Due to the number of restrictions on advertising opportunities, such as paid search, for cannabis or cannabis-related brands, email marketing tends to be one of the more popular ways to reach your customers. It should, however, be noted that many of the prominent platforms have policies against using their platform to market federally banned substances, such as cannabis. Read more about which platforms are cannabis friendly here. Email campaigns are also inexpensive compared to other marketing strategies and allow businesses to communicate directly with their audience and keep them both informed and engaged.
Like other branches of marketing, email campaigns should be designed strategically. You’ll want to follow a number of best practices to ensure that you are maximizing the benefits of your email campaign.
BUILD A LIST
Collecting and documenting all the necessary and important information about a contact is key to building a meaningful contact list. A great way to gather information from new and potential customers is by giving them something for free.
With the cannabis and CBD industry being so new, knowledge is one of the best things to entice people to sign up for newsletters or provide their information. An example might be including offers on your website for a free e-book about the differences between CBD and cannabis when people sign up to receive your emails. Allowing users to subscribe to a newsletter of choice (weekly/monthly or by topic, etc) is another way to build your list while collecting valuable information, such as the topics of interest of any given potential customers. This type of specific information also enables you to cater your emails to each segment of your audience.
SEGMENT YOUR AUDIENCE
CBD products have a variety of benefits and appeal to a variety of different people. Your customers are not all going to be responsive to the same type of product or appeal, the same way not everyone in your email list is going to react the same to the content you send out.
Tailoring email content and communication based on a set of traits, such as age, location, job position, status, etc. is a sure-fire way to get the types of responses you want, such as a purchase decision or membership sign-up.
Segmenting your email audience according to the interests of your audience makes it easier to determine what type of content and offers to send out. It also enables you to connect with them directly and therefore, drastically improve your open and click rates.
FIND YOUR RHYTHM
Some people may find monthly newsletters a nuisance and would rather only receive short email notifications about important information and updates or sales and exclusive deals. Others may want more frequent emails, such as a weekly news article or highlight of a product. Sending out different emails for each of these segments is an important way of showing your customer base that you are paying attention to their interests and, therefore, are truly aiming to serve them.
Finding the right rhythm for your business and your audience is an important way to actually retain that actively engaged customer base. As a brand, you will want these customers to actually open and click through your emails, or even potentially purchase products as a result of the email. Think about your specific audience and their preferences, and match your rhythm to theirs.
MAKE IT CATCHY!
From your subject line to the email preview to the actual message content itself, your email should be written in an engaging manner.
The subject line is particularly important as it is one of the first impressions your email has on its recipients. Crafting a catchy subject line can determine whether or not your contact is compelled enough to click through. A good rule of thumb when thinking of a subject line is to use concise language that makes some indication about the content of the email.
According to Hubspot, “up to 77% of email opens taking place on mobile”, so using subject lines with fewer than 50 characters ensures that the people viewing your emails are able to read the entire subject line in a glance.
Beyond that, your email should be timely and relevant to the audience while also creating a sense of importance that makes them feel special. A great way to accomplish this is by using personalization tokens, such as a name or a location, in parts of the email to forge a stronger connection. Proper phrasing can also go a long way in building loyalty amongst your customers. For instance, an email about “an exclusive offer for you” is far more likely to perform better than one that is about “a sitewide offer”. The exclusivity felt from certain phrases compels readers to convert better on your emails.
| Related: Check out our work with BFF Hemp.
Overall, newsletters and emails should be used to highlight whatever aspect of your business is critical for your success. For instance, if attending trade shows and expos are driving leads, send emails to promote your attendance and booth presence at those events. If you have a successful hero product, focus on the appeal of that product to make customers reach for it on shelves or online. If it is knowledge and experience that your brand brings to the industry, share blog posts and news articles via links to blog posts or credible resources.
Sharing your brand and its pillars of success will cement your authority within the industry and have your audience turning to you for every question or product purchase they have.
Contact us to get started on an email marketing project.
