Welcome to High On Marketing - A weekly newsletter where I show you how to strengthen your email marketing strategy for your cannabis brand. Learn how to nurture your audience, increase retention rates, and sell more weed.

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Today’s Email:

• 7 Tips for Growing Your Email List

• Special Offer for You👀

Let’s Roll 🛼

I got some good news, and I got some bad news…

The bad news is social media still hates the canna industry, and suspensions and bans are running rampant for brands that are just trying to interact with their audience and grow their business.

The good news is we have email.

Your social media followers are your ‘rented’ audience.

At any point they could be taken from you.

And it happens a lot.

Every week I hear of cannabis brands getting social media bans for community violations.

And it’s devastating for these businesses.

Every thing you’ve worked for is gone…

But what if it wasn’t?

What if you had a line of communication with your customers that doesn’t shadow ban your content or delete your account just for talking about plants?

Well, for one, those social media bans wouldn’t matter as much. You wouldn’t be losing sleep wondering if your IG will be there tomorrow.

Email marketing is still the most reliable, highest ROI business-growth tool for dispensaries.

And the first step to creating a money-making email marketing strategy is building an audience.

Here’s 7 tips for growing your list as fast as possible (before your next violation):

1. Creating Irresistible Incentives:

There’s incentives, then there’s irresistible incentives.

15% off Welcome discount is an incentive.

An irresistible incentive is so good your customer is willing to get in their car and drive to your dispo to claim it.

Because after all, that’s what YOU want.

Instead of only offering a percentage off, try pairing physical gifts with digital incentives.

For example:

“New customers get 15% off their first purchase (PLUS a free gift)!”

The free gift could be a pre-roll, free sample, branded grinder, hoodie, etc.

Something physical and unique enough to make them think: “I want that.”

For the sake of cannabis marketing I recommend using phrases like “free gift” instead of “free pre-roll” if you’re promoting your emails on social media. Plus, the mystery helps to entice your reader.

Once they click-through to your opt-in page, you can explain what the free gift is.

2. Streamline the Signup Process:

This goes for all your points of contact, digitally and in-person.

Your email signup process should be as easy as possible, no matter where or how your customer is signing up.

• Use a prominent, easy-to-find opt-in form on your website’s homepage.

• Limit the number of fields - just ask for an email and maybe their first name for personalization.

• Ensure mobile optimization.

Allow for in-person opt-in at checkout as well.

Encourage budtenders to signup customers (more on how to train budtenders to capture emails at POS here)

Put flyers in your waiting room with QR codes that take you right to your opt-in.

In short, you want them to be able to signup anywhere, anytime, and as easily as possible.

3. Referral Programs:

Referral programs are extremely underrated.

Recommendations from friends and family carry much more weight for most people, and referral leads often convert at higher rates because the trust is already established.

Referral programs are also highly cost-effective compared to traditional advertising.

So basically a win-win all around.

Use tiered rewards to encourage your subs to signup their friends.

• Tier 1: Refer 5 people and get a free pack of pre-rolls, free sample, branded accessories, etc.

• Tier 2: Refer 10 people and get 6-pack of seltzers, $50 store credit, 100 points

• Tier 3: Refer 15 people and get multi-product bundle, more store credit, more points, etc.

Referral programs are one of those things that you setup, and then sit back and let it work it’s magic. The whole thing can be automated.

If you need help setting up a referral program, reply to this email with “REFERRAL”. I’ll help you create an automatic, tiered referral program that’s working 24/7 to grow your list

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4. Creating Pop-Ups That Convert:

Website pop-ups are extremely effective when done correctly.

The “trick” is to be short, sweet, and to the point.

Here’s my pop-up from my website below:

Very matter-of-fact. I’m telling you exactly what to do, and what you’ll get for doing it.

You can set these to trigger when the person is exiting your website, or to go off after a certain amount of time after landing on your page.

The most important part is to entice them with something valuable in exchange for their email, and keep it short and sweet.

Example: “Leaving so soon? Subscribe now and get 15% off your first purchase!”

5. In-Person Signups:

I touched on this briefly when talking about training budtenders to signup customers for emails.

But in-store interactions are the perfect opportunity to encourage email signups.

Your customer is already engaged with your brand, and you can leverage instant perks that create urgency.

Example (Train your budtenders to say this):

“Wanna signup for our newsletter/emailing list? You get a free pre-roll.”

The quick reward and phrasing of that creates subtle urgency. Plus, the reward is pretty good; win-win.

Swap pre-rolls for products of similar value if your state doesn’t have pre-rolls.

6. Promote on Social Media:

There’s a right and a wrong way to do this.

For my full breakdown on promoting your canna biz on social media, check out my post here.

In short, to avoid bans and suspensions you need to be sure to not actually promote the sale of any cannabis products.

Social media should be used to stay in your customers face and mind with regular posting that follows guidelines.

To direct followers to your email list, you need to incentivize them to click the link in your bio.

“Click the link in our bio for a free gift”

CTA’s like this create curiosity, and don’t promote cannabis at all.

You can also gamify content that incorporates email.

For example: Create preference quizzes that followers can fill out and have the results emailed to them.

You capture their email, and valuable customer data. Another win-win.

7. Highlight the Benefits of Subscribing:

Customers need to know what’s in it for them.

Make the benefits of subscribing clear and valuable.

And make it clear that subscribing to your emails is HIGHLY beneficial…

• Want to save on purchases? Subscribe.

• Want exclusive access to new product drops? Subscribe.

• Want to collect points you can exchange for gifts and rewards? Subscribe.

Having engaged email subs is like the Holy Grail of marketing.

It is extremely valuable for you as a business owner to have your customers opt in to your emails.

And that’s even more true for cannabis brands.

Social media bans are still running rampant for dispensaries that are just trying to keep in touch with their audience and promote their business.

Email remains the most reliable form of communication for these brands.

The thought of having your IG account shutdown overnight for a community violation is a terrifying thought.

So many businesses rely on social media these days while canna brands are still blacklisted from using it to its full potential.

At the very least, you should have an email marketing safety net in place for when your time comes to face an account suspension or perma-ban (again).

Dispensaries that invest in their email strategies will prosper in 2025.

If you made it this far, you’re probably at least a little interested in investing in your email strategy.

Well, I want to help!

If your dispensary has little to no email marketing systems in place, reply to this email with the word “EMAILS”.

I wanna work with dispos to help build automated funnels, segment their subs, and create emails that engage and sell.

Bad emails are preventing so many brands from reaching their full potential.

Don’t be one of them!

When You’re Ready, Here’s How I Can Help You…

Click HERE to download the High On Marketing Evergreen Templates - 50 pre-written emails tailored for cannabis brands to educate, engage, and encourage action from your audience

Stay on top-of-mind while building a well-informed, loyal customer base.

Get your templates today and have the next 6 months of canna content covered!

⬇️Don’t forget to use your subscriber code for 50% off!⬇️

9VVS85T

P.S.