [00:10:00] bit about yourself and that, I mean, that's the exact thing I do with this podcast. You know, I share a little bit about myself and whatever crazy or weird things I have going on in my life right at the beginning. And I also do the same with some of my email marketing.

Not all of it, but some of it. And you guys know that, you know, I've had multiple different businesses over the years of various different sizes with different size teams and all of that. And I have used email marketing in all of those businesses. Two success. So I'm gonna talk about that a little bit, and I'm gonna talk about some success with my clients as well.

So I'm gonna start off a little bit. probably weaving, I think myself and my very last web and brand design client, Brooke here, so if you've seen any of our social media posts, they leave. I've been posting a lot of Brook's Glow up and her brand refresh and her new website and her new social media assets [00:11:00] and all of that stuff.

So Brooke owns a dental billing company. And she was actually a business coaching client of mine previously because if you guys have listened to me at all, you know that I previously owned a dental billing company that I scaled and sold. So doing her website was obviously right up my alley because the copy I knew and I just, you know, I, I knew who she was trying to speak to.

So this was, perfect. And we didn't just build out a beautiful website for her. We also built out some branded email templates within flow desks, so she could start sending newsletters and announcements and start email marketing, and it would all be on brand with her brand new website. So what she.

Started noticing when she started sending her first few emails is that [00:12:00] she started driving up her website traffic and people were actually clicking on links and things within these emails. So all of a sudden she's getting discovery calls booked, people who wanna learn more about her services, and she is getting.

Increased website traffic and people are starting to take notice and look around, and that is the whole point of this. So back when I owned my dental billing company, and this kind of ties right into Brooke, I did a monthly newsletter. To be honest, that was not often enough. I think you, , if you're listening to any of the experts out there, you really want to aim for once a week.

That is what I do now, but you also have to do what's manageable to you. So right now we have Brooke aiming for twice a month, and I also think that [00:13:00] your industry probably has to do a little bit with how often your cadence should be, but so Brooke is aiming for twice a month and pre-planning out her content.

And what she wants to write in each email newsletter. Now, aside from your newsletters, which are a great way to market, there's also lots of other email marketing strategies here too. Like if you are about to launch something, you wanna have a whole launch sequence of emails that are going to go out to, so.

Anyhow, back to when I had my billing company. So I did monthly newsletters within each newsletter at the bottom, and I actually keep this concept today too, with one wild brand. I had a few just different things that I was linking to. So with my billing company, I had maybe a podcast that I was just on and I was featured on maybe an article I wrote, and then [00:14:00] sometimes I would incorporate.

Either something I was selling because we sold a lot of spreadsheets and templates and guides that all had to do, like with dental billing. Very, very boring. I know, or maybe it was free, but it was something that somebody could grab, an asset that someone could get. I would link to every single time I sent a newsletter that had something either to purchase or for free.

I had a lot of success with people buying it or, you know, grabbing it for free. So with every. Newsletter. I wasn't always trying to sell and make money. I didn't wanna lean in that direction. I still don't. but there was, you know, a call to action. There were things that I wanted people to check out or I would link to maybe something a friend of mine had going on, or a course that someone was launching that I thought was great.

My newsletters were targeted to dental offices, [00:15:00] so I wanted to be able to provide them resources. And the same now goes for my newsletter for one Wild Brand. I'm trying to give resources to female entrepreneurs on how to. Increase their visibility and show up online as their authentic selves. So whatever I can find or I come across that I think is relevant to that, I will probably link in a newsletter at some point for them to take a look at.

So I think the proof here that email marketing works, especially when your emails are branded and consistent and beautiful, the proof is in the pudding here. I've seen it myself and now I've done that for Brooke, and that is helping her quite a bit too. My current. Web design client, whom I'm working on her site right now, and I'm very excited about it.

We are working on transferring her [00:16:00] over to flow desks. She had a newsletter before that, she just felt like she kind of gave up on it, which a lot of people do. But she has a big email list. , She has a lot of emails that she's collected over the years, but sometimes she just kind of felt like she was.

Speaking into the ether. So I'm curious to dive a little bit more into that and see why, and I'm also curious to see what happens when she has this beautiful new email template to use and she starts to roll out different things and announce different things. So I'm gonna talk a little bit more about her and the exact things that we're going to use flow desks for for her besides just, you know, a, a basic newsletter.

So I mentioned previously I used to use MailChimp. Now I loved MailChimp, [00:17:00] but I started to. Test out flow desk immediately I wasn't a convert right away. It took a little bit because I was so hesitant to leave MailChimp. Everything was built out on there, you know, and I just, change is good, but sometimes change just takes a little time.

