Best website + e-commerce + email campaigns solution for filmmakers and other artists for 2021 is Squarespace

Having compared several of the available, easy to use website building and e-mail marketing programs (Squarespace, Weebly, Wix, WordPress, Shopify, Mailchimp) that a filmmaker may need in 2021 - Squarespace is the winner. Other platforms require you to combine multiple things to get the same result, also not as safe.

Squarespace is kind of like Apple - everything is in one place, good design, secure. Something like WordPress may be similar to Android. Problem with WordPress is the extra work required to get the same result, design options not as robust, and safety is up to the user with WordPress, whereas with Squarespace the company takes care of safety, including each of their sites getting SSL certificates. The necessary things - good design, blogging, e-mail campaigns are all included with Squarespace - which is great for filmmakers and other artists who want to create a well designed site fast, take care of the essential marketing work, without having to get into a whole culture of updates and assembling solutions together from multiple platforms.

For ease of use and design, safety, overall functionality the winner is Squarespace. Weebly and Wix are less expensive, less capable, less elegant options. WordPress is the other approach - good for people who have a lot of time to put into learning and maintaining the WordPress system.

Also it looks like Squarespace can do most of what Shopify sites can do, and what Mailchimp can do (in some ways may be better than Mailchimp - design, size of mailing list/cost wise). Research those options depending on your needs, size of your biz/project.

The thing that's most attractive to me as a filmmaker and merch sales person and blogger, with Squarespace, is that everything is with one site, well designed, and comes with 24-7 support. That's my outlook on easy to use/no coding (some can be added to most platforms) web design, publishing, sales, marketing platforms for 2021. Spend most of your time making your movies, and sell and promote them well with the help of Squarespace sites and programs. YouTube player looks great on Squarespace - see an example here - https://www.artcinemanyc.com/press

Soon I'll test out the e-commerce side of Squarespace. Early research points to it being very capable of selling a lot of merchandise items and helping to keep track of inventory, etc. Amir Motlagh has a good filmmaker Squarespace site - https://www.amirmotlagh.com/

Also Hal Hartley uses Squarespace - he has a very nice site - https://www.halhartley.com/