The holiday season is upon us, and for all businesses, it’s a time ripe with opportunities to connect with customers and boost sales. Specifically for cannabis dispensaries, brands, and companies – it’s also a time to get even more creative with marketing tactics and strategies.
From Thanksgiving to New Year’s and everything in between, there’s a diverse range of holidays, traditions, and celebrations your cannabis business can tap into.
Read on to explore a wide range of effective holiday marketing strategies for cannabis businesses, plus a preview of all the upcoming holidays and celebrations ahead!
Upcoming Holidays & Celebrations for Your Cannabis Business
Despite the flurry of Christmas and New Year’s campaigns we see from businesses, the holiday season encompasses various traditions and celebrations throughout the year. During this time of year, many different holidays, celebrations, and traditions are celebrated around the world. When strategizing a marketing plan or campaign for the holiday season, be sure to stay inclusive and considerate of all holidays and traditions that people celebrate.
Use imagery, messaging, and language in your cannabis holiday marketing plan that compliments the wonderful assortment of cultural holidays and traditions around us.
In preparation for a busy marketing season, check out the holiday marketing calendar for this year:
- Celebrated in November, Thanksgiving is a holiday during the fall season all about gratitude and togetherness.
- The Festival of Lights, Hanukkah is celebrated for 8 days during the first week of December.
- Kwanzaa is a 7-day celebration in African cultures taking place at the end of December into the New Year.
- Known as the Festival of Lights in Hinduism, Diwali is a celebratory day in November filled with lights, feats, and dancing.
- The Winter Solstice honors the shortest day of the year and occurs during the mid-winter season.
- What better way to welcome the new year than with a bang on New Year’s Eve!
- Observed and celebrated on December 25th each year, Christmas is one of the largest holidays in the country.
How Impactful is Marketing Around the Holidays?
As you can imagine, the holidays are a time for people to shop for loved ones, and most businesses often implement specific marketing strategies during this time to appeal to these seasonal shoppers.
Depending on the business, many brands will market specific products, campaigns, or promotions to reel in customers and boost sales. Year after year, these numbers continue to show how the holidays even impact sales for cannabis brands and companies:
- Cannabis sales saw a significant boost during the holiday season in 2021, with a 60% increase in national legal sales compared to the rest of the year.
- Online shopping rates skyrocketed! Holiday-themed email campaigns and newsletters saw a 48% higher open rate and a 70% higher click-through rate than regular marketing emails.
- Get to know your customer base personally! 79% of consumers say that personalized marketing content has a significant impact on their purchasing decisions.
5 Effective Tips for Cannabis Holiday Marketing
When building a cannabis holiday marketing strategy, there’s a wide array of effective tips to help your business stand out during the season and further connect with your customers.
From engaging email campaigns to personalized products and giveaways, consider these tips key to successful holiday marketing for your cannabis business.
Get Friendly & Personal with Email & SMS Marketing
Especially during the holiday season, customers want to feel a sense of connection with their shopping. Email and SMS marketing are powerful tools for reaching your customer base in an inviting and personal manner.
Even simply personalizing your email messages to address customers by their name, or tailoring the message based on their shopping preferences, can lead to transaction rates 6 times higher than non-personalized campaigns.
Sending exclusive offers, holiday-themed product recommendations, and updates on seasonal promotions in your email or SMS marketing campaigns helps get personally tailored messaging straight in front of the eyes of your customer base.
Use marketing tools and analytics to track the performance of your emails and fine-tune your approach as needed.
Website Pop-Ups: Capturing Attention and Data
Directly engage with visitors and collect valuable customer data with seasonal pop-ups on your website’s homepage or shopping page. Although too many of these can risk slowing down page speed or turning away users, strategize messages that invite the user to engage for more information.
Create pop-ups that offer special holiday discounts or incentives that can be exchanged when the user signs up for email newsletters or SMS messaging. Whether you’re hosting a flash sale on specific products or limited-time discounts for your online shop, sales with a sense of urgency prompt shoppers to spend more in a shorter amount of time.
Engaging with these users through website pop-ups helps to collect valuable customer data, which can be a goldmine for future marketing efforts (and all year long, not just the holiday season!)
