Cannabis Friendly Email Marketing Platforms : The Hunt Is On

Email marketing is probably one of the most effective marketing channels a business can utilize. Especially in the cannabis industry where so many other options are closed to us.

After speaking with clients and having my own issues with email marketing platforms in the cannabis space, I thought I’d set out to solve this issue definitively - at least for the foreseeable future.

​I asked 18 ​Email ​​Marketing Service ​Providers ​About ​Their ​Stance on ​Cannabis ​Dispensaries and ​Other ​Related ​Cannabis ​Businesses ​Was . ​Some of the ​Responses were Surpring

​The first thing I did was send them all the following message via their websites. Some didn't have contact forms on their websites (WTF), so I spoke to a few on the phone. A few of them didn't respond to my inquiries so I left themm out of the list. If they don't respond to sales inquiries hen one shudders to think what their support will be like.

Here is the message I sent them

Hi,I own an agency specializing in marketing for cannabis dispensaries and I was wondering if you allow campaigns for cannabis businesses on your platform.Thanks - Dave

​Here ​are the results:

​Yes - Cannabis Friendly

• ​​​​​​​Sendlane
• ​​Drip
• ​MailerLite
• ​​Hubspot
• ​​​Klayvio
• ​​​​Aweber
• ​​​​​Active Campaign
• ​​​​​​Reefer Mail

Not - Cannabis Friendly

• ​​Campaign Monitor
• ​Send​​inBlue
• ​​SendPulse
• ​​​Constant Contact

​Maybe - Cannabis Friendly

• ​​​Mad Mimi
• ​​ConvertKit
• ​​MailChimp
• ​iContact
• ​GetResponse

Click the Links to Read Their Responses Below

​Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you cl​ick through to their site and make a purchase we get a commission. This costs you nothing extra but may help pay us for the time spent writing and researching this post. 

​Cannabis Friendly Email Marketing Platforms

Sendlane

Hey Dave,

Glad to connect here. It's cool to see a cannabis focused agency niche down even further to specifically dispensaries. I'm sure many others do just that but in my experience, it isn't front and center.

We work a lot in the space and I'm looking forward to finding out what you guys need in an email and sms and see if we matchup.

Do you have time next Thursday or Friday to connect? I'll be out of town for the first few days of next week.

Thanks,

After speaking with their rep Amir, I was very encouraged. Sendlane actually runs their own servers which is surprisingly rare in this space. You’d be amazed how many ​ESP's are using Mailgun (Rackspace), Sendgrid or Amazon for their infrastructure and have to ultimately bow to their infrastructure provider needs. In short they’ll take your money until their provider says you have to go.

​Sendlane are not at the cheaper end of the spectrum but they are very feature rich. In the higher service levels they offer SMS and other Multichannel marketing. For their feature set and level of service, they are very competitvley priced.

​Klayvio

Hi Dave,

Thanks for your patience here. We do allow campaigns for cannabis companies.

You may find our partner program useful if you intend on managing accounts for your clients.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Cheers,

Dan

Klayvio

I have never used Klayvio but their response is encouraging and I will be checking them out and adding them to part 2 of this post where I review the cannabis friendly platforms. They have a full marketing automation suite ala Ontraport with SMS messaging as well. Definitely on the higher end of the pricing scale, but they also have one of the more robust feature sets.

Pricing for 15000 emails $350

5000 emails $100 / month

SMS is very expensive  6-7cents

​​Drip

Hi there Dave,

Katella from Drip Support here. Thanks for reaching out to us. I hope you're doing well!

To answer your question, yes you can use Drip for this need! As long as you advertising in a legal way, you should have no issues in getting the information out to your customers using Drip. :)

If you'd like to test Drip out first hand and better understand how it could benefit your team, you can do by taking advantage of our ​​14 day free trial. You can also request a​ demo from our sales team to see how Drip and help your business.

I hope this information helps! If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask Dave!

Cheers,

Katella

Customer Success at Drip™

I really wanted to like Drip. I tried to use them when I first set up my sales funnel.

 But they wouldn't give me API access without a lengthy probationary period which makes them almost useless. I want to use my own forms from day one, not convert everything over after they have deemed me acceptable. Their in house forms are terrible.​

They are however a pretty good choice for eCommerce sites.

​MailerLite

Hi Dave,

Thanks for reaching out!

Cannabis related content is welcome on our platform.

Let me know if you need anything else!

