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.

⚡Quick Tip⚡

Today’s Email:

• Mapping Out Your Unique Customer Journey

• Customizing Your Customer Journey

• What You Can Do Today

Let’s Roll 🛼

Hey there, wanna know how to always know your customers’ next move??

By mapping out the journey your customer goes through from awareness to advocacy for your brand, you can do just that.

If you understand each phase of your customer’s journey,

• What they’re going through

• What their preferences are

• What their objections are

• How they’re feeling

Then you can create content that gets their attention and drives action.

Here’s 7 steps for mapping out your brand’s unique customer journey, and how to optimize each phase for each customer:

Step 1: Define Your Customer Personas

The first step in any marketing strategy is knowing your audience.

Customer personas make it easy to segment your audience based on similar preferences, demographics, behaviors, or psychographic data.

Use personas to segment your customers based off what you know about them now, while continuously gathering data on them to segment them more precisely.

For more on creating cannabis customer personas and identifying your core customer groups,

click here!

Step 2: Identify Key Touchpoints

Where and how are these personas interacting with your brand?

• Website

• Social media

• In-store

• Email comms

Understanding these interactions allows you to see where your customers are most likely to engage, inquire, or make decisions.

Optimize the interactions.

Knowing where your audience is engaging with your brand helps to get your targeted content seen by the right people.

Step 3: Outline the Customer Journey Phases

Physically map out each phase of the customer journey. Typically it goes like this:

1. Awareness Phase

• Where It Happens: This phase is when potential customers first learn about your brand. It often occurs through:

  • Social Media: Discovering the brand through ads, influencer posts, or organic shares.

  • Word of Mouth: Recommendations from friends or family members who are satisfied customers.

  • Events and Sponsorships: Encountering the brand at industry expos, local events, or through sponsored content.

  • SEO and Content Marketing: Finding the brand via search engines through blog posts, articles, or other educational content that ranks well.

2. Consideration Phase

• Where It Happens: This phase involves deeper engagement as potential customers evaluate your offerings more closely. It usually happens through:

  • Website: Browsing your site to learn more about products, read customer reviews, or explore detailed content.

  • Email/SMS Sign-ups: Opting into communications to receive more information, often triggered by initial interest from other touchpoints.

  • In-store Visits: Visiting the physical store to view products firsthand or interact with staff for more information.

  • Webinars or Online Demos: Participating in educational sessions that provide more insights into the products and their benefits.

3. Purchase Phase

• Where It Happens: The actual transaction phase, which can occur through various channels:

  • Online Store: Making a purchase through the dispensary’s e-commerce platform.

  • Physical Store: Buying products in-person, often after receiving advice or recommendations from staff.

  • Phone Orders: If your dispensary offer phone ordering for pickup or delivery.

4. Retention Phase

• Where It Happens: After the purchase, retaining customers involves ongoing engagement:

  • Follow-up Emails: Sending thank you emails, satisfaction surveys, or offering next-purchase coupons.

  • Loyalty Programs: Engaging customers through points, rewards, or exclusive member benefits.

  • Re-engagement Campaigns: Targeted emails or SMS messages aimed at customers who haven’t made a purchase in a while.

  • Customer Support: Providing excellent ongoing support and troubleshooting for any issues post-purchase.

5. Advocacy Phase

• Where It Happens: Turning satisfied customers into advocates often occurs through:

  • Social Media Sharing: Encouraging customers to share their positive experiences or refer friends through social platforms.

  • Review Platforms: Prompting customers to leave positive reviews on platforms like Yelp, Google, or industry-specific sites.

  • Referral Programs: Offering incentives for customers who bring in new clients through referral programs.

  • Community Events: Engaging loyal customers in community or charity events, increasing brand attachment and advocacy.

Step 4: Utilize Alpine IQ (or other CRM) to Enhance Mapping

The more I explore CRM’s like Alpine and Spring Big, the more I realize just how powerful and underused these software’s are.

Most CRM’s have tools for the most crucial steps of your marketing strategy:

• Data Integration: Integrate data across touchpoints (POS, online, and mobile). This helps create a seamless view of customer interactions.

• Segmentation: Create more personalized communications.

• Automation: Set up automated email campaigns for different stages of the journey. Welcome emails, birthday discounts, anniversaries, etc.

• Analytics: Comprehensive analytic reports show you exactly what’s working and what’s not.

Get the most out of your tools! DM me on LinkedIn for any CRM questions! I know they can be overwhelming, and I’m happy to help any canna brand with their strategy😊😊

Step 5: Customize the Journey for Different Personas

Your customers all follow similar journeys with your brand, but it’s important to recognize that different personas require different types of offers and incentives to move to the next phase.

For example…

Medical Users: Might require more educational content and reassurance through expert articles, detailed product descriptions, and more frequent customer support interactions.

Recreational Users: Could be more responsive to campaigns featuring new product releases, high THC products, or loyalty rewards for frequent purchases.

Step 6: Test and Optimize

Remember ABT - Always Be Testing.

Testing different strategies, flows, email elements, content styles, incentives, etc. is all part of the game.

Use the A/B testing tools in your CRM of choice to test subject lines, CTA’s, send times, and anything else you want to analyze.

I will never leave this step out!

Step 7: Regular Updates and Feedback

The cannabis market is constantly changing and evolving, and so are your customers.

It’s important to regularly update your journey map based on customer feedback and new data.

Gather feedback through surveys, polls, FAQ’s, or get your customer-facing team members to start gathering feedback right from the source.

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

What You Can Do Today:

It sounds complicated, but in reality, you already have plenty of information on your audience to create more targeted campaigns that address each step of their journey.

Here’s where you should start: ⬇️⬇️

Gather existing data from all sources like your CRM, POS, social media, or website.

Consolidate your data to better understand your audience.

Develop basic personas based on the data you collect and start segmenting your audience as best you can.

Identify all potential customer touchpoints (online and offline).

Sketch a basic customer journey map to physically map out the customer journey for each segment or persona you’ve created.

Set up a feedback mechanism to gather additional data or suggestions for improvement in your strategy.

Involve your whole team in your plan, and get ready to analyze!

That’s all for this week.

Happy Strategizing!

P.S. And Happy Labor Day too😊😊