Is ConvertKit the Best Email List Mailing Software Service?

Last Updated on May 21, 2023

I am often asked why I always recommend ConvertKit when it comes to mailing list software or service, and why I do not use Mailchimp, Mailerlite or another choice?

In this post, I will explain why so many bloggers, including Valeria and I here at promarketing.com, use ConvertKit.

Why Is a Mail List So Important for Bloggers and Any Online Business?

Having and building an email list is essential as a blogger. Why?

In case you do not have a mailing list or are yet to appreciate the significance of collecting and nurturing your own email list, let me explain three key reasons why you need one!

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1. You Can Go Out of Business Overnight if You Rely Only on Social Media and Search Engines for Traffic

Do you remember any of these?

• Digg
• Friendster
• Mylife
• Friendsreunited and several others.

There are dozens more and many of them were considered too big to fail!

If you become dependent on any social media sites or search engines for your traffic, you run the risk of having your business disappear overnight if that site hits a problem.

It’s a high-risk strategy.

2. Search Engines Change Their Algorithms Constantly

The search engines and social media sites that do flourish, constantly change their algorithms, in order to stay relevant.

What this means is that they continually change the complex automated programs that create their search results and streams.

If you only rely on your positions in these search results, to get traffic to your site, the algorithm changes can wipe out your business overnight!

It’s all too high-risk for any business! So what is the solution successful bloggers use?

The solution is to build an email list

Your mail list keeps your connection with your readers and followers, regardless of search engine algorithm changes and as search engines and social media sites chop and change.

Your email list stays with you! You own your email list and it moves with you, whatever search engines, social media sites, web hosting you use.

3. You Can Nurture Your List and Segment Your Users

Your email list is a very powerful tool you use to build trust with future customers. You nurture and protect and build this list.

You can, for example, do what is called ‘segmenting’. Segmenting, in essence, allows you to organize your subscribers so that you can send specific emails to specific groups of users, based on their interests or previous actions.

With a mailing list, you can use it to build trust with your subscribers. The mail list is an essential stage and part of your sales funnels.

So – let’s talk about ConvertKit. Our recommended mailing list software and why we think it is so good.

Why We Love ConvertKit

ConvertKit was founded by Nathan Barry. Nathan, first and foremost, was a blogger who understands all the problems bloggers were experiencing.

Nathan understood the needs of bloggers and the gap in the market for mail list software that was easy to use and, at the same time, powerful.

Valeria and I here at ProMarketingOnline have used most of the top mailing list programs over the last ten years.

We started off with Mailchimp and, when we knew no better, we accepted the time that it would take us to design forms, work out how to segment users, and the such like.

In the last year, Mailchimp has actually picked up their game a bit but still, it is simply not as user-friendly and natural to use as ConvertKit.

Likewise, I found this when helping a client out a few weeks ago and the client uses Mailerlite. I wasted several hours trying to do tasks that I can do in ten minutes on ConvertKit.

I have used Mailchimp and in fact, still do for one client, because the client chooses to stick with it. Extra time wasted on confusing to use mail list services though is precious time that could be spent on creating new content for your site, or for making new sellable products right?!

I suggest trying Convertkit (Just try their 14-Day trial).

Anyway – let me show you quickly how easy making forms is in ConvertKit.

Adding Forms in ConvertKit Effortlessly in Minutes

Once you are set up in ConvertKit with your Free Trial, you will see the options in the image below, at the top of your Convertkit interface.

Once you click ‘Forms’, you will see the button to create a ‘New Form’.

Once you have clicked on ‘New Form’, you will then see this box below, where you choose between a form or a landing page.

ConvertKit offers you the choice between making a ‘form’ or a ‘landing page’.

A form can be placed and embedded anywhere on your webpage.

A landing page is a great idea if you want to get a user to follow through with one key action, without distraction.

In other words, it is a page where users are guided to complete one key task only.

That task, for example, might be getting them to sign up for your newsletter.

In ConvertKit, you then simply click on one of the three form display types. Choose from:

• Inline form – is a form that you can place anywhere within the content. This is a great choice, for example, for adding a form inside your blog post or on a sidebar widget.
• Modal form – is a form that works according to an action such as a timed pop-up or a form that pops up when something else is clicked.
• Slide-in form – as the name suggests, is a form that slides in from the left or right of your page. It normally slides across according to the time (in seconds) that you set it for, or when the user has scrolled down a specific percentage of the page or post.

Let’s click on ‘inline form’.

You now have a choice of four templates. Below is one of the four options.

On the form, you just click inside the text and change it.

You can also change the color of text, add images and change the button text and so on. It is extremely easy.

And within 5 minutes without very much effort at all, create a form like this.

Adding Sequences in ConvertKit

What Is a Sequence on an Email List?

Imagine that you are offering a freebie, such as a 7-Day email course, as I offer above (please feel free to sign up by the way 🙂 – I would love to have you subscribe!

To send out those emails for the 7-day course, you do not want, as the list owner, to send out the emails manually. That could be a huge hassle right?!

So the solution is to use what is called a sequence.

A sequence thus is an automated set of tasks and is normally a set of emails that are scheduled to be sent out at certain intervals.

Once you are inside the sequence section in ConvertKit, it is once again really easy indeed, to set things up.

Just populate the content of the email, when to send the emails, and then click publish and then save. Do this for each email to be sent out in your sequence.

It is very intuitive to set up a sequence in ConvertKit.

ConvertKit vs MailChimp

I do not dislike MailChimp. The fact that they make it free (although with limited functionality) for the first 2000 subscribers, is appealing in part. BUT…

The problem I have when I use Mailchimp though is the masses of time I always end up wasting.

Why would I or you want to spend one hour of valuable time, trying to get something to work on Mailchimp when it is so much faster in Convertkit?

The following, in my view, are much easier in Convertkit vs Mailchimp.

• MailChimp has more form templates but the basic and easy to use ConvertKit forms are intended to make creating forms a basic and easy process. More is not always better.
• Sequencing is possible in MailChimp also but I don’t know what it is about Mailchimp but I found myself going in circles for some reason and it took twice as long as it took me in ConvertKit. ConvertKit sequences I worked out almost instantly as it was so intuitive.
• For things such as landing pages, MailChimp has recently introduced them too. Generally speaking though, Mailchimp always seems to be 2 steps behind Convertkit. MailChimp seems to be trying to catch up and are adding new features in recent months. The vast majority of bloggers who make an income from blogging though, all recommend ConvertKit and it is not hard to see why when you start using it, after having used MailChimp.

What is your favorite mailing list software or service? I’d love to hear your comments at the bottom of this post!