case-study-the-weird-winback-email-that-drove-ps6k-of-orders
04 October

Case study: The weird winback email that drove £6k of orders from churned customers and outperformed our campaign benchmark

Alina Samulska-Kholina
Alina Samulska-Kholina Copywriter at Stripo
Oli Clifford
Oli Clifford Email strategist and copywriter
Table of contents
  1. The backstory
  2. Why customers sleep on your offer
  3. Getir’s strategic response
  4. The results: 300+ orders and £6k revenue
  5. Why it worked: Oli’s 3-part winback formula
  6. Key takeaways
  7. Shoutouts
  8. More about Oli Clifford
  9. Wrapping up
1.
The backstory

Today in our blog category "Email marketer’s code" there is a story that captivates with the elegance of the solution and the power of the result. Usually, stories about re-engagement emails are something about how you can get some of your subscribers back so that they start opening emails at least sometimes and not just scrolling down.

For eComm brands, high customer churn is a deadly condition — drying up cash flow and making it harder to effectively forecast revenue and allocate resources.

That’s why we’re sharing this incredible case study from Oli Clifford, a UK-based email strategist, to show you how you can re-engage cold customers and get them shopping with you again.

Read on to discover how Oli worked with ultrafast grocery brand Getir on a re-engagement campaign that drove 300+ churned subscribers and went on to form the foundation of Getir’s winback strategy.

Expert

Oli Clifford
Email strategist and copywriter

The backstory

The brand: Getir: the ultrafast grocery app.

What they do: Enable customers to shop fresh groceries from their phone, and get them delivered to their door in as little as 10-15 minutes.

Their target customers: Urban professionals, busy young families, and anyone who values extreme convenience.

The marketing challenge:

Getir needed fresh and creative ideas to reactivate their “hard churned” users. (Translation: customers who hadn’t bought on the app in 30 days, 60 days, or the best part of a year in some cases.)

So, we set to work on an impactful re-engagement campaign that would:

  • recapture the attention of “hard churned” users;
  • get them to order on the app again.

Why customers sleep on your offer

Once your audience has gone cold and is no longer receptive to the usual email marketing tactics, there are 3 challenges for you to overcome…

Problem 1: Promotional blindness

Customers who haven’t bought in a while tend to be numb to sales and promotional language. 

You know, stuff like:

“📣 FINAL CALL”

“Time’s running out ⏳”

“Sale ENDS MIDNIGHT”

They’re suffering from “promotional fatigue,” which means these types of messages no longer have the desired effect, and you have to try something different.

Problem 2: Lost motivation

Once upon a time, something inspired these customers to buy from you. But for whatever reason, they’ve disconnected from that initial feeling of motivation.

Put simply, they’ve forgotten the desire that pushed them to shop with you in the first place. The emotional pull is no longer there.

Nor is the thought of what you sell and the benefits it offers.

Problem 3: Forgetting what they’re missing

Not only have they forgotten why they shopped with you in the first place, they’ve forgotten what that experience is like.

They’ve forgotten how it makes them feel and how it makes their life better or easier.

And, because they’re out of the loop — not opening emails, not browsing your site, not opening your app — there’s a good chance they’re not clued in on any new features and benefits you’ve added since they last shopped with you either.

Getir’s strategic response

With these 3 problems in mind, myself and Getir’s CRM, marketing, and commercial teams put our heads together to develop a winning strategy. 

One that would:

  1. Stand out from the usual sales clutter in their inbox.
  2. Remind customers why they shopped with Getir in the first place.
  3. Show them what their life could look like if they started using the app again.

And here’s what happened…

The results: 300+ orders and £6k revenue

Our re-engagement email drove over 300 orders from these “hard churned” subscribers, bringing in approximately £6,000 (GBP) in revenue.

The email actually outperformed the campaign email we were benchmarking it against, driving 27% more orders and almost 2x the order conversion rate.

All while going out to a much smaller and colder audience engagement, and all without a discount in sight.

Here’s a quick look at the numbers compared to the benchmark email:

  Benchmark
email
Winback
email

Orders

246

314

App open conversion rate

1.13%

1.45%

Order conversion rate

0.11%

0.2%

Non-machine open rate

12%

10%

Click rate

1.35%

0.33%

Unsubscribe rate

0.22%

0.46%

And here’s the email that did it…

Re-engagement email 

Subject line: You could’ve gone skydiving

Preview text: If you’d done this:

Example of email for eCommerce brand

(Source: Email from Getir)

Why it worked: Oli’s 3-part winback formula

Having analyzed this email in detail both before and after sending, I put its success down to 3 factors:

1. Using a “pattern interrupt”

A “pattern interrupt” is a sales psychology concept. The idea is that doing or saying something surprising can alter someone’s mental, emotional, or behavioral state, making them more receptive to what you have to say.