Erin from MailerLite

I suspected I would get a positive response because we have used MailerLite for our mailing list and they have never had an issue, but I am an ancillary business and don’t sell any cannabis products directly - a distinction that some platforms fail to make…

Pricing is good but features are lacking compared to some others. Great for a small business blog. The features will be fine for most people. A great place to start without getting overwhelmed. This is who I use for my website. Great for starting out building your list.

No SMS. Don’t have the segmentation and tracking of some of the others. Easy to use.

​​Hubspot

no contact form - an email provider that doesn’t have a contact form or an email to contact them posted on their site… really?

After speaking with them on the phone I found that they are OK with cannabis businesses as long as you are compliant in your jurisdiction. They have one of the more robust feature sets and offer other services as well. The starter plan for 15000 contacts would be $570 a month.

A little confusing. They offer a full suite of services. You can start for free. Looks more geared to large organizations. I’m already confused about “Marketing Hub” and “Sales Hub”.

 I just want to collect addresses and send emails! This is overkill for the needs of me and my clients, but is probably good for a very large organization.

​AWeber

Hey Dave,

Thank you for contacting AWeber Support!

Yes, you can send that content with AWeber as long as it is legal where you are distributing it and as long as the subscribers opt-in with you. You can also look at our full terms of service with the link below:

https://www.aweber.com/service-agreement.htm

 As long as you follow our terms of service, you should be good!

If you have any other questions in the meantime, do not hesitate to reach out. Have a great day!

Regards,

Amanda H.

Senior Customer Solutions Specialist

AWeber.com

Email Marketing Delivered

Aweber have been around for a long time. This means their interface is not the most modern. They are a solid system though. The pricing is pretty competitive.

​​Re​efer Mail

​No Reply after 2 emails

Cannabis specific. Probably a white label for one of the others. I sent them a slightly different email because they already bill themselves as cannabis friendly.

https://reefermail.com/pricing/

Integrations? Gravity Forms,  Zapier? They seem to be a white label for MailChimp… at least that’s who they use for their list. If so I would not go there...

Pretty strict sending limits. Fairly ​affordable if you stick to those limits.

​Active Campaign

Cannabis friendly because one of their reps reached out to me.  I'm surprised hey haven't got back to me because their reps were hounding me relentlessly at one point. I have clients on their platform but they have not been allowed to use SMS, so not as cannabis friendly as one would like.

Robust platform that has SMS on the higher tiers. Not the cheapest but pretty competitive for the feature set. Looks good for agencies has an affiliate program.

​Not Cannabis Friendly Email Marketing Platforms

​​Campaign Monitor

Hi Dave,

Thanks for sending through some additional detail on the type of content you would like to share with our platform. Unfortunately Campaign Monitor won't be a good fit for you as deliverability for our clients is of the utmost importance to us and we've found that emails containing content on drugs are at high risk for being marked as spam, and as such are prohibited by our terms of use.

This also ensures our server ratings are protected which means high open rates and low spam rates for our clients.

Good luck with your search.

Kind Regards,

Anna

​​I thought we'd won the war on drugs?

​​​SendPulse

Hi Dave,

Unfortunately that topic is forbidden https://sendpulse.com/legal/terms#antispam

Have a nice day

Kateryna ​

SendPulse

​​FORBIDDEN!

 I checked at the link she provided and didn't see any explicit prohibition angainst cannabis. Alcohol and religion we're on the naughty list though.

​Send In Blue

They would not allow me to use them for transactional emails for a client.​ This is part of what prompted this whole quest in the first place.

Possibly Cannabis Friendly Email Marketing Platforms

​Mad Mimi

Hi Dave,

Tom here. Thanks for reaching out to us and your interest in Mad Mimi. We don't have any policy specifically prohibiting the marketing for cannabis businesses.

Below is a list of prohibited content.

• Pharmaceutical products

• Work from home, make money on online, and lead generation opportunities

• Online trading, day trading tips, or stock market-related content

• Gambling services, products, or tips

• Multi-level marketing (MLM)

• Affiliate marketing

• Credit repair and get out of debt opportunities

• Mortgage and loan content

• Nutritional, herbal, and vitamin supplements

• List brokers or list rental services

• Counterfeit or "knock off" products appearing to be another brand

Additionally, Mad Mimi, like most bulk email providers, is a permission-based sender, which means that we can only support sending to contacts that have signed up directly and explicitly with your organization to receive emails.

Let me know if you have additional questions.

Best,

​MadMimi is owned by GoDaddy​ which is a dealbreaker in my book. There is a lot of room in that list of prohibited content to fit cannabis into. Personally, I want a clear answer, that isn't it.

