How Dingding Hu brings her brand to life and fosters community with Flodesk 

TL;DR: Dingding Hu went from working as an illustrator to developing a rich creative identity as an artist. Discover how she uses Flodesk to grow her creative business and engage with her digital community as a multi-passionate entrepreneur.

If the term ‘multi-passionate’ has ever resonated with you, Dingding Hu’s story might, too. As a multi-passionate entrepreneur, her passions and interests span a range of different fields. Dingding, also known as Hu is Hungry, is an illustrator, author, and comedian based in New York City. 

Her business was originally very client-focused, working as an illustrator for big names like Instagram, Sephora, and Google. But over the years, she expanded into other creative ventures and strengthened her identity as an artist. Dingding explains, “I started to develop a voice as an artist, other than just a service provider.”

As her business and offerings grew, Dingding loved engaging with her followers on social media and keeping them up-to-date with her latest projects. However, she wanted to bring her audience into her business journey in a more meaningful way and foster an authentic community. That’s when she decided to try email marketing.

Dingding knew that email would play an important role in building a closer relationship with her audience, but she struggled to use popular email marketing platforms. 

“I was on Mailchimp because that was ‘the platform’ to use, and they promote in the creative marketing industry…It was almost like that was the default choice. But it was really hard for me to use. It was always a headache. I still don’t understand how it works,” recalls Dingding.

When it comes to email marketing, Dingding identifies as a beginner, so she was looking for an intuitive tool to grow her community easily without having to pay more as her email list grew. She wasn’t interested in sending out newsletters that felt boring or sales-driven—she genuinely wanted to connect with people, show them what goes on behind the scenes of her business, and express herself.

“I was just figuring out what I wanted to do with my newsletter. I think at the beginning, I tried to be more marketing-driven. But I wasn’t vibing with it, and I feel like my community wasn’t vibing with it because I’m an artist.”

Despite months of use, Dingding felt that the email marketing platforms she was using just weren’t working for her—tools like Mailchimp made it difficult for her to do simple tasks. This experience made email marketing feel more like a chore than a natural extension of her artistic identity. 

But all that changed when the website-building platform Showit introduced her to Flodesk.

For the first time, email marketing felt intuitive to Dingding. Even though she still considered herself a beginner when it came to digital apps, she was able to learn how to use Flodesk and send out basic newsletters with minimal learning and zero frustration. It felt incredibly refreshing to work with a tool that functions like her creative mind. 

“It’s almost like we speak the same language. When I log into Flodesk, I don’t feel like I’m in this technological land. It’s like the platform speaks in fonts, images, and logos (like me). It just feels like Flodesk is part of my brand as a small business owner. I sometimes joke that Flodesk is part of my team.”

Dingding has a variety of subscribers in her email list and several different creative ventures to share in her newsletter updates. For instance, she’s a comedian, sells merchandise that showcases her illustrations, and is the creator of the Honey Gone Nuts podcast and author of Delicious Daydreams—just to name a few. 

As a result, her email list includes many people with diverse interests. That’s why she loves using Flodesk’s simplified segmentation features to organize her list and send personalized emails to her community. 

She especially loves the tags feature, which makes it easy for her to group subscribers by their behaviors for better segmentation. This allows her to share content that aligns with each audience, like those who have ordered her book or shown interest in a specific service. Dingding adds, “This process helps me understand which segments of my list will be interested in different kinds of content, like wallpapers or audio files.” 

When Dingding was searching for an email marketing tool, she was confused by many platforms’ pricing structures and felt concerned about her subscription costs increasing as she grew her subscriber list. Paying more for successfully growing her business didn’t seem fair to her—especially as a small business owner. She was relieved when she discovered Flodesk’s affordable, flat-rate pricing, which costs as little as $35/month. 

“I think one thing that’s really interesting is that Flodesk doesn’t change the price when members’ email lists grow. That’s something that means a lot for people who aren’t very tech-savvy. I didn’t understand why other platforms would punish me for growing my business. Flodesk is so straightforward.”

Using Flodesk has made Dingding feel much more confident and comfortable sending regular email newsletters, promoting projects like her new book, and sharing her artistic journey with her audience.

Flodesk makes email marketing feel less like a daunting item on your to-do list and more like a creative, enjoyable experience that builds meaningful relationships in the inbox. Our stunning, fully customizable templates give creatives the tools they need to design beautiful emails, express themselves artistically, and share their latest news and offerings. 

Try Flodesk free—no credit card necessary.

Explore the Hu is Hungry website or find Dinding on Instagram @dingding_hu.