Email marketing presents a significant opportunity at a time when many traditional and digital marketing tactics are highly restricted for cannabis and cannabis-related businesses, including direct mail, print advertising, Facebook advertising, Google AdWords, and social media marketing.
It is the most straightforward tool we have in the cannabis industry.
In fact, research by Campaign Monitor found that for every $1 spent on email marketing, businesses get $44 in return. Moreover, when it comes to social media followers, you do not actually have full access to your followers. In other words, if you wake up tomorrow and all your social media platforms are taken down, your following is also gone. Unlike social media, you own your email list subscribers.
Cannabis businesses achieve a better return by focusing their efforts on incentivizing email sign-ups as a way to communicate and nurture audiences.
Here are a few ways you can use email and text messaging campaigns in your communication strategy to develop a relationship with your audience.
Automated Email Sequence Campaigns
Automated emails are really helpful to get visitors to return to your site again in the future. This could include drip campaigns, abandoned cart emails, or nurture campaigns after a purchase or booking.
In other words, whenever you collect an email, there should always be an automatic follow-up email. This allows you to build that relationship with your customers at every touchpoint in your business. From providing more information and leading them to your blog, to offering exclusive rewards and featuring your customers, you should aim to gently guide your community through their buyer’s journey.
Nurture Campaign
A nurture campaign is a series of behavior-based emails. The goal is to deliver useful information to your subscribers while they engage with your brand. To do this, email marketers use data gathered from the user’s behavior to deliver timed and targeted messages.
An example of this is when a new lead enters their name and email address on your website to receive a lead magnet on your website, such as an e-book. A nurture campaign ensures that not only are they using their lead magnet, but returning to your website.
This may look like a series of follow-up emails asking how the user is liking the e-book, testimonials of other readers who have seen success because of the e-book, and perhaps finally, a call to action to set up a consultation to help implement the content in the e-book.
Ultimately, this type of sequence guides the prospect through your buying process and equips them with the information necessary to make a purchase decision.
Drip Campaign
A drip campaign is a series of time-based emails that are meant to encourage a very specific action, such as purchasing a product, warming up a lead, registering for an event, and so on.
These emails are strategically thought out to push your audience towards the action you want them to take. Similar to a nurture campaign, each email stands alone but builds on the emails that came before it.
The benefit here is that you can consistently show up with your value proposition to educate your audience on your company’s portfolio and warm them up as they engage with you. However, it is important to build out drip campaigns with caution as they can seem excessively sales-y and turn people away from your business if your emails are not written carefully.
An example of a drip campaign is the sequence of emails you receive when a store releases a new product. This may include an announcement of the new arrival in-store, a promotional code to access the product before anyone else, a full line-up explaining the new product, and the last email that implements the product in a lifestyle setting (also known as the product’s use case) or shows what other customers are saying about it.
Text Messaging (SMS) Campaigns
A new trend emerging in the realm of cannabis marketing is text campaigns. These campaigns not only allow businesses to measure sales much easier but are also highly effective. Sprout, a leading cannabis CRM, notes:
- 90% of users who enroll in a text loyalty program feel they gained value from it.
- Text messages are usually read within 5 seconds of receipt.
- Text coupons are 10 times more likely to be redeemed than print or emailed coupons.
- 70% of people say they would actually prefer to receive offers on their mobile phones.
Text campaigns are one of the more innovative marketing strategies that have cropped up in recent years in the cannabis space. However, as mentioned before, it is important to keep an eye on such trends, particularly when they are working.
Cannabis Email Marketing Support with Cannabis Creative
Email marketing is one of the most powerful ways to grow your brand affinity and build a relationship with your audience. Our marketing team is here to give you start-to-end support to craft beautiful emails that communicate what you’re all about without the headache of doing it all manually.