​​​MailChimp

​

​Hey Dave,My name's Trevor - I'm with the Business Development Team for Mailchimp (sales team).As long as cannabis is legal in your state and you are sending marketing emails to those within legal places, you should be good to go. You can only send promotions though regarding your brick and mortar store - you cannot sell cannabis via an ecommerce platform. For all details regarding what you can and cannot do with Mailchimp regarding cannabis - I highly recommend you reach out to our compliance team at compliance@mailchimp.com. They are responsible for the rules surrounding this.Best,Trevor ​Business Development Representative An always-on marketing platform.

Fair enough, at least I didn’t get the “We must protect our sending reputation” schtick...

Mailchimp is one of the biggest and most famous email platforms around. They took a long time (nearly a week) to reply to my ​inquiry.  I’ve used them in the past for non cannabis projects and while they have expanded their feature set since then I have to say I never really liked them. ​They are so big they tend to rely on automated systems to enforce their terms. After reading the following article I think I would steer clear of them no matter what their rep might say.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/monazhang/2017/10/06/marijuana-industrys-mailchimp-woes-highlight-marketing-challenges-for-businesses/#6e9130791761

​They have been known to close accounts of cannabis companies in the past, seemingly without reason. ​

http://www.socialmediaunicorn.com/despite-legalization-anti-cannabis-marketing-censorship-still-full-effect/

​​ConvertKit

Hey Dave!

“Helen here, one of our product specialists. Thanks for reaching out! All situations, specifically involving businesses in such markets as yours are dependent to the structure of the business. We are not able to work with companies that currently sell cannabis, however, we can in most situations work with companies as long as nothing involving cannabis is sold. Of course, this would be a situation our approvals team would need to review in depth. Does this help answer your question?

Thank you,

Helen

Convert Kit is a nice platform specifically geared toward blogging, however their response would seem to rule out dispensaries. While they have a reputation for being easy to use I had a hard time setting up a very simple follow up sequence with them. To be fair that was a number of years ago and I haven’t been back since. May be an OK option for ancillary cannabis business blogs.

iContact

Hi Dave,

Thank you for reaching out to iContact. We accept clients in the marijuana industry on a case by case basis. To move forward, I would need you to send me your client's websites for review.

Thanks,

Sarah

​I don’t want to ask permission every time I set up a client. That makes them a poor option for me, but they may be a good fit for some businesses.

​GetResponse

Hi Dave-

Thank you very much for your inquiry with us!

It always depends on our compliance team, but we don't have a problem with cannabis businesses on GetResponse - I'll try my best to help you.

To help me connect you with the right resource to discuss the platform in more detail/receive a demo, I have a couple quick questions for you:

• What’s your current mailing list size? How frequently are you emailing them?

• How did you build your list? For example: online form, existing customers, cold-outreach etc.

• What are you currently using for email marketing? What is the main reason for changing it?

• Do you have a current timeline and budget for this project?

I’ll direct you to the right resource as soon as I hear back from you. I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Thank you so much,

All in all a pretty encouraging response. GetResponse are one of the OG players in this space, a pretty solid platform so worth a look.

​Who is the Best Choice for Cannabis Fr​​​iendly Email Marketing?

​While there is a lot to consider when choosing an email marketing platform and there is no one size fits all solution, we feel that Sendlane offers the best balance of features to price with an extremely good level of service. It alll depends on your needs.

In our next post we will be reviewing the cannabis friendly providers and comparing features to help you make an informed choice.

Let us know in the comments if there are providers you think we should add to the list.

Cannabis Friendly Email Marketing Platforms : The Hunt Is On was first seen on: THC.IM

Cannabis Friendly Email Marketing Platforms : The Hunt Is On posted first on https://thc.im

Dispensary Marketing Expert Shares Insight On Effective Google Marketing Techniques

The boutique digital marketing specialist THC Internet Marketing is pushing ahead in their mission to inform and educate cannabis dispensaries around the country of the benefits of marketing their business through the Google platform. The agency is a veteran in the field of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and specializes in leveraging the associated marketing techniques for the advancement of the cannabis industry. Read more here: https://thc.im/market-dispensary-google/.

While THC Internet Marketing acknowledges that there are a variety of other brick-and-mortar and online platforms that merit a business’ attention in terms of marketing strategies, they are adamant that dispensaries will see their largest leaps in success once they optimize their presence on Google. According to the agency (and many other industry experts), this is because Google is home to the largest market share of search engine traffic. According to Lifewire, for instance, the world’s population generates an astounding 3.5 billion searches each day, making Google.com itself 2019’s most popular website in both the US and global markets.

