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Flodesk
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Researched profile. Starter Story's AI research system compiled this page from 51 public sources — the founder didn't write it. Automated research can misread or misattribute a source, so treat figures as best-effort. How this works →
Flodesk logo

How Flodesk Grew

Design-driven email marketing platform for small businesses.

How did Flodesk grow?

Summary of the sourced claims below

Flodesk's growth was driven primarily by a referral program that encouraged users to share referral links, creating a network of salespeople among their customers. The company also utilized a viral footer in emails, similar to the early Hotmail model, to promote their brand and facilitate growth. Paid advertising was introduced later and complemented other growth efforts.

Channels

8 channels · grouped by how Flodesk grows

  • Referral Program

    · 3 mentions · 3 sources
    “Martha had geniusly pushed our team to include a referral program right from the start. So immediately people were copying and sharing their referral links to share about Flodest.”
    high
    Show 2 more quotes
    “over 75% of their referrals come from individuals, not influencers, meaning they have created salespeople in all their users.”
    medium
    “Their growth strategy heavily relies on a robust affiliate program, accounting for their primary source of income.”
    high

  • Pay Per Click Advertising

    · 2 mentions · 2 sources
    “Paid advertising complements these efforts, with Flodesk investing around $700k per quarter in ads.”
    medium
    Show 1 more quote
    “we have paid ads that we just started running, I think, in 2020, that's helped as well.”
    medium

  • Email List Growth

    · 1 mention
    “Flodesk partnered with customers who were already creating content around Flodesk to build a community and central resource to share knowledge and insights.”
    medium

  • Automation

    · 1 mention
    “the core is the viral footer.”
    high

  • LinkedIn outreach

    · 1 mention
    “we have a lot of forms that are like publishable so that you can actually start growing an email list without a website.”
    high

  • Word of mouth

    · 1 mention
    “we had this channel in Slack for our trials so that we could see people coming in as they tried it... she sent that email and within one hour we got 50 people trying it. The next hour it was like a hundred, 200... it just went completely viral.”
    high

  • Community marketing

    · 1 mention
    “This has been the driving force behind Flodesk’s biggest growth channel, customer-led growth.”
    medium

  • Partnerships

    · 1 mention
    “Putting our branding on the footer of email, like the Hotmail model. That's how Hotmail took off in the early days.”
    medium

How 2,669 businesses grow

Of businesses with mapped growth channels, the share using each — Flodesk’s highlighted.
  • Referral/Word-of-mouth
    68% ◀
  • Social media
    58% ◀
  • Search/SEO
    57%
  • Email
    47% ◀
  • Community
    33% ◀
  • Content/Inbound
    31%
  • Partnerships
    30% ◀
  • Paid ads
    24% ◀
  • Events
    24%
  • Press/PR
    18%
  • Outbound/Sales
    16%
  • Marketplaces/App stores
    8%
  • Brand Authenticity
    2%
  • Product expansion
    2%
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