How this solo founder went from 100 followers to a thriving e-comm store
Jennifer Peddio is the solo founder behind Hyggekrog, a boutique candle e-commerce brand focused on the Danish concept of Hygge: taking time away from the daily rush to enjoy life’s quieter pleasures.
Life as a solo founder doesn’t always fit in with this philosophy. Jennifer has to take care of everything, from email marketing to product ideation, packaging, candle creation, shipping, and more. It’s not easy!
But with MailerLite’s user-friendly tools, her email marketing is one less thing to worry about. She gets to enjoy more quiet moments while growing a successful e-commerce brand from 100 followers to an engaged audience of repeat buyers.
Jennifer started email marketing immediately
Jennifer chose MailerLite as Hyggekrog's email marketing tool after it was recommended in a marketing course for business owners.
She started using MailerLite when she only had 100 Instagram followers because she knew email marketing was an effective way to generate sales and connect with her audience. Email has been central to her growth ever since.
The brand has grown and the newsletter is the most important point of my marketing, I've used it very successfully.
Jennifer started with MailerLite’s generous free plan since it has all the essential features for an e-commerce store: the ability to sync subscribers, automate messages, track sales, and send emails to up to 1,000 contacts.
She stuck with MailerLite as her business grew thanks to how easy the tool is to use and the results she was seeing.
I liked the simplicity of the platform and the fact that it was easy to use right from the start. I didn’t face any issues. It was a smooth experience.
Integrating with Shopify for advanced e-commerce marketing tools
Jennifer connects to MailerLite through the Shopify integration. Connecting MailerLite with her store was a super simple process.
There was just a button to press. The process was really simple, it worked well from the start.
Having a connected store enables her to automate emails based on specific triggers such as abandoned carts and product purchases. It also means that when someone accepts marketing emails during the checkout process, they are automatically added to her MailerLite email list.
Plus she can track sales, segment users based on shopping habits, and add forms and pop-ups to her store.
Other MailerLite features she uses include:
Connecting her store lets Jennifer sync subscribers, add products and track orders.
Jennifer drives consistent sales by promoting new products, offers, and more.
Jennifer uses automated emails for birthdays, welcome sequences, and abandoned carts
Jennifer uses website pop-ups and forms to encourage website visitors to join her list.
Jennifer uses scheduling to program content in advance and ensure emails arrive at specific times, including accounting for different time zones
Jennifer uses metrics and reports to track open rates, click rates, and engagement with specific elements within newsletters
Jennifer uses segmentation to target customers based on location, purchase behavior, and spending levels
Growing an audience on email and social
Jennifer grew her brand visibility on Instagram where she now has over 9,000 subscribers. She then uses her newsletter to build deeper connections.
While her email list has fewer subscribers than social followers, email is the channel that Jennifer credits as leading to sales.
Social media is a showcase, but the newsletter allows me to build customer loyalty. Without that extra nurturing from the newsletter, it’s not guaranteed that people who follow me on Instagram would reach the final purchase.
She also likes that having an email list gives her more control over her audience. She isn’t at risk of a social media platform taking away her ability to communicate with her followers.
Email is not like Instagram where the algorithm sometimes doesn't reward you so people can't see your content. MailerLite is indispensable because it ensures that people who have chosen to subscribe to the newsletter are always informed.
How Jennifer turns website visitors into buyers
Once people become aware of her brand, they visit the website. From here, Jennifer uses a pop-up to encourage people to join her list by offering a 10% discount to anyone who signs up.
The pop-up works on all her website pages, so everyone who visits her site sees the offer.
Using a pop-up with a 10% offer achieves 2 goals:
Encourages buyers: People who see the discount may be more convinced to buy
Gets people on her list: This builds a connection between her and the potential customer, boosting the chances of generating a sale or repeat sales
When someone fills in a form, Jennifer uses email automation to send a welcome email containing key content to encourage subscribers to buy.
First, she introduces herself and her brand by telling her story and highlighting that she personally writes each email.
Then she includes information about what people can expect from the newsletter, which is that people will get offers, promotions and information about her candles.
She highlights her loyalty program, which gives people points each time they buy from her, and includes the discount coupon that people can use to get money off their first purchase.