As an educational measure, THC Internet Marketing published a new article, titled, ‘Marketing Your Dispensary On Google,’ in which they outline certain steps that a dispensary can take to push their business in front of their target audience on Google. “Having the largest share of online searches means that the vast majority of people who care about cannabis products will be on the Google platform,” points out Davis Winn of THC Internet Marketing. “Therefore, it is in your best interest to find out what requirements the platform has and what tools they put at your disposal.”

As the dispensary SEO expert states in their post, “Marketing your dispensary on Google is probably the most important thing you can do to make your dispensary a long term viable business. Weedmaps and Leafly are great and all, and they should form part of any good dispensary marketing strategy, but Google is still the king. To market your business on Google, you will want to create a holistic strategy that encompasses your entire online presence because Google looks at your complete online footprint when deciding how much visibility you receive.”

The post identifies four key aspects that businesses can focus on to improve their standing on Google: Optimizing their Google My Business (GMB), Building their Website, running Google Ads (though the company advises caution in this area), and what THC Internet Marketing simply terms Everything Else—a series of external factors that still contribute to a company’s visibility on the platform.

Regarding a dispensary’s GMB profile, the company states that, “A complete and optimized verified listing is an absolute must. This is the most important part of marketing your dispensary on Google and the internet in general.” This is because a GMB enables the business to perform several crucial functions: they can read and respond to reviews, curate a selection of photos from their customers (such as those of the business itself as well as their products, read and respond to inquiries posted through the platform, and even gain insight into how new customers find them (which can help them identify new methods to market themselves with). Conveniently, THC Internet Marketing has included a thorough, 2-part guide on why and how cannabis dispensaries should take advantage of this aspect of Google marketing.

Winn continues that there are a multitude of reasons why a dispensary would want to build their own website to accompany their GMB. Among other benefits, it gives them access to more SEO opportunities when they curate and produce their own content, enables them to collect emails, and so on.

Furthermore, as the article explains, “An iron rule in online marketing is this: never build your brand on real estate you don’t own. While social media and other platforms like Weedmaps and Leafly etc. can provide great marketing opportunities, everything should be based around your website. We have seen quite a few dispensaries that simply consider their Weedmaps menu to be their website. This is a mistake in our opinion. While we understand that many dispensaries may not want to take the time and trouble to create their own website, even a very simple and inexpensive website can add a lot of value. By using Weedmaps or Leafly as the ground zero of your web presence, you are building their brand—not your own.” The full article features an extensive breakdown of this topic and is freely accessible on the company’s website.

Those who would like to learn more about Google marketing, Youtube marketing, cannabis email marketing, and other related topics are encouraged to contact Davis Winn of THC Internet Marketing to make further inquiries. They may also visit the company’s website to access their online resources and blog posts, or connect with THC Internet Marketing through their social media channels to stay up to date with their latest news, posts, and announcements.

SOURCE: Press Advantage [Link]

Dispensary Marketing Expert Shares Insight On Effective Google Marketing Techniques is available on: https://www.thc.im/

Dispensary Marketing Expert Shares Insight On Effective Google Marketing Techniques posted first on https://thc.im

Marketing Your Dispensary On Google

Marketing your dispensary on Google is probably the single most important thing you can do to make your dispensary a long term viable business. Weedmaps and Leafly are great and all, and they should form part of any good dispensary marketing strategy, but Google is still the king. To market your business on Google you will want to create a holistic strategy that encompasses your entire online presence because Google looks at your complete online footprint when deciding how much visibility you receive. A complete online presence leads to more visibility on Google but you will likely get more traffic from other sources as well. I will go over four main areas you will need to concentrate on to craft a dispensary marketing plan. I will go into limited detail as each area could be their own post or series of posts.

4 Areas to Concentrate on When Marketing you Dispensary on Google

• Optimize Your GMB
• Build Your Website
• Google Ads (Optional and a little risky. Google is very restrictive in the cannabis space but it's worth a look)
• Everything Else (Off Page Factors that help with Google Visibility)

Optimize Your Google My Business Profile(GMB)

A complete and optimized verified listing is an absolute must. This is the most important part of marketing your dispensary on Google and the internnet in general. We have created a 2 part guide on how to do this yourself.

Google M Business Set Up Guides

• GMB Guide Part 1
• GMB Guide Part 2

Build Your Website

While websites are becoming less important than they used to be you still need one. There are branding and SEO opportunities that are simply not available with other platforms. With a Wordpress website it is possible to embed your weedmaps menu on your site so that you can have the best of both worlds. You get the control of owning your own online real estate with the legitimacy of having an online menu. The most important thing to remember is that Google loves brands. You need to build your complete online presence around your brand.

