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.

Today’s Email:

• 7 Expert Tips for Turning One Time Buyers into Repeat Customers

• Actionable Tips You Can Implement Today

• Additional Thoughts

Let’s Roll 🛼

If you’re finding that most of your sales are coming from one-timers, it’s time to reshape your approach and turn those single visits into repeat business.

Cannabis users are picky! Most smokers go from dispensary to dispensary chasing deals, brands, or strains.

Those customers are great for business still, but loyal customers are the ones that are keeping your entire operation afloat.

The 80/20 Rule states: “80% of a company’s revenue comes from 20% of its customers.”

Retaining customers is the only way to grow in the cannabis industry.

Here’s how to do it⬇️⬇️

1. First Impressions Matter:

I’m CONSTANTLY stressing that cannabis brands need to work on their new customer onboarding process.

Your indoctrination process should start before they even set foot in your shop.

Your brand is at the frontmost part of your customers brain as soon as they enter their email address into your sign up form.

Your welcome series needs to WOW!

If your first contact with your new lead provides value, entertainment, or both, your customer is more likely to remember you.

And with memory and attention spans shriveling up more and more with each passing day, yo have to be sure to get it right!

2. Educate Your Audience:

Educating your audience is crucial for the growth of your brand, and as the cannabis industry as a whole.

The stigmas are harsh.

And the only way to overcome them, is showing the public how ridiculous and wrong those stigmas are.

Educational content should be #1 in your content structure/schedule.

The more your audience trusts your insights into the canna-verse, the more they’ll trust your products and your brand as a whole.

Same goes for your promotional content:

It’s not enough to tell your customers you have the best, or the strongest, or the cleanest bud.

Show them why yours is better. What’s different about your brand that would make them want to buy from you?

3. Personalize the Experience:

Personalizing your content is super easy.

Yet, very few brands implement any personalization into their content at all.

Putting their first name in the SL or opening line is a good start, but it’s not enough.

Like I said, you need to personalize the entire experience.

Every smoker has preferences.

And learning their preferences is a cake walk; you already have all the info!

• Purchase history

• Purchase amount/frequency

• Usage intent

This is all data you already have, or could easily get with a simple poll or survey.

Use your customer data to personalize the experience.

ONLY send them relevant content and offers.

For me, a company that knows nothing about their customers preferences and behavior make me subconsciously doubt them as a business.

Once that happens, your emails aren’t getting opened. It’s downright lazy!

It might sound insignificant, but trust me, your customer only cares about what you’re saying if it’s relevant to them.

• First name in the subject line? 🥱🥱

• First name in the SL, opening line hitting on specific pain point, body of email offering a realistic solution to that specific pain point, 1st/2nd person POV CTA (You/I) with action verbs? 🤑🤑

See? Really not that hard.

4. Build a Community:

Uncomfortable truth:

Most of your customers are not loyal to your brand.

They go where the deals are.

And I don’t blame them! I too bargain hunt for just about everything I purchase.

That being said, you should absolutely provide affordable/discounted prices.

But when we’re talking customer loyalty, you need to give them a little more than a 10% off discount code.

VALUE IS NOT JUST SAVINGS!!

Providing value to your audience can come in many ways:

• Education - Strain guides, cannabis history, terp facts.

• Storytelling - Share customer success stories.

• Infographics - Visuals, visuals, visuals!

• Exclusive invites - Make them feel welcome and accepted.

If you can educate your audience in an entertaining, visually appealing way, AND end it with an exclusive and personalized CTA, you’re GOLD!

Example:

SL: Most people don’t know the difference😕

Body: Hey {first name},

Did you know most smokers don't know how to pick the best products for their individual needs?

Here's a quick guide to help you!

Save this for next time you’re browsing our selection!

And find the perfect strain for YOU with our comprehensive strain guide.

CTA: Get my free guide!

That whole thing took about 15 minutes (including the design). It has:

• Curiosity-inducing subject line

• Personalization

• Opening line that “challenges” them

• Visually-appealing imagery that offers valuable info

• Assumptive phrasing: “Save this for next time”

• 1st/2nd person POV throughout

All of these elements combined create loyal followers, readers, and customers.

You get enough of those, and you got a community of loyal brand advocates.

5. Follow-Up is Key:

The customer relationship does not end after checkout.

You should have automated post-purchase sequences that thank your customers and encourage repeat business.

Get my full 7 step Post-Purchase email strategy here!

Post-purchase emails have significantly higher open rates than standard promotional content (40.5% avg.) Source

You want to:

• Thank them for purchasing

• Make sure they’re happy with their purchase

• Give them any tips or advice that could improve their overall experience

• Encourage repeat business by offering a discount or other exclusives

• Use more assumptive phrasing: “Here’s a discount for next time”

• Ask for reviews

6. Celebrate Your Customers:

A little celebration can go a long way in creating stronger emotional ties between your customers and your brand.

• Customer appreciation events

• Birthday discounts

• First purchase anniversary discounts

• Holiday specials (Veteran’s, Mother’s, Father’s, National Nurse’s Day, etc.)

The best part about celebrating your customers this way is that most of the discounts, birthday specials, and anniversary celebrations can easily be automated.

Create evergreen content for birthdays/anniversaries/any other celebratory event with specials or deals.

Automatically drive traffic on their special day(s).

The 2nd best part about celebrating your customers is you can create relevant content for all your segments just as easily as you can automate your aforementioned email flows.

You can segment your customers based on profession and create celebratory events for them:

• Nurses

• Teachers

• First responders

How do you gather more personal information like that? A couple ways:

Surveys are always my #1. If you offer a strong enough reward for completing your survey, your customers are likely to fill it out.

Another way would be to cast a wide net to your whole list (or large portion). Something simple like:

“Are you a nurse?

If so, please join us next Tuesday for our Nurse Appreciation Day!

Just show us your I.D. and save 10% on your purchase (and get a free t shirt)!

Thank you for all that you do!”

You can go more in detail about what Nurse Appreciation Day means to really add that emotional connection.

And you can repeat this process for different segments, professions, or lifestyles.

It can be a laborious process, but strengthening your emotional connection with your audience is crucial in creating a loyal customer base (i.e. Do it. It’s worth it).

7. Constantly Improve:

It’s the name of the game; if you’re not improving, you’re gonna stagnate.

The best way to improve your marketing efforts is to listen to your customers.

Analyze what content is resonating with who, and make changes when necessary. Ask your audience

• What they’re looking for in a cannabis brand

• What they hate about most dispensaries

• What they’d like to see more/less of

Then you know exactly how to plan your strategy.

The other critical element in improving any type of marketing strategy is A/B testing.

Every brand is different, and every audience is different.

Take these tips and make them your own!

Test subject lines, images, CTA’s, topics, etc.

Create➡️Test➡️Analyze➡️Refine➡️Repeat

Additional Thoughts:

Customer loyalty doesn’t happen by chance. It requires a strategic approach, consistent effort, and a genuine commitment to customer satisfaction.

It’s about understanding your customers on a personal level. Understanding their needs, wants, and passions.

And celebrating them!

The more appreciation you show your customers, the more they’ll show by visiting your shop and purchasing your products.

Until next week!

Happy Retaining!

Steve

P.S. Want to learn about cannabis loyalty programs and how to use the VIP treatment to retain more customers? Click here!