You know, you have to put in a little effort to do the initial build out of things. And these days I don't always have a ton of time. It took me a bit to say, okay, I am ready to make the leap here, but I did and I'm so happy I did. So MailChimp. Was built 20 years ago, and that is very obvious to me now when you're looking at their platform versus something like flow desks.

Flow desks is just a beautiful platform. All of their templates are beautiful. All of their workflows are [00:18:00] beautiful. And by that I mean something to the effect of. Okay. For one Wild brand, I have a few free assets that people can go to my website to grab for example, a branding consistency checklist or how to start a podcast.

So for my How to Start a podcast freebie download, people enter in their email in their first name, right on my website. That automatically is sent over to flow desks as a trigger and flow desks will send them an email, , which I have templated and I have, you know. Here's your how to start a podcast freebie, and I have a couple other little blurbs within that email, but the actual PDF, they're able to grab right from that email.

And then from there people are added into a bit of a sequence. So , I send a follow-up email a few days later, and then probably a week later with. You know, hey, are [00:19:00] you maybe looking for , a website for your podcast to live? If so, I would love to chat with you. I have a couple examples of podcast.

Websites and landing pages that I have built out for them to look at, and then, you know, and so on and so on. I mean, if you are wanting to keep someone in this sequence and continue to nurture them and try to get them to do something from this sequence, that is where all this would happen. Now I have a few different sequences based on which resource they might have grabbed from my page and different places I may want to lead them.

Based on that,

and then everyone is kind of funneled into my general email audience, which. I'll get my newsletters, but all of these workflows are very, very easy to build out on flow desks, unlike MailChimp. MailChimp took me [00:20:00] quite a long time to learn and build out these things, so you literally on flow desk are just dragging and dropping onto this.

It kind of just looks like a little timeline, so it's okay. A subscriber enters in through this. Opt-in form on your website, and then you connect the next dot. Okay. Send them this email and then you connect the next dot, which might be like, wait five days and then send them this email, and so on and so on.

And that is all, just as I said, drag and drop, which we all very much need. So. Tagging and segmenting your audience for better targeting. Even if you're a smaller company now, and you get larger, this is all like pretty important. So even with my. Client, Brooke, when she mentioned the discovery calls coming in, I said, well, where are they coming from?

And she wasn't [00:21:00] sure. So we took a look at her email list and lo and behold, they were from her newsletters that she was starting to send out. , One of the things that's. Cool about flow desks is their analytics. As soon as you send out something, you can see exactly who opened it, you know which email address to opened it, where they clicked, how many times they clicked, how many times they opened your email.

So that is just nice to know. And it's also nice to know where to focus your efforts. You know, when you are putting all of your. Time and energy into crafting content. You really wanna know what is speaking to people and what maybe you can focus less on. So I love their analytics. You can have unlimited subscribers for one flat fee.

Okay? That's much different than MailChimp. MailChimp is based off of your [00:22:00] subscriber numbers and it makes branding easy. So your fonts, your colors, your logos, all of that stuff, you're able to kind of build out your brand kit , within flow desks and just use it for all of your templates and stuff.

So. A bit of a build out to start, not a bad one. I mean, it's very easy to import brand colors and fonts and flow desks has quite a few fonts of their own that maybe if it's not your exact font it's gonna be darn close. but you also can upload custom fonts too, , which is great 'cause I do have a couple that they don't have anything that's similar and I really wanna be sure to add those.

So.

All right. Why your email list is your business's safety net is social platforms change overnight. Okay. We have seen this. Instagram is always changing and testing out new [00:23:00] things. I think, within the past year had a major algorithm switch, which affected a lot of people negatively, a lot of businesses who were just reliant on that algorithm and how it drove traffic and customers.

To them, it changed overnight and people were left really struggling honestly, financially. They went from. However many customers or clients they had, To like almost none. And we don't want that to happen. So I think relying on one means of bringing in new business to you is probably problematic. And especially if that one means is social media because as I just said, if something changes overnight, which , it will continue to do.

You need to have a safety net there. And building an email [00:24:00] list is that exact safety net. So email addresses are portable, they're permanent as long as you keep sending value to them. It's a direct connection to people who have said yes to hearing from you in the past. And the ROI. Return on investment of email marketing remains one of the highest return channels in business that is just proven over and over.

So it's really smart to start thinking about this if you haven't yet. Now, I wanna mention years ago when I started, my first company, this was not on my radar at all, and it didn't even get on my radar until. a couple years into business ownership. It just was not something that I was thinking about.