Advantages Of Using Your Own Website

• You own the real estate
• Brand Legitimacy
• SEO Opportunities
• Collect Emails

An iron rule in online marketing is never build your brand on real estate you don’t own. While social media and other platforms like Weedmaps and Leafly Instagram etc. can provide great marketing opportunities, everything should be based around your website. We have seen quite a few dispensaries that simply consider their Weedmaps menu to be their website. This is a mistake in our opinion. While we understand that many dispensaries may not want to take the time and trouble create their own website, even a very simple and inexpensive website can add a lot of value. By using Weedmaps or Leafly as the ground zero of your web presence you are building their brand – not your own.

Your brand is your business, without a website you are simply another name at the top of a Weedmaps page with nothing to differentiate you from all the other dispensaries in your town. What if Weedmaps suddenly raises their prices to an unnaceptable level. What if they decide they just don’t like you anymore? Or you get legislated off of their platform, or even worse, their platform gets legislated out of existence.

Having your own website allows you opportunity to optimize the page in ways that you can’t on other platforms. You can add structured data, optimized headings and text as well as an embeded map. You can optimize the page for conversions as well. You are unlikely to ever find yourself in the coveted 3 Pack on Google with a Weedmaps menu as your website.

Dispensary SEO

When trying to gain visibility for your website and GMB listing on Google the ultimate goal in your cannabis dispensary SEO strategy should be Maps rankings that generate directions requests, phone calls and website visits. Maps rankings are the most lucrative. As shown below, the 3-Pack in Maps does a few things. From their phone, customers can click on your business's name, which gives customers more information about your company, including a click-to-call button and a get directions button. Click to call is essential to the growth of your business because a Google study shows that 70% of mobile searchers click-to-call a business from Google results. Directions requests are the ultimate customer action for dispensaries because 80% of directions requests result in an in store visit within 24 hours.

The Coveted 3 Pack in Google Maps

In a world of constant smart phone usage, your customers want a way to push a button and instantly be connected to your business. Since 3-Pack results are largely displayed based on the location of the searcher, your ability to get more phone calls and leads to your business is based on two critical factors:

• Visibility. You need to outrank your competitors and be seen in as many parts of town as possible, and there are many factors that play into your ability to achieve this; and
• Reviews and a lot of them. Nothing will get a potential customer to act faster than a lot of glowing reviews. On the other hand, a lack of reviews or negative reviews can be damaging to your business.

The 3-Pack receives the majority of actual clicks on a results page, at a 44% rate, according to Moz .

The results are below.

44% of all clicks go to the Maps Pack

Step 1 keyword research

Figure out which keywords are most valuable.

Hint the big keywords for dispensaries are:

• marijuana dispensary
• weed dispensary
• cannabis dispensary

You will also want to go after “near me” and “yourcity”variations of those 3. Those three main or top level keywords are listed in order of search volume nationally. However, It may vary in your local market. Once you have decided on your keyword targets you need to optimize your site for them. Your main page will likely be optimized for those three listed above. Marijuana and cannabis are essentially synonymous in the eyes of Google but you should mention both of them on your main landing page.

Your main landing page will be the URL you list in your GMB listing. If you are a single location dispensary then it will likely be your homepage. If you are a multi location dispensary, you should list that location’s page on your GMB profile and all other listings. You will also want to add structured data to the location page that you list on GMB. For a little background on what structured data is and how to implement it you can check oout Google’s guide at : https://developers.google.com/search/docs/guides/intro-structured-data

Your name address and phone number or NAP as it is known in industry parlance should be listed consistently on as many relevant sites as possible. These are known as citations and they add brand legitimacy in the eyes of Google and they can also provide a little link juice and traffic. All of which help you gain visibility on Google. We have a post on cannabis business citations we created previously.

Email Marketing From Your Website

Email is Still the King

Having your own website allows you to collect email addresses from online visitors and add them to a mailing list. You will need to offer them some sort of discount or product to get them to sign up, but the long term gains from building an email list are well worth it. You need to be careful here to ensure compliance with local laws, you are likely not allowed to give away free flower or concentrates, but penny pre-rolls may be allowed – or a free pack of branded rolling papers are a good enticement as they provide you with further exposure to the customer’s friends after they leave the store.

