When we started doing research around how to build the best cannabis marketing platform for dispensaries, we started analyzing the marketing messages we were receiving from different dispensaries, and started to see a lot of common marketing mistakes.
There are many different types of modern cannabis consumers, and it's important that your business helps educate and guide people to new products that they're going to love and reward them for being part of your community.
Here are easy ways to identify and fix five of these common cannabis marketing mistakes, with the goal of improving the way you communicate with customers and setting up systems that make it easy to continue conversations digitally:
- Don't Assume Customers Receive Text Messages from Your Dispensary Only
Most cannabis consumers buy products from more than one dispensary or delivery service, so you can't assume they know who the text message is coming from if you don't identify yourself. This seems like a no-brainer; but it's a common issue, and very easy to fix: Always include some key information about your dispensary: it's name, social handles, location, link to their website and/or logo in an MMS in your message. If your dispensary name contains a word like cannabis or weed that might get triggered or filtered by the text message carriers, it's best to come up with some sort of acronym or abbreviation for your name or use other ways to identify yourself. If you just send a deal or special offer without making it clear which business it's from, you're not doing yourself any favors.
- Don't Blast Your Entire Database with the Exact Same Message
Unless your marketing message is relevant to every single customer who has ever shopped with you, avoid blasting your entire customer list with the same text message. There's no better way to get low ROI on your marketing budget and your marketing campaign. Instead, use their historical shopping patterns and your relationship with them to craft relevant messaging so it feels more conversational and targeted. No one wants to feel like they're just a number; this can lead to people opting out of your marketing entirely. The data shows that the more generic the message that you're sending out to your entire list, the more opt outs that you're going to receive; whereas the more targeted your messaging is and the smaller your segments with more targeted messages, the higher the retention rate. It's always better to use a cannabis marketing tool that allows you to layer segments and conditions to really start these compelling conversations with your customers.
- Don't Send a Concentrates Deal to Someone Who Only Ever Purchases Pre-Rolls
Before starting to write and create text message campaigns for your dispensary, you want to know who you're speaking to. Know who you're speaking to: If someone's purchase history shows they only ever grab pre-rolls, then they're probably not interested in a concentrates sale. You'll see better ROI on your marketing spend if you use your dollars wisely, sending deals people can't refuse because they feel tailored to their preferences. Using historic sales and customer data, you can create your own custom segments of your customers for text marketing campaigns. These segments can layer conditions like what products they buy, average order amount, their total lifetime order count, if they're ordering pickup or delivery, the product categories they shop most (i.e. edibles, flowers, tinctures), the number of loyalty points they have to spend, and more. Don't forget to layer in data from customer groups (a segment you can add customers to with the click of a button when they first register at your shop, ie. neighborhood locals, VIPS, veterans, seniors, etc).
- Don't Forget to Reward Your Customers for Shopping With You
Customer retention is the name of the game. If you don't have any sort of loyalty program implemented, it's extremely important (and easy!) to implement your own VIP club that rewards people for shopping with you, allowing them to stack up points to earn discounts or free products. Give customers a reason to check in on their account with you; you can both gamify it and help people feeling like they're part of a community. The reason why websites like Weedmaps and other cannabis dispensary directory sites are so popular are because it's easy for people to shop for and find deals in their area. Once people find you, it's important to give them a reason to keep coming back.
- Make Sure You Can Track Your Marketing ROI
If you're using a cannabis POS software that requires you to export spreadsheets of all your customers and importing it into a third-party SMS campaign system without properly filtering and segmenting your customer data, it's going to be hard to determine what's working and what's not. You want to be able to see the results of different marketing tests so you can optimize your SMS and MMS to perform better each time.
With Meadow's cannabis marketing tool, you can track all your text campaign data right within your POS dashboard with on-screen analysis showing your ROI measurements, engagement, orders, promo codes used, and more. Because the texting platform is tied directly into the same system as your online menu, you can create promo codes as you craft a text campaign, and include a direct product link (ie. to the limited edition flower on your menu that just dropped) or a direct category link (ie to a menu page featuring all of your edibles) within your text campaigns, knowing that your inventory will always be accurate and up to date as customers redeem the promo codes to make purchases.
If your cannabis retail operation is able to fix all five of these common marketing mistakes, you'll improve communication with your customers and patients, and build a loyalty community who share the joy of cannabis by bringing their friends and family to your businesss to learn about all of the many benefits of this amazing plant medicine.