And again, it wasn't until I started taking or looking outside of. My industry for business advice and [00:25:00] sometimes I just think that that is really important to do. So I stepped out of, this was my dental billing company and I stepped out of the dental space and I just went into like broad, general female entrepreneur ownership.

And that is where I learned about all of this stuff, about the importance of an email list and newsletters and email marketing. And it proved to be quite valuable as I kind of laid out. So I would say start now. Start building your email list. Now. You don't have to wait until you have more followers. I have way more people on my one wild brand email list than I do followers on social media.

And that is fine with me. so I think another question is probably gonna be, okay, how do I start [00:26:00] building an email list? Where am I getting these emails from? Valid question for, and there's a lot of different ways you can do that, especially depending on. What market you're in and what exactly you do.

So creating a freebie or a lead magnet to attract subscribers is a perfect way to do this, and flow desk can help you. So As I had said, I have a few different free resources on One Wild Brand, a brand Consistency checklist, A 30 Days of Content Ideas laid out for you, how to start a podcast, which has all the equipment and tech platforms and all of that stuff that you'd need within it.

And people enter in their email and their first name and in exchange they get these free resources. That is one way, and within flow desks, you can build out a [00:27:00] landing page for these things. So it doesn't necessarily have to be a place on your website to that. You have to have all of. You could, or you could link it right in your social media or other places, but flow desks can host that little landing page where people are opting into your email list.

So I have seen businesses, I don't recommend this, but businesses that don't really have a website per se, but they just have some landing pages for people to go and get freebies or even paid things. and in turn build out their email list. So, let's see. Another way, again, this is a little bit dependent on what your offering or what your services are, but.

If you're doing any kind of speaking, so previously I used to speak a little bit at conferences and we [00:28:00] would always get a list of conference attendees or if you're hosting a Zoom webinar. Or a free masterclass or anything like that. , Anyone who signs up all of those emails, guess what? They're going on your email list now.

They have to opt in and you'll make sure to do that and have all of the appropriate words on there and things for them. Letting them know that they are opting into your. Email list and they're gonna start receiving emails from you. But these are really great ways to grow your engagement and your email list kind of quickly.

I also have some of my. Free resources on as Pinterest pins. So people click on that pin. They're brought to the, landing area where I have the freebie and they put their email in there. Pinterest marketing is also a whole other ball game that I would love [00:29:00] to do an episode on because. I think it's still pretty relevant in 2025.

I think some people maybe think it's not, but anyhow, that's another way. So various different ways to get things out there and circulating and all of that stuff. Facebook groups are a great way. If anyone is ever asking for something like, Hey, does anyone know of X, Y, Z? This resource,.

That's a great spot for you to link your resource and start building your list. So before I wrap up, I wanna talk about a couple different perks of Flow Desk and what we are doing for my current client that I mentioned. I am. switching over to Flow desk.

So one thing that she has that is a little bit different than some of my other. Web design clients is, she has a [00:30:00] book and we obviously want to make mention of that book in multiple different places through her website, but we have one email opt-in that is for people to be able to download the first chapter of her book for free by entering in their email.

And that first chapter is going to be delivered by flow desks. So as I mentioned, my workflow before, someone's gonna enter in their email and their first name, and that is all kind of connected through flow desks. And then they will get an automatic email. All set up through flow desks with the first chapter of that book, and then they'll probably go into some form of workflow, nurture sequence to, you know, keep building momentum there and hopefully purchase the full book.

But. She is going to use flow desks [00:31:00] mainly to reach out to her email list. She also does a lot of speaking engagements and things, and she has for many years, so she has a big list. Book delivery people opting into her newsletter. She also has a course that she launches a couple times a year. So we are going to be using Flow Desk to collect emails of people getting on the wait list for her course, which is a bootcamp.

So that is really exciting and that will be fun to see play out. So that's mainly how we're gonna be using it for her. But I wanna talk about some of the other features of Flow Desk and why it's so awesome. As I mentioned, the, the templates and layouts just are. Really easy on the eyes.

They're beautiful to look at. They draw you in. they're [00:32:00] designed so well, and that's what I love about it. I actually also got my brother to convert over to Flo desk from MailChimp, and my brother is a chef and he owns a. Kind of healthy meal delivery service, and he sends out newsletters to his clients, but also he does a lot of retreats and things like that.

So being able to email. Those people on his list and announce things, keep them in the loop and have his emails look on brand is really important. And he was like so excited after he's like, oh my gosh, I'm loving Flow desk so much, so easy to use. Way better than MailChimp. 'cause I think he was on MailChimp too.