Build a list of 20 000 emails and it is likely that you will make at least an addition 500 sales every time you send out an email blast. Do that once a week and and you can see how an email list is an incredibly valuable asset. Check out our other post about email marketing for further information on how and why you need to build a list.

Produce your own content!

With your own site you can share the content you create from your own site. Your social media shares will point back to your site, lending your brand further legitimacy. It also adds topical depth and topical breadth. This means that you will begin to be visible for a much larger collection of search terms. We have had clients go from getting search visibility for around 300 terms in GMB to over 1000 terms. This translates into more visitors and customers and less worrying about losing a ranking on that one bread and butter keyword.

Google Ads – promoted pins

Google Ads Promoted Pin for a Cannabis Dispensary in Portland OR

Everyone knows that Google is not kind to the cannabis space, but as part of the Google ecosystem any Google marketing guide would be incomplete without mentioning Google Ads (formerly known as AdWords). As an SEO I kind of consider using Google Ads as admitting defeat but they can have a place in an SEO campaign.  I would recommend against using this if you are not experienced with Google Ads and also experienced with them in the cannabis space. There is a risk of suspension and getting not only your ads, but your listing removed as well. Although I’ve never heard of anyone losing a listing, I have definitely heard of Ads accounts getting suspended. Usually the worst that will happen is that your ads simply won’t get approved.

You need to set up an Ads account – carefully. You must enable location extensions – this is the most important part. These creates ads on Google Maps called “promoted pins”. I would use these to gain visibility on keywords that you aren’t ranking for naturally. You could also use them on keywords that you do rank in the three pack for to take up more screen real estate and crowd out your competitors. You must not mention the words cannabis, marijuana or weed in the text of your ads. You well likely want to create dedicated landing pages for your ads as well.

OffSite Factors

As part of gaining visibilty on Google you need to take care of your entire online presence. You need an active presence on other platforms as well. While Google claims that social signals are not a ranking factor – they lie. You need to be very careful about listening to what Google says. Their main goal is to get people to buy ads, not help you gain visibility through other means. You need a properly executed citation campaign to gain both backlinks and NAP consistency. And yes, you will need backlinks. But beware of anyone that tells you they will build X number of links every month. They are likely using bots and automated software that builds low quality links that can harm your site if done poorly. Those sorts of links have their uses, but don’t let anyone build them directly to your site.

Posts Go Out and Links Come Back!

I always suggest building out complete and active profiles on other social media sites such as Facebook (an important citation source), WordPress.com, Blogger etc. This gives your brand a big footprint and tells Google you mean business. Every time you post content to your blog it should also be posted on your other profiles with attribution links back to your site. This can be automated, and is great way to get activity and links to your site from the other social media properties. I highly recommend you outsource this part of the process as it iis rather time consuming and we can do it very inexpensively.

Conclusion

You can get a pretty good start on your own when it comes to marketing your dispensary on Google, but you will likely need to enlist the help of a professional when it comes to to some of he more involved portions of your plan. You are not going to become a master SEO in a weekend. You can however set up a solid foundation on your own.

Marketing Your Dispensary On Google is courtesy of: THC.IM

Marketing Your Dispensary On Google posted first on https://thc.im

THC Internet Marketing Posts Blog on Email Marketing for Dispensaries

 

THC Internet Marketing, a boutique digital marketing firm specializing in digital marketing for cannabis dispensaries, recently posted an article about email marketing for dispensaries. The article discusses the benefits to cannabis dispensaries of having an email marketing campaign, serves as a guide to launching an email marketing campaign, and can be found here: https://thc.im/email-marketing-cannabis-dispensaries/.

In this article, Davis Winn, of THC Internet Marketing, gives some quick tips for dispensaries looking to make the most of their email marketing campaigns. First off, it’s very important to collect customer emails as much as possible. Once information has been collected, Winn recommends planning out emails carefully. Emails should be relationship building and only occasionally try to make a sale, in order to build trust and an ongoing relationship with customers. This is because, while new customers are important for business growth, repeat customers are an extremely valuable part of the customer base. Especially combined with a loyalty or rewards program, an email list that brings in returning customers on a regular basis has incredible bang for the buck.

“Returning customers often spend more money than new customers,” Winn commented. “When they have some brand loyalty, they’re also more likely to recommend their favorite stores to a friend. An email list is an excellent tool to help any dispensary build that kind of relationship with their customers, so they can trust that their customers are talking about them. Weed has traditionally been shared, and so has information about weed, where to get it, and who to trust. An email campaign makes it that much easier for customers to share information about their favorite dispensaries.

