How to easily set up your Creator Profile in ConvertKit.

What is the Creator Profile in ConvertKit?

It can be your hub on the internet. A one-stop shop for all your content and products.

Essentially, it’s a ConvertKit-hosted platform from which to showcase your core offerings to your ideal audience.

If you’re a content creator, which I suspect you are because you’re reading this, then you may already have a way of sharing your knowledge, wisdom, and experiences with your ideal audiences, perhaps via a blog or newsletter.

Once configured, your Creator Profile can house your content, products, links, and recommendations from your fellow creators (if you decide to join ConvertKit’s Creator Network).

The 4 key components of the Creator Profile

The Creator Profile allows you to present content in four key components within your profile; these are Posts, Links, Products, and Recommendations.

By default, your Creator Profile offers a subscription button and email address field. When people subscribe via this form, they can easily be identified inside ConvertKit by referencing the ‘Creator Profile‘ form as the source (i.e. as a visual automation starting point – see image below).

You should create an automation that handles new subscribers from this channel and create an email sequence that welcomes them to your world and tells them what they can expect from you.

It’s worth noting that, as of the date this article is being written, the Creator Profile page does NOT collect a subscriber’s first name, and only collects their email address. You need to be aware of this if any of the intended emails refer to the native data element, {{ subscriber.first_name}}.

You can take care of any ‘missing’ first names in your subscriber list by using the Liquid script to replace them with a generic term like ‘there’ or ‘friend’, meaning the email would read “Hi, there!” or “Hi, friend!” rather than an empty salutation like “Hi,”. This is the Liquid code you can use;

Hello {{ subscriber.first_name | strip | default: “there” }},

In this example above, the ‘|’ filter (sometimes called a ‘pipe’) takes the value in the element subscriber.first_name and checks if it’s empty or has a name. If it’s empty, then it’ll add the word “there” (or any other word you choose).

Component One:

When sharing your content via email broadcasts from your Creator Profile, the terminology used is ‘Posts’.

Component Two:

You can also use it to share your ‘Links’ to other assets like websites, social media profiles, or any online digital references that you may have.

Component Three:

It also allows you to add any ‘Products’ or services that you want your audiences to have easy access to, making the buying process simple for them.

Component Four:

If you decide to join ConvertKit’s Creator Network, you can share your ‘Recommendations’ with your audience, meaning they can easily subscribe to other newsletters that you recommend to them (these are people you recommend, as opposed to people who recommend you).

How to set up your Creator Profile

Start by clicking on the ‘Grow‘ -> ‘Creator Profile‘ menu option;

Once on the Creator Profile page, you can modify various elements to make it more personal to you and your business, including adding a title, a tagline, your image, changing button colours, and of course, adding your products and content.

Once on the Creator Profile page, you can edit the elements to make it look and feel like your branding. (see the image below for reference)

Start by adding a clear headshot of you so that people can relate to who it is they are connecting with. To add your photo, just click on the image placeholder and upload your photo file.

The first line can be used to name the main focus of your profile, for example, in mine, I use “Convert with ConvertKit” as it represents what it is I do for my audience.

The second line can be used for anything you wish, I use mine for my name so that people recognise it and make the connection between my name and the services I provide.

Remember, the people who arrive on your Creator Profile may not know anything about you or your business, so you need to design your content on that basis.

The third element in this part of the profile is where you get the chance to talk in more depth about what it is you can do for your audience, and explain what they’re likely to receive if they subscribe to your email list.

And finally, the fourth element is the subscribe ‘button’; you can change the text on the button and also the background colour – and that’s all. You can’t (unfortunately) change the shape (e.g. rounded corners, which I prefer).

As I mentioned above, there is (at the time of writing) no way of capturing the subscriber’s first name, so you need to ensure your back-end emails cater for this event, if not already.

By clicking on the link under ‘General style‘ (top-right corner), you’ll be presented with these toggle buttons. You can decide on which ones you want ‘on’ simply by sliding the toggle switch across. They can be switched on and off as often as you wish, and the content that lies beneath will remain unchanged; in other words, you’re not deleting anything by switching them to the ‘off’ position.