I already kind of said, but unlimited emails and subscribers and just like predictable flat pricing is awesome. I think, you know, [00:33:00] MailChimp's way of charging you more based on the subscriber number is kind of antiquated a little bit, so no hidden costs even as your list grows. The custom forms and landing pages are really, really cool.

So , there's a few different ways that you can use their forms. So it can be a popup form, so on your website you can create a form that pops up that is either a free resource you're wanting or just, you know, some kind of announcement or whatever it may be. You can embed forms right into your website.

This is what I do a lot so that everything kind of stays on brand is within my show at websites for myself and also my clients. I'm embedding these opt-in forms so that they look beautiful. You don't have to custom code them at all, but I do a little bit 'cause, just [00:34:00] 'cause or just fully hosted landing pages, so our website.

Someone is going to , exactly as I said, to land on to view something that you are offering the automation and workflows like welcome emails, even abandoned carts if you are selling either a digital or. Live product. sending options of these emails, like best time scheduling, so emails get delivered when recipients are most likely to engage. Super, super cool. Adding custom form fields to learn more about like subscribers and their preferences. That's a great way to kind of dive a little bit more into analytics and stuff.

By using tags and segments. So for example, I have a few different tags, so depending on which resource they might download of mine, they get tagged that. So everyone who downloads how to start a [00:35:00] podcast, they get tagged under that, or maybe they found me through Facebook. I have a tag for that.

So. Working those out and they can get quite complex, which I think the more in depth you get with this, the better insights you have into your business and things. So they also can personalize not only content, but subject lines. If Lowdes has ways to help you with that and. Robust analytics, as I've talked about quite a bit, you can track the performance of all these things, even your checkout pages and kind of, you can do some AB testing and what that is is, you know, you're kind of, you're sending the same thing, but it kind of looks two different ways.

Or maybe you're using two different emails. Subject lines and you're seeing which one of these landed better, which one of these had better open rates or better click rates, and then, you know, to maybe use that a little bit more in the future.

[00:36:00] Flow desks, also has checkout pages, so you can process payments, use discount codes, deliver digital products.

They even have a. Section for subscriptions now. So if you have some kind of subscription service, they have that all now.

One thing that I like about any platform, not just flow desks, but in this specific case, yes, it is flow desks, is that they're continually improving their platform.

And not a lot of businesses or companies do that. So they see your feedback, they take it into consideration. They actively work and improve on all these things. So it's only going to get better and better, and that is what I love about it. I. It also has some integrations that you can use. so you can use Zapier if you are wanting to really get granular and integrate it [00:37:00] with some other different things.

it has Shopify, WordPress, Google Sheets, slack, you know, all of those integrations, which is awesome

If you are wanting to try flow desks, you can try it for 14 days for free. I have a code which is 50% off your first year of service, and I don't know about you, but I don't always love paying month to month. Sometimes I just wanna pay. Get it over with and not think about it again. So my code will save you 50% off a year, which is actually a lot.

I remember when my brother was putting in this code, he is like, oh my gosh, that was a lot of money I saved. So that is pretty cool. I will link my special promo code down in the show notes, but, just to kind of round out this episode, I wanna recap a bit [00:38:00] here. So. Social media, relying on that as to drive traffic to you or, or drive up sales in your business can sometimes just be hoping and direct email marketing is a direct connection and data that you can really use and rely on.

So I can't really emphasize that enough. I think that whether you are using Flow Desk or any other platform. The point is you need to start building and staying consistent, and that is really when you're gonna see results, just like any other thing. So I like to. Set some time aside and sit down and plan out some of the weekly newsletters and topics that I wanna talk about.

And I try to be sure that they're not planned out too, too far ahead, or there's always room [00:39:00] for me to change them out last minute. If there's something of significance that comes up in your industry that you wanna talk about, so you know, just. Major industry changes, or, you know, for me, in the marketing space, that might be something like when Instagram had their huge algorithm change and how people should react to that.

Those are things that you, wanna get that information out. ASAP, so you wanna leave room in your content schedule to allow for that. But.

anyhow, that is

all of the things that I have to say today. Email marketing and why you need to start today. I think I'm gonna do a little bit more of a deep dive into this in terms of email subjects to get people to open them and preview [00:40:00] texts and cadence and building your actual email list and. Some Pinterest marketing to build your email list, all of that stuff, those all deserve their own episodes.

But the point today really was to start

and to start it off well with a beautiful email platform like Flow Desk.

That is it for today, and I will catch you on the next episode.