Latest / The Retention Marketing Podcast with Fexingo: Email, SMS, and Loyalty for Repeat Customers / How a Kitchenware Brand Uses Recipe Emails to Drive Repeat Purchases
Transcript
- Lucas: So there's this kitchenware brand called Stovetop & Co. — maybe sixty employees, sells directly to consumers from its website. And they noticed something pretty straightforward: customers who opened at least three of their recipe emails in the first thirty days had a sixty-five percent higher ninety-day repeat rate than those who didn't. Luna: Wait — sixty-five percent higher? That's not a marginal bump. Lucas: It's a massive gap. And what's interesting is how they built the email sequence. It's not just 'here's a recipe, buy our stuff.' It's tied to what you actually purchased. So if you buy a chef's knife, on day three you get 'Knife Skills 101' — a five-minute video and a recipe that uses that knife. Day ten, 'Sheet Pan Dinner' — again, using your knife for prep. Day twenty-one, 'Knife Care' — how to keep the blade sharp. Luna: Right, so it's educating the customer on how to use what they bought, while also making them feel like they're getting value beyond the product. Lucas: Exactly. And each email includes a link to buy a complementary tool. In the knife-skills email, it's a cutting board. In the sheet-pan email, it's a half-sheet pan. The knife-care email pushes a honing steel. The conversion rate on those links is around eight percent — which is high for a trigger-based email. Luna: Eight percent is impressive. But I wonder — does this only work if your brand has a strong visual identity? Like, if you're selling something more utilitarian or less photogenic, can you pull off the same thing? Lucas: That's a fair question. Stovetop does have nice product photography and short cooking videos. But the real differentiator isn't the visuals — it's the segmentation they built using a post-purchase quiz. When you buy something, they ask: 'How confident do you feel in the kitchen?' Options are 'Just starting out,' 'Getting comfortable,' and 'Pretty confident.' That's zero-party data, and it informs which recipes you receive. Luna: So a beginner gets simpler recipes, an experienced cook gets more advanced ones. That makes the emails feel tailored, not spammy. Lucas: Exactly. And they A/B tested subject lines for this series. For customers under thirty-five, emoji-heavy subject lines won by a wide margin. But for customers over forty-five, plain text subject lines had a twenty-two percent higher open rate. Luna: Twenty-two percent — that's a big split. It's a reminder that age segmentation in email isn't just about 'you're older, so we'll send you different offers.' It can be about format and tone. Lucas: Right. And they didn't stop at recipe emails. They also use the cooking confidence data to adjust the frequency of their promotional emails. Beginners get fewer promotions and more education for the first sixty days. Confident cooks get a promotional email around day forty-five, because those customers tend to be more receptive earlier. Luna: So the quiz data feeds both content and cadence. That's a pretty sophisticated lifecycle for a sixty-person company. Lucas: It is. And they built it using a combination of Klaviyo and a simple quiz tool — nothing that requires a dedicated engineering team. The whole setup took about three weeks to launch. Luna: You know, conversations like this remind me why listener support matters. If these marketing strategies have sparked something you've actually used in your own work, that's exactly why we keep this show ad-free. You can support us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: Yeah, it's a small gesture that goes a long way in keeping these deep dives coming. Alright, back to Stovetop — they also tested something I found counterintuitive. Luna: What's that? Lucas: They tested sending the recipe email on a different day than the purchase confirmation. For the knife purchase, they moved the first recipe email from day three to day one — so the customer gets the recipe almost immediately. The open rate dropped by twelve percent, but the click to conversion rate on the complementary product link went up by thirty percent. Luna: So people who opened it were more ready to buy, but fewer people opened. That's a trade-off. Lucas: Right. And they decided to keep the day-one send for the first email because the overall revenue per recipient was higher. But they also added a second email on day three for people who didn't open the day-one email — so they recaptured some of that lost open rate. Luna: That's a good example of using data to inform a win-back path. It's not just 'set and forget.' Lucas: Exactly. And I think the broader lesson here is that the best retention emails don't just say 'buy again.' They teach, they add value, and they're specific to what the customer already bought. Luna: And they use data the customer voluntarily gave — like cooking confidence — to make the experience feel personal without being creepy. Lucas: That's the line. Stovetop didn't track browsing behavior or purchase history across categories. They just asked one question at checkout and built a whole lifecycle around it. Luna: It's almost a reminder that sometimes the simplest data points — when used well — can drive the biggest results. Lucas: Yeah. And they're now testing a similar approach with their cookware line — asking customers what type of stove they have, so they can send recipes and care tips specific to gas, electric, or induction. Luna: That feels like a natural extension. I could see that reducing returns, too — if someone buys a pan that's not compatible with their stove, you catch it early. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the kind of proactive retention that prevents churn before it happens.