Email lists for email marketing campaigns are easy to set up and have lots of useful features, such as the ability to send emails to different customers depending on how they’ve interacted with the company, to schedule emails to send in the future, and to allow for tracking to see what parts of the emails are most interacted with by the email recipients. These features are often free or inexpensive after regular email campaign manager fees, and are well worth the money for the ability to target customers more specifically.

Some of the benefits of using email marketing include increasing customer retention, having a way of identifying customers, and sending targeted promotions for slow times of day or product that isn’t moving. Email marketing campaigns are especially good for getting repeat business, and have an excellent return on investment. Some additional information about email marketing for cannabis dispensaries can be found here: https://thc.im/email-marketing-for-dispensaries/.

In the last few years, cannabis has been made legal or at least decriminalized in a number of US States and countries around the world. As the legal market grows, questions about how to integrate into legal systems of banking and marketing have plagued the industry. That’s why companies like THC Internet Marketing have come along, to help dispensaries handle the details of internet marketing so they can focus on what they do best: tending bud.

Email marketing is an important part of a marketing plan for cannabis dispensaries especially because of the legal grey area they exist in. Many forms of marketing won’t work with dispensaries because of the legal liability that doing so could present. Additionally, it can be helpful to form a good relationship with customers to assure them that they are in good hands with their dispensary regardless of any shady rumors they may have heard about the cannabis industry. Any dispensary can benefit from having an email campaign.

In this brave new world of growing cannabis legalization, it’s important for sellers of cannabis to work to create an excellent connection with their customers by having a stellar dispensary marketing plan. THC Internet Marketing can help by providing information on email marketing, internet marketing and SEO services, and more. Visit their website for more information on their services, to read their blog for helpful tips on email marketing and more, or contact them to get a quote for their internet marketing services.

SOURCE: Press Advantage [Link]

The post THC Internet Marketing Posts Blog on Email Marketing for Dispensaries was first published on: THC.IM

THC Internet Marketing Posts Blog on Email Marketing for Dispensaries posted first on https://thc.im

Email Marketing For Cannabis Dispensaries

In today’s ultra competitive business environment, especially in the fast-moving and rapidly expanding world of cannabis dispensaries, if you aren’t leveraging everything that email marketing has to offer you are doing your business a huge disservice. We like to say that “SEO and reputation management brings ‘em in, and email brings ‘em back.”

Today, 92% of ALL internet users have email, more than 70% check their email every single day (multiple times a day), and email is the most often used form of digital communication – even outpacing social media these days.

If you are not utilizing email marketing as part of your dispensary marketing plan, you are leaving money on the table.

At the same time, figuring out how to “crack the code” when it comes to email marketing for marijuana dispensaries is nowhere near as simple and as straightforward as firing off and email every now and again and hoping for the best.

You really have to be strategic about how you use this marketing channel and that’s why we’ve put this quick guide together.

ALWAYS Ask for Contact Information

The number one thing you can do to dramatically improve the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns, even if you never change the actual emails themselves, is to start asking for email contact information at literally EVERY opportunity. You should also always offer something in return for an email. It can be a discount or some sort of coupon. A free pack of rolling papers is a great giveaway for an email. The customer gets something they need from you and you expose them to your brand every time they roll one up. Since joints are often shared – it’s likely that their friends will see your brand as well.

For one reason or another, a lot of entrepreneurs get a little squeamish when it comes time to ask for someone’s email. Don’t let that happen to you.

Email marketing lets you effortlessly (and inexpensively) reach out to your prospects and your customers as often as you like, letting them know what’s going on in your business but also making offers that can help ring your register and build your business at the same time.

Look for ways to grow your email list as often as possible and really drill down into your staff at your dispensary that they should be collecting contact information (or verifying information that’s already been collected) every single time they interact with a customer. There can be compliance issues with collecting and storing client information in a medical setting in some situations but https://www.springbig.com/ has solved this with an innovative opt-in system with a built in loyalty program designed specifically for dispensaries.

Plan Your Campaigns

Plan your email campaigns

The most successful business owners are very systematic and very strategic in how they market and advertise. They do not take a willy-nilly approach to building and growing their business.

Instead of firing off an email whenever you think about it, or whenever you remember to do so, instead preplan 10 or 15 emails in advance and put them in an auto responder so they start sending regularily as soon as your customer signs up, so that each individual email builds on top of every other email sent, creating real campaigns that can steadily grow your revenue. You can then add in one off emails when you have special deals or events you want your subscribers to know about.