Next, we move on to ‘posts‘. These are email broadcasts that you make ‘public’. To use this feature, craft an email that provides value to your subscribers, and then send it out via a ‘broadcast. During the scheduling/sending of the broadcast email you’ll be given the option to “Post to my public feed.“

By toggling this option on, you’ll make it appear in your list of posts on your Creator Profile page automatically, as soon as you’ve sent the email. The screenshot below shows examples of posts on my Creator Profile page, all having been done this way.

You also get the opportunity to nominate a single post to become your ‘Feature’ post. By default, this will be your most recent post, but you can override this by selecting a post from your list.

Below, you can see the options presented during the broadcast email scheduling/sending process. By toggling the ‘Post to my public feed’ switch, you’ll add it to your list of Creator profile posts.

In addition to making it public, you can also make it available only to paid subscribers of your nominated paid newsletter (which you can create using the ‘Products’ feature inside ConvertKit).

You can also upload a thumbnail image that gets associated with your post, together with alt text to help explain what the image is showing (for improved accessibility).

You can also share any digital link that you want to share with people who visit your profile page, simply by creating ‘links‘ using the ‘Add link’ feature inside the Creator Profile page.

Below you can see some links that I have on my profile, together with the button to add more links.

The next component of your Creator Profile is ‘Products‘. They’re pretty much what you’d imagine, things that you can sell via ConvertKit. They can products or services and have a few options about how you want to charge for, and deliver, each Product.

Below, you can see a few of the (fictitious) Products that I have created inside my ConvertKit demo account, each with its own set of properties that I individually configured.

To list a Product in your Creator Profile, you first need to create it inside ConvertKit’s ‘Products’ feature. Below, you can see an example that I mocked up using a demo account in ConvertKit;

Below, you can see an example that I mocked up using a demo account in ConvertKit; this example is of a paid newsletter that subscribers can choose to pay either £10 per month or £25 per quarter. The newsletter is then sent out to all paid subscribers every time a new edition is published.

When crafting your product, you can add an image, text, images, videos, and other on-page elements to make your sales page as attractive, appealing, and informative as you can.

As part of the product creation process, you can edit the settings to achieve the desired results. These include the product name, price, pricing plan (e.g. one-off payment, monthly subscription etc.), currency, how you will fulfil each sale, any other products you want to use as an ‘upsell’, and any discounts that you may want to offer.

The fourth component of the Creator Profile is ‘Recommendations‘. These are recommendations that you both make and receive as part of ConvertKit’s Creator Network.

People sometimes get confused by the two terms, ‘Creator Profile’ and ‘Creator Network’ – and I get it, it confused me when they first launched.

The Creator Profile is available to everyone who has an active ConvertKit account – using it is optional. You do NOT need to be using the Creator Network to use the Creator Profile.

The Creator Network is a more recent initiative by ConvertKit to allow creators to build their respective audiences with help from fellow creators.

For example, as part of being a subscriber to the Creator Network, I can look for other creators who I believe will add value to my subscribers and so, when they join my email list, I can suggest a few others that I think they’ll enjoy and get benefit from being part of.

Your Creator Profile is what will showcase you and your services, so you need to have this looking appealing to new subscribers AND other creators who will check it out before recommending you to their audiences. So, just know that to be part of the Creator Network, you first need to get your Creator Profile in good shape.

Likewise, to reciprocate this behaviour, others can recommend me to their lists meaning my list grows by being recommended by others.

It’s worth noting that you do NOT need to be recommending people who recommend you, and vice-versa, your recommendations need not recommend you. Each recommendation made can exist in isolation.

Once part of the network, you can track the performance of both you being recommended, and the people you recommend.

I’d say it’s pointless NOT having your Creator Profile set up to attract new subscribers to your list; it’s free and why wouldn’t you want it, right?

Deciding to join the Creator Network is something only you will know if it’s right for you, but for me, I see people joining my list, who otherwise, probably wouldn’t come across me as part of their normal day-to-day business.

One minor caveat I would add is that, so far (in the few months I’ve been part of the Creator Network) I’d say the people joining my list via that route are not as engaged as my regular subscribers – but I guess that’s to be expected since they have come across from another creator’s audience.

Update: I’ve been working on crafting a more robust and appropriate email sequence for subscribers arriving via the Creator Network and that seems to be improving the engagement levels of new subscribers. It’s not quite at the same level as my regular subscribers, but that’s okay with me – I’ll keep working to improve my results! 😊

John Bellingham
Email marketing strategist for freelancers.

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