Latest / The Retention Marketing Podcast with Fexingo: Email, SMS, and Loyalty for Repeat Customers / How a Supplement Brand Uses Post-Purchase Email to Build Habit
Transcript
- Lucas: If you sell a product that needs to be taken daily — a supplement, a skincare cream, a protein powder — your biggest retention problem isn't satisfaction. It's habit. Luna: Meaning the customer buys once, uses it for a few days, then forgets it in the back of the cabinet. Lucas: Exactly. And today I want to look at how one supplement brand tackled that specific problem using nothing fancier than a three-email post-purchase sequence. No discounts, no gimmicks — just timing and psychology. Luna: Which brand? And what were they selling? Lucas: It's a DTC adaptogen brand — we'll call them Calm & Clear, though that's not their real name. Their hero product is a magnesium and ashwagandha powder you mix into water each morning. The price point is about $40 for a 30-day supply. And their repeat purchase rate after the first order was hovering around 22 percent — which is fine for DTC, but they wanted to get it over 40 percent. Luna: So they needed to get people to actually finish the first bag and feel the effects before deciding to reorder. Lucas: Right. The insight was that most customers quit around day five or six. That's when the novelty wears off but the benefits haven't kicked in. So they designed a three-email sequence triggered by the delivery confirmation, not the purchase date. Luna: Why delivery confirmation instead of purchase date? Lucas: Because a supplement arriving two days earlier or later changes when the customer actually starts. If you send an email saying 'Day 3' but they only received the product yesterday, it feels off. So the sequence triggers from the 'delivered' timestamp. Email one goes out three days after delivery. Luna: What's in it? Lucas: It's a short, helpful email — no sales. Subject line was something like 'A tip for your first few mornings.' The body explains that the powder tastes best in warm water, not cold, and that some people feel a slight buzz on day one — that's normal, it's the ashwagandha. It's pure onboarding. Reduce friction, manage expectations. That email had a 62 percent open rate and a 14 percent click-through rate to a FAQ page. Luna: That open rate is insane for a post-purchase email. Most brands see 40 to 45 percent. Lucas: Because it's useful and timed perfectly. The customer is still in the 'I want this to work' phase. So they're hungry for guidance. Email two goes out on day ten. Luna: So about a week after email one. What shifts? Lucas: By day ten, the customer has been taking it for about a week. They might be starting to feel something, but they're not sure. So email two is titled 'Have you noticed this yet?' and it lists three subtle effects customers typically report after seven to ten days: better sleep, less afternoon anxiety, easier mornings. Then it includes a one-click link to reorder. No discount, just convenience. The idea is that you're reinforcing the benefit and making reordering frictionless. Luna: That's smart — you're giving them language to name what they're feeling. That builds conviction. Lucas: Exactly. That email had a 54 percent open rate and a 9 percent click-through to the reorder page. But here's the key: the reorder page offered a subscription at the same price per bag, not a discount. The hook was convenience — auto-delivery so you never run out. Luna: And the third email? Lucas: Day twenty-one. By this point, the customer has used the product for almost three weeks. They have about a week's supply left. Email three is titled '21 days — the habit science says it sticks.' It cites the popular but controversial idea that it takes 21 days to form a habit. Then it says: 'You're almost there. Don't break the streak. Your next bag is ready.' And it includes a one-click link to subscribe. Luna: I want to push back on the 21-day thing. That's from a 1960s book by a plastic surgeon, and later research — like a 2009 study in the European Journal of Social Psychology — found it actually takes 18 to 254 days to form a habit, depending on the behavior. So leaning on that number feels a little shaky. Lucas: You're right — the science is wobbly. But as a marketing frame, it works. It gives the customer a finish line they can visualize. And for the brand, the numbers supported it: that email saw a 51 percent open rate and a 16 percent click-through to the subscription page. Overall, the three-email sequence lifted their 30-day reorder rate from 22 percent to 41 percent — almost double. Luna: Wow. And the cost of that was basically zero — they already had an email platform. Lucas: Right. No ad spend, no discount erosion. Just three well-timed, helpful messages. And I think the lesson goes beyond supplements. Any product that requires routine usage — a meditation app, a skincare line, a protein brand — can use this framework. Luna: It makes me wonder about the timing. Do you think day 3, day 10, day 21 is the universal sweet spot, or does it depend on the product cycle? Lucas: It definitely depends. For a product you use once a day, that rhythm works. For a weekly product — say a face mask you apply