“Shoppers receive a welcome email as soon as they subscribe. I use it to introduce myself, tell you a bit about what I do, and leave you a discount code to use for your first purchase.”
This email is super effective. Since it’s delivered at the perfect time when customers first interact with the brand, it has an open rate of over 90% in the last 8 months, with many people opening the email multiple times. It also has a super high click rate of 32.94%.
Driving sales with a biweekly newsletter
Jennifer’s email newsletter is a key part of her promotional efforts. She sends it out every 2 weeks and uses it to build relationships, tell her story, and promote her store.
For example, she has:
Launched new collections and attracted sales from day one
Increased sales with exclusive promotions to loyal subscribers
Created a deeper connection by sharing insights into her life and brand philosophy
This strategy ensures that her brand gets good engagement. Her newsletter open rate averages over 50%, which is well above the average open rate for an email newsletter. Plus she gets a sales uplift every time she hits send.
A recent pre-order email for Christmas-themed candles had a 63% open rate and 10% click rate, meaning well over 600 people saw her offer. And she didn’t have to spend a cent on ads!
This email also directly led to 19 sales. Jennifer estimates that the actual number of sales from the email was much higher.
The orders were a lot more than these, because my customers read the email and then go to the browser to enter my shop.
Sending at the perfect time
One of the reasons Jennifer’s newsletter gets such good engagement is because she sends it at the perfect time. Jennifer has a particular idea about when she likes to send her newsletter. She wants people to get it at 8 a.m.
“This is when people are having breakfast. The newsletter is a moment of pause, of calm.”
Of course, she doesn’t necessarily want to be working and sending a newsletter at this time. That’s why one of her favorite features is being able to schedule her emails in advance so she can be sure that it arrives at the right time.
This allows her to send the email at 8 a.m. without actually having to log in to her computer and hit the send button during breakfast.
She also uses send by time zone to ensure that people on her list receive the email at the right time, no matter where they are based.
Being able to send emails at a certain time, even maybe based on the time zone, is a very useful function.
See how e-commerce brands use MailerLite to grow.
Creating memorable moments with a birthday email
Jennifer uses birthday emails to create a personal touch with her customers. She sends them a personalized discount code on their birthday, making them feel special.
This approach stands out from the usual mass discount emails. It shows customers that they’re valued and they appreciate the effort, feeling like they’re receiving a special treat just for them.
I recently started sending birthday wishes to my customers so they receive a personalized discount code on their birthday. This is something they really like because it seems like a pampering dedicated only to them.
Jennifer can do this by collecting the email subscriber’s birthday and then adding it to a custom field in MailerLite. She can then set up an automation so that the birthday message goes out at the correct time to each subscriber.
Sending targeting content with segmentation
Jennifer also segments her audience and uses this to create more targeted offers. Thanks to the fact that MailerLite is connected to her e-commerce store, Jennifer can also use sales data to create segments based on shopping behavior.
For example, frequent customers or those who have spent a higher amount. She can then target these high-value subscribers with specific offers.
I use segmentation to divide my list into frequent customers and those who have spent a higher amount.
She also sometimes runs events in her home base of Sardinia. She uses segmentation to send promotional content to people who are based in this area.
This ensures they can see the content without annoying people who aren’t based in the area.
Tracking performance with analytics
Jennifer stays on top of all of her marketing campaigns with MailerLite’s analytics. She can see open rates and click rates which shows her what content types, offers and products people are the most interested in.
She especially likes the email click map since it provides a one-view look of how people engage with the content.
It allows you to track all the newsletter’s engagement. This gives you a way to understand what's working, and what maybe you can modify.
With this knowledge, she can include more of what people like in her newsletters while reducing content, products, or offers that they don’t engage with.
Growing a business the Hygge way
Growing a business is never easy but with MailerLite behind her, Jennifer is able to streamline as much as possible so she can focus on the cozier things in life. Plus, these features make a real impact on her business, leading to higher engagement with her marketing and more sales.
E-commerce email made easy
Connect your store, create sales-driven newsletters, automate your emails, and track key metrics—all with MailerLite. We handle email marketing, so you can focus on growing your business.