Stay Memorable with Targeted Online Advertising
Remember your favorite holiday advertising commercial? The one with the sweet storyline that pulls at your heartstrings, or the one that plays a catchy festive tune that gets stuck in your head all day long.
Creating unique, catchy, and influential advertising campaigns during the holiday season not only adds to the festive fun but can help increase your brand awareness. Depending on your specific cannabis business type, leverage online advertising platforms like Facebook Ads, Google Ads, Instagram Ads, or even YouTube video ads to create fun holiday-themed campaigns.
Including festive imagery and messaging will help draw your target audience in as you present to them all that your company has to offer for the holiday season!
As a previous CBD wellness client with Cannabis Creative, Hapsy strategized a holiday campaign that would help deepen the brand’s customer loyalty and trust. Considering Hapsy’s target audience is primarily made up of parents, the CBD brand created a holiday campaign encouraging interested consumers to prepare for the holidays ahead of time.
With a clear message explaining how CBD needs to be taken some time before things feel hectic, Hapsy promoted their holiday sale on all CBD products in November and ended it right before Thanksgiving. This thoughtful campaign helped get the brand’s message across before the plethora of cannabis brands started their marketing efforts for the holidays.
Additionally, when creating and managing online advertising, be sure to define your target demographics and effectively allocate for your PPC budget.
In all, optimizing your online advertising strategy to complement the holiday season can provide a significant ROI for your cannabis business.
Create a Buzz with Seasonal Products & Holiday Campaigns
Aside from shopping sprees, the holiday season is also about cooking and baking for loved ones and friends. Cannabis dispensaries and brands can benefit from marketing their business during the holiday season by creating content and campaigns around engaging holiday activities.
- Are you looking to market a new cannabis beverage or edible product? Write up a festive recipe for a new mocktail or baked good that promotes your cannabis product.
- Create blog content around interactive activities relative to preparing for the holiday season – such as viewing Christmas lights and decorations or gift wrapping.
- Promote upcoming events near your business location, or even organize a charity drive so your business can give back to non-profits in the local community.
Promote these exciting upcoming events and activities on your brand’s social media platforms or cannabis website, and engage with followers to further build trustworthy connections with your customers.
Gift Giving, Giveaways & Holiday Bundles
During the holiday season – and all the time – who doesn’t love gift giving? There’s no better way to get your audience excited for the holiday season than engaging your customers with holiday-themed giveaways on social media. During the spirit of gift-giving, think beyond the traditional gift box. Offer seasonal-themed products or gift bundles that will intrigue customers into purchasing these limited-edition personalized gifts.
Next, promote these limited-time offerings through user-generated content on your social media platforms. This helps get users to share their experiences and excitement with your products. Include festive, relevant hashtags and emojis in your campaign content to create a sense of personality and community around your festive holiday gift marketing.
Last year, our marketing team worked with our client over at Drops of Life to curate a social media giveaway strategy that would help them celebrate the holiday season! The CBD wellness brand posted a video explaining the giveaway and what it entails, while encouraging those to interact with the Instagram post in order to enter. Not only did this add to the festivities the brand offered that month, but the steps to enter their social media giveaway helped increase follower engagement and interaction.
Additionally, Drops of Life worked with a social media influencer to curate a series of content that would engage followers with the brand’s gift bundles and promotions for holiday shopping.
Getting Festive with Cannabis Creative
Whether your Q4 goal is to boost sales, grow brand loyalty, or simply spread a little holiday cheer – these tips will help your business make the most of this festive time of year.
The holiday season offers the perfect opportunity for cannabis businesses to connect with customers and boost sales. No matter what sector of the cannabis industry your brand is in – incorporating holiday marketing strategies such as email and SMS marketing, festive advertising campaigns and gift products, or social media giveaways can allow you to tap into the festive spirit and create a strong presence in your niche.
Remember to acknowledge the diverse holidays and celebrations during this time of year and tailor your marketing efforts towards your top-promoted cannabis products accordingly.
With the right strategies, you can ensure your cannabis business enjoys a high-spirited and profitable holiday season.
Our cannabis marketing agency understands how crazy busy the holidays can be – that’s why we’re here to help. Contact our award-winning agency, backed by decades of experience, to get started on some festive marketing collaboration today!
