Customer Spotlight: Gindo's Spice of Life

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Customer name: Gindo’s Spice of Life

How long they’ve been a customer: 7 years

Fun fact: Gindo’s has a line of hot sauces that has its own comic book and characters.

Where you can find them (social, website links): Gindos.com, Facebook, Instagram

Chris and Mary GinderWho says digital marketing can’t be spicy? Meet Chris and Mary Ginder, the power couple behind Gindo’s Spice of Life, a fresh pepper hot sauce brand unlike any other. They started their business in Los Angeles, California, with the goal of creating homemade and fresh-tasting hot sauces that compliment any dish.

But building a business from scratch is no easy task. Chris and Mary had to perfect their recipes, packaging, and production while also finding their fans and building their audience. That's where Constant Contact came in. With its suite of marketing tools, they were able to schedule, automate, and streamline their communication with customers and prospects, growing their list of subscribers more than 57% in the last year alone, and establishing an open rate that’s almost 30% higher than the average for their industry.

However, a successful, well-marketed business wasn’t all that Chris and Mary were looking for, and they set their sights on how to build within and give back to a community. To help achieve this, they moved from Los Angeles, California to the greater Chicago, Illinois area to scale their business and build a community among farmers and food enthusiasts. They networked with local farmers, learned how to bottle and manufacture their products, and even mentored other small business owners.

“A co-packer gave me great advice early on,” said Chris. “It’s all about connections, and so you need to know in this world, if you’re going to succeed, every person you meet could be your next best connection.”

To connect with their customers, Gindo's uses Constant Contact's Email Marketing tools. They offer exclusive recipes, product updates, promotions, and sales through their email newsletters. By integrating their Shopify storefront with Constant Contact, they make it easy for subscribers to shop their products directly from the newsletters. And the results speak for themselves - they've achieved a 12x return on investment with each newsletter they send

To stand out from bigger hot sauce companies, Gindo's focuses on showing up in the online spaces where their audience already spends time. They share short-form videos on Social Media to educate viewers about the peppers they use in their sauces, which has led to increased in-person visits to their business

But the ultimate dab of spice on their success has been their partnership with the aptly named SAUCE (Student Advocates for Underserved Children Everywhere), a student organization focused on helping to create safe, equitable environments for at-risk students. Together with the student advocates of SAUCE, Gindo’s cooked up a special hot sauce, with proceeds going exclusively to the student advocates’ efforts (Hungry to support this great cause through delicious hot sauces? You’ll have to keep a close eye on Gindo’s– these sauces sell out fast!).

In addition to their partnership with SAUCE, Gindo’s holds coat collection drives and animal fostering fundraisers out of their brick-and-mortar locations. Over the years, Gindo’s has worked hard to build up their community of supporters through amazing marketing, and in turn share that success with the community around them, proving there’s more than enough spice to go around.

“We love being involved in different ways within the community,” said Mary. “I don’t think we could have our business without our community.”

Want to spice up your marketing like Gindo’s? Here’s their recipe for success:

• Integrating their Constant Contact account with Shopify
• Utilizing a website pop-up form with a special discount code to attract subscribers
• Integrating their Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram with Constant Contact
• Offering an opt-in to their newsletter in during the Shopify checkout process
• Displaying a subscription QR code at in-person events
• Using drag-and-drop templates to create and send monthly email newsletters