Perfect when you need to re-engage some cold customers.

To combat the problem of promotional blindness, we knew we had to get creative with the way we framed the content, to earn our audience’s attention.

The overall “You could have gone skydiving” concept (which also became the subject line) served to stop the reader in their tracks with a “wait, what?!” moment, as well as giving them a sense they’ve missed out on something.

You could’ve gone skydiving…if you’d done THIS

2. Creatively reframing the value proposition

To win back these cold customers, we needed to remind them of the reason they shopped with Getir in the first place, and tap into the motivations driving that decision.

Because if they valued those things before, there was a chance they still would.

Knowing that Getir’s audience generally value speed, convenience, and a shopping experience that fits well into a busy lifestyle, we leaned into the idea of winning your time back.

I.e. if you use Getir, you’ll save time on shopping for groceries, and if you save time on shopping for groceries, you’ll have more time for the things you want.

What busy person doesn’t want that?

The email not only reintroduced this value proposition, but reframed it using creative copy (rather than Getir’s standard brand language), to make it feel fresh and novel.

You could’ve gone skydiving. Or had a spa day. Or stroked a llama.

You could’ve had more free time for the things you want…

IF you cut out all the faff of supermarket shopping, and used Getir.

3. Induce FOMO

Tapping into the initial reason for buying is a good start, but this email took things deeper, by drawing on the all-powerful phenomenon of FOMO (fear of missing out).

We used vivid imagery to not just tell our audience how they could win their time back by shopping with Getir again, but to show them exactly what that could look like…

All they had to do was tap back into the Getir app and start shopping again.

In short, our angle was: “You haven’t used Getir for X months. Here’s what your life could have looked like if you did.”

By using several fun and relatable examples of leisure time that get bigger and more appealing with each bullet point, the email really hammered home our point — Getir will make your life better by giving you more free time to do what you want.

Then, we finished by connecting this message to the call to action: tap below, open the app, and start giving yourself the time you deserve.

We deliver groceries in as little as 15 minutes, giving you more free time with every shop. 

That’s free time you could spend on…

  • An extra 30 mins of Netflix
  • A night at the roller disco
  • A wholesome staycation

Key takeaways

This case study shows how important it is to apply a change of tactic when dealing with churned customers.

And how creativity can go a long way in helping you recapture the attention of disengaged customers, and reconnect with their reason for buying from you.

For brands, businesses and even other email marketers, the success of this Getir campaign offers some key takeaways to apply in your own re-engagement efforts.

  1. Think outside the box: When dealing with cold subscribers, the usual sales pitches won’t cut it. You need something surprising or unique to grab their attention, like Oli’s use of a pattern interrupt in the subject line. Consider how you can shake things up with unexpected angles to make your email stand out.
  2. Reframe your value proposition: Customers need a reminder of why they chose your brand in the first place, but simply repeating the same old message may not work. Reintroducing your value in a fresh, creative way can make it feel new and exciting. For Getir, it was about emphasizing time savings in a fun, relatable way. What benefit can you spotlight in your own campaigns?
  3. Use FOMO to your advantage: Cold subscribers are prone to feeling disconnected, but tapping into FOMO can reignite their interest. Show them what they’ve been missing, whether it’s time-saving benefits, new features, or updates that improve their experience. It’s a simple but powerful tool to push them toward action.

By applying these principles, you can craft re-engagement emails that recapture attention, reconnect with customers, and inspire them to act.

Shoutouts

This wouldn’t have been possible without Getir’s talented in-house team, so I’d like to shout out everyone I collaborated with on this project:

  • Ryan Albuino, Creative Director;
  • Cansu Çopuroğlu, Head of Commercial;
  • Anveshna Chainwala and Ata Aran, CRM Team;
  • Harriet Lowe, Brand Manager;
  • Alasdair Harriss, Assistant Brand Manager;
  • Esma Biyik, Graphic Designer.

More about Oli Clifford

I’m an email strategist and copywriter who helps brands and businesses squeeze more revenue out of their email list.

I started out as an agency copywriter in 2015, and eventually fell into email marketing because I loved the bang-per-buck it brings.

I’ve helped sell everything from Swiss toys to Scotch whisky, and my portfolio includes work for Nike, Virgin Atlantic, Orange, Tonies, Bostik, Ticketmaster, Duracell, and a bunch of other companies you’ve probably never heard of.

Oli Clifford

Oli Clifford,

Email strategist and copywriter.

Wrapping up

We are grateful to Oli Clifford for the inspiring case he shared with us. This case shows how important it is to understand and apply sales psychology in your email copy and select the right marketing strategies for each case.

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