every Saturday — you'd want different intervals. Day 3 becomes day 3 after the first use. Day 10 becomes after the second use. The principle is the same: educate early, reinforce benefits mid-cycle, create urgency before they run out. Luna: And you mentioned no discounts. That's a bold choice. Most brands throw a 10 percent off code in the second email. Lucas: But discounts train customers to wait for discounts. This brand wanted to build a habit based on value, not price. And their data showed that customers who subscribed without a discount had a 12 percent lower churn rate at 6 months than those who subscribed with a discount. Luna: That's a powerful stat. So the sequence is really a behavioral design tool, not a sales tool. Lucas: Exactly. And I think that's worth noting for our listeners who run retention for DTC brands. If these kinds of marketing conversations have sparked something you've actually used in your own work, that's the whole point of the show. We try to keep it ad-free and focused on practical case studies, and a couple of dollars a month from listeners is genuinely what keeps these going — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, if you've gotten something out of them. Luna: Yeah, it's a small gesture that makes a big difference for us. We don't have a big corporate sponsor, so listener support really helps keep the lights on. Lucas: Anyway, back to the sequence. One thing I want to highlight is the subject line strategy. Each email's subject line was a question or a benefit, never a brand name. 'A tip for your first few mornings.' 'Have you noticed this yet?' '21 days — the habit science says it sticks.' They A/B tested brand subject lines like 'Calm & Clear tip' and the non-brand versions won by 18 percent in open rate. Luna: That makes sense. When you see a brand name, your brain categorizes it as marketing. When you see a question, it triggers curiosity. Lucas: Right. And the email bodies used no images. Just plain text, short paragraphs, and a single button. They tested image-heavy versions and the plain text ones got a 23 percent higher click-through. Luna: That's a consistent finding in email marketing — plain text often feels more personal, less like a mass blast. Lucas: Exactly. So the whole sequence is designed to feel like a friend checking in. The brand's voice is warm but authoritative. They use 'you' and 'your' a lot. And they sign each email with a real person's name — the founder, not the company. Luna: Did they see any negative impact from the no-discount approach? Lower conversion rates on the first click? Lucas: They did see a lower immediate click to subscribe rate compared to a discount offer — about 5 percent versus 8 percent — but the lifetime value of those subscribers was higher because they didn't churn at the end of the discount period. So it was a long-term win. Luna: So the playbook is: educate, reinforce, and create habit. And all through email, which is a channel many brands underutilize after the first purchase. Lucas: Exactly. Most brands send a 'thank you' email and then go silent for weeks. This brand sent three targeted nudges and doubled their repeat rate. That's the kind of leverage every marketer should be looking for. Luna: I'm curious — did they segment by customer type? Like, did first-time buyers of the starter size get a different sequence than those who bought the bulk bag? Lucas: Great question. They did. Starter-size buyers got the standard sequence. But customers who bought the 60-day bulk bag — which is a larger upfront commitment — got a slightly different cadence. Email one went out on day 5 instead of day 3, because the brand assumed those customers were already somewhat committed. And email three went out on day 40, because they had more product. The bulk bag sequence had a 35 percent subscription conversion rate, compared to 41 percent for the starter bag. Luna: Interesting — the smaller bag actually converted better. Probably because the customer runs out sooner and the urgency is higher. Lucas: Exactly. That's a counterintuitive insight: if you want to drive subscriptions, a smaller first order might actually be better because the repurchase trigger comes sooner. The brand's next test was to offer a 15-day trial size specifically to accelerate that timeline. Luna: That's a whole other episode. But for now, the core takeaway is clear: post-purchase email sequences can be a habit-building engine if you understand the psychological milestones. Lucas: And you don't need a complex tech stack or a big budget. A basic email platform, a three-email sequence, and a willingness to test timing. That's it. Luna: Well, and a product that people actually want to use daily. You can't email someone into a habit if the product itself doesn't deliver. Lucas: Fair point. But assuming the product works, this sequence is a repeatable framework. And I'd love to hear from listeners who try it. We'll put a link to the show notes with a template in the description. Luna: So we'll see you next time. Until then, keep building habits — and maybe keep that coffee money coming to buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: Exactly. Alright, that's it for episode 68. Talk soon.