8 Key Benefits of using Squarespace Email Campaigns
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More and more clients are asking me what email marketing tool they should use. Clearly it’s time for a Squarespace Email Campaigns review.
Here are eight things I really like about Squarespace Email Campaigns and a few things I don’t…
#1 Squarespace Campaigns keeps everything in one place
There are pros and cons to having all of your tools under one roof. One of the ‘pros’ is you don’t have to log in and out of different applications all of the time. When it works it can be pretty seamless.
#2 Squarespace Campaigns is very easy to use
Squarespace campaigns is easy to get the hang of.
A lot (but not all) of the functionality and tools work the same way Squarespace does. If you have a Squarespace website the user interface will feel familiar and you won’t have to get used to (yet another!) tool.
There aren’t a lot of bells and whistles and extra features. In fact, it’s very basic. For some this can fall into the ‘con’ category, but a benefit of this is that key tasks for sending out email newsletters aren’t complicated.
Things like uploading a list, designing and formatting a newsletter template and scheduling a send date and time are uncomplicated and easy to figure out.
#3 Including Squarespace Blog Posts in your email newsletters is a breeze
This is one of the ‘killer features’ of Squarespace Campaigns.
If you blog on Squarespace - and I recommend that you do, incorporating your blog posts is dead simple. Since it’s all part of the same platform the email tool ‘knows’ where your posts are.
One of the easiest ways to stay consistent about sending a newsletter is to have a ‘blog post first’ workflow. This means you write a blog, send it out on your newsletter and then break it up into smaller bits for social media.
In your email newsletter you just click that add a blog post button and a list of all your posts is displayed in a dropdown menu. Squarespace email campaigns also offers several formatting options for the blog post module within your newsletter template.
#4 Setting up an email sequence or automation is super simple
If you want to set up a welcome sequence or any other kind of automation the proces is pretty foolproof.
First write each individual email in the sequence, then go into the easy-to-use automations panel which allows you to set up ‘triggers’ (ex. Someone purchases a product or signs up via an opt-in form) and set-up your timing. Then just turn it on.
#5 You can set up a Squarespace Campaigns newsletter sign-up on a Squarespace Website in your sleep
There is a phenomenon taking place that I call ‘The Great Convergence’.
Many major platforms (MailChimp, Shopify, Squarespace) are starting offer services outside of what they originally specialised in.
For example, Shopify now offers an email newsletter tool, MailChimp has it’s own website builder and Squarespace offers not only email newsletter services but also scheduling and membership areas.
Before this convergence all of these tools played nicely together; they were easy to ‘hook-up’, or integrate with one another. Not anymore.
Either you can get them hooked-up but it’s convoluted, or the connection breaks or you need to use a third party tool like Zapier.
I’m pretty sure this is partly-intentional on the part of these companies.
They want you to use all of their services, and they make it hard not to. So if you have a Squarespace website, it makes adding your newsletter sign-up a snap. It takes about 5 seconds.
#6 Squarespace Campaigns vs. Mailchimp
I was once a big MailChimp fan. Now when I hear a client uses MailChimp before I start building their Squarespace site, I think ‘Oh no.’
MailChimp has added a lot of complexity to their system over the years.
This is great if you have a larger business with a highly-sophisticated email marketing operation (multiple funnels, segments, etc.) or if you’re doing really high-volume email marketing.
If you’re a simple small business or Solopreneur Mailchimp usually has waaaaay much firepower than what you need.
MailChimp is now somewhat complicated to integrate with a Squarespace website. It’s easy for me on the Squarespace side, but then my client has to go in set up a bunch of configurations in MailChimp. If a client is new to MailChimp, they usually don’t understand how to do this.
I’m not a MailChimp expert, nor do I care to be.
I can help a little, but I also don’t want to waste a bunch of time during a Launch In A Day one day website project dicking around in MailChimp. It’s become such a hassle, I even address this now in my discovery calls.
I have had more than one client get frustrated with MailChimp and just have me help them move onto Squarespace Campaigns because MailChimp gave them so much heartburn.
#7 Squarespace Campaigns analytics are straightforward and easy to understand
The analytics are very basic, but they really give you all you need: Open rates, who opened, and if they clicked on anything.
If you’re running a small business and sending out 1-4 Email newsletters a month to the same list, you really don’t need more information than this. I know I don’t.
#8 Squarespace Email Campaigns Pricing
The pricing for the Squarespace email marketing is fine.
Not cheap, but not too expensive either, and it grows with you. The pricing tiers range from 5 to 42 Euros per month.
Most of my clients do fine with the ‘Core’ plan. At the time of this writing the cost is 9 Euros per month. With this plan you can send 5 email campaigns per month and 5000 Emails total.
If you have a larger list you may need to go up to the next plan, ‘Pro’ which is about 20 Euros per month. With a ‘Pro’ plan you can send a total of 50,000 emails per month.
Automations are included if you start with ‘Core’ plan. This allows you to set up automated sequences like a nurture or welcome sequence.
Things I don’t love about Squarespace Campaigns
So total transparency here. There are things in Campaigns that frustrate me. Squarespace, if you’re listening, here is my wish list:
Easy segmenting - I would love to set up triggers to move a subscriber between lists. Right now can only do this manually(!)
Editing a subscriber profile - For some reason this is not possible. If someone subscribes with just an email address, you can’t go in later and add information like their first and last name. Whaaat?
Notifications for subscribes/unsubscribes - Some people like not having these, but I don’t. I have to go in and dig through analytics or look through the profiles panel to see if someone has subscribed or unsubscribed. This make it especially difficult to measure the effectiveness of things like lead magnets.
So there you have it, my Squarespace Email Campaigns review!
Do you use an email newsletter service? Are you thinking about switching to Squarespace campaigns? More questions? Set up a free discovery call with me to discuss: