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:

• How to identify your VIP customers

• 5 ways to keep your VIP’s happy

• What you can do today

Let’s Roll 🛼

There’s no ‘secret’ to customer loyalty. You’re just doing it wrong.

There’s a lot of inconsistency in the cannabis industry; inconsistent product quality, inconsistent product availability, inconsistent marketing strategies…

Inconsistency causes your customers to get frustrated, and then they’re off to the next dispensary.

To create loyal customers, you must consistently provide a positive customer experience.

And your VIP customers are your most loyal customers. And just like your favorite actor at the Academy Awards, you need to roll out the red carpet for your STARS🤩

Always remember the 80/20 rule:

VIP customers not only bring in consistent sales but can also act as brand ambassadors, recommending your brand to others.

Identifying Your VIP Customers:

Identifying your VIP’s involves analyzing customer behavior, purchase patterns, and engagement levels.

Purchase History Analysis:

• Frequency: Look for customers who make purchases more frequently than average.

• Volume: Identify customers who buy in larger quantities or have a higher average order value (AOV).

• Longevity: Consider how long someone has been a customer, giving higher value to those with a longer history with your brand.

Engagement Levels:

Measure engagement through email opens, clicks, and social media interactions.

Customers who consistently engage with your content can be considered more valuable due to their active interest in your brand.

Loyalty Program Participation:

Review your loyalty program's data. VIP customers often accumulate points quickly, redeem rewards more frequently, or participate actively in any loyalty-driven events or challenges.

5 Ways To Keep Your VIP’s Happy:

1. Exclusive offers and discounts:

This one is obvious. Create special offers that are only available to your VIP’s. But make these offers good - early access to new products, special bundle deals, VIP event invitations, BIG savings.

2. Priority service:

Offer VIP customers priority service options.

This could be in the form of expedited shipping for online purchases, priority reservations for in-store visits, or direct access to customer service representatives.

Maybe even try VIP in-store shopping hours?🤔

3. Feedback loops:

Customer feedback is the best way to improve your strategy. And feedback from your star buyers is like hitting pay dirt.

Ask them about their experience with your brand - what they like, what they don’t like, what they’d like to see changed, etc. And ask for reviews!

Improving your VIP experience is an ongoing task, but the ROI is off the charts.

Ask➡️Improve➡️Test➡️Repeat

4. Personalized experience:

Your entire email strategy should be personalized whenever possible (e.g. greet customers by name, relevant recommendations, etc.), but your most loyal customers need a little more.

Personalize as much as possible for your All-Stars.

Welcome them to your VIP club, show them what they’ll get for being a member, include extra personal messages in the VIP content (e.g. special thank you note from the CEO or founder).

5. VIP post-purchase flow:

You know I love my post-purchase flows. Like any other email strategy, you need to take your post-purchase flows up a notch for your VIP’s.

Post-purchase usually involves thanking your customer for their order, and giving them a discount for their next purchase.

Check out my 7-step post-purchase flow here!

Your VIP email flows are like regular email flows on steroids - better discounts, extra personalization, more value.

And most importantly, your VIP’s need to KNOW that they’re VIP’s.

Thank them for their repeat purchase, offer VIP-only discounts.

Let them know that they’re valued by your brand!

What You Can Do Today:

Start by identifying and segmenting your VIP customers using the tips above⬆️

Look at purchase behavior, AOV, frequency of purchase to determine your top X% (amount can vary - usually ~20%) of customers.

It’s called performing a recency, frequency, and monetary (or REM) analysis.

Once you’ve identified your stars, you can create VIP flows for most of your automations; all abandonment flows (cart, checkout, browse), as well as your post-purchase should have their own VIP customer versions to keep your best customer’s coming back and talking about you.

Check out my post on how to optimize your abandoned cart flows here!

Remember, it’s not just about identifying your top customers, you need to know how to treat them, and show them that they’re a valued member of your brand.

Your happiest customers are your FREE, 24/7 brand ambassadors.

Treat them right and they’ll treat you right😊

Until next time!

Steve

P.S. Have any questions? Reply to this email or DM me on LinkedIn! I want to help you grow your brand in anyway possible, and questions are 100% free to ask!