As a general rule, you’ll want the overwhelming majority of emails in your campaigns to be relationship building emails. Think of these emails as a way to communicate with your customers, to let them better understand who you are and what help separate you from other cannabis dispensaries, and to just kind of build a relationship that’s not revolving entirely around the business/customer dynamic.

Every third or fourth email you’ll want to pitch something, however, as you also want these emails to be good for business. In a 10 email sequence you might have seven emails that are purely relationship building and three that our relationship building but also designed to get them to take some sort of action and to buy something from you. Use these as an opportunity to announce new products or time sensitive discounts or deals.

Don’t Overlook Your Past Customers – Turn them into Regulars

Every business owner on the planet wants to bring more new customers into their operation, and entrepreneurs in the cannabis dispensary world are no different.

At the same time, the most expensive thing you will ever do your business is try and convince a complete and total stranger to give you their hard earned money as opposed to giving it to anyone else – and that’s the challenge in bringing new customers to your business.

Obviously, every business needs new customers to grow and expand but that doesn’t mean that you should be overlooking the value that your past customers have.

• Customers enrolled in dispensary loyalty programs spend 3x more per transaction than new customers.

• Members of dispensary rewards programs have 35% larger basket sizes

Having an email list is also a great opportunity to ask for customer feedback and solicit reviews. Both of which are important for improving your customer service and increasing your online visibility.

Loyalty Programs

Email marketing combined with a loyalty program can be used to target customers that have already purchased something from you, customers that already like what you have to offer, like your prices, and love your products – customers that would be a lot more likely to come back to your dispensary and purchase more of what you have to offer.

Email campaigns can be segmented to specifically target past customers differently than new prospects or potential new customers, which is another major advantage of this marketing technology. Different messages should be sent to different segments of your customer list (people that purchase CBD would get CBD campaigns versus those that purchase other products, for example) – skyrocketing the success rate and helping you expand your business at a breakneck pace.

Thankfully, implementing email marketing into your cannabis dispensary doesn’t have to feel like an uphill battle.

A lot of the tools available (like email autoresponder services, for example) are either 100% free of charge or very inexpensive to use. And because creating effective emails boils down to writing to your customers like you would a close personal friend, rather than using “corporate speak”, you are in the driver’s seat when it comes to sending messages that resonate and convert as well.

Your individual situation will determine which tools you should use. If you have online ordering you may want to look at a system that has the ability to send cart abandonment emails. If compliance is an issue you may want to look at SpringBig. Feel free to reach out to us and we can help you decide. Keep an eye out for a future post reviewing the various auto-responder options.

The post Email Marketing For Cannabis Dispensaries was originally published on: THC Internet Marketing

Email Marketing For Cannabis Dispensaries posted first on https://thc.im

THC Internet Marketing Announces Comprehensive Cannabis Business Listings

THC Internet Marketing is a boutique digital marketing specializing in providing traffic for cannabis dispensaries. The directory states that they have compiled the most comprehensive and updated list of places that dispensaries and cannabis businesses can submit their information in order for online shoppers to find them. THC internet Marketing recently released an optimization guide for Google My Business that is designed to help businesses to understand the need for an online presence. More on the company can be seen at https://thc.im/dispensary-directory-citation-sites/.

Davis Winn, a representative for the directory says that the next step, after Google My Business optimization is for companies to submit their information to citation sites. “Dispensary owners, just like any other business owner, need to get their information out there,” says Winn. “Without listing in directories, these businesses cannot expect customers to be able to find them and although the majority of them are offline stores meaning that they do not sell things online, having an online presence is still a vital part of business marketing.”

Winn says that any business, regardless of whether or not they operate online, should have an online presence in order for customers to find them. Statistics show that the majority of consumers today have smartphones and that they use the internet on these phones in order to find certain businesses.

“This just means that if a company is not found online, it probably won’t be found by customers at all,” Winn adds. “People use the internet to find everything these days. Having an online presence is a must for dispensaries to be able to find new customers and show them what they have to offer and how to find their brick and mortar location.”

Winn says that when a dispensaries decides to submit cannabis links to a directory, they are essentially making it easier for future customers to find them. He adds that if a customer cannot find a particular dispensary, but there is another one that has been listed online, they are likely to use the one that Google finds for them.

“And that means that the dispensary that did not list themselves in a directory is losing business,” Winn adds.

Winn says that dispensaries face difficulties when they attempt to market online, many of which deal with the legalities of cannabis, particularly in states where it is not yet legalized. So, a dispensary may not be able to have a website or use traditional means of marketing in order to establish their online presence. He says that this is where directory listings come in handy.

He says that dispensaries need to find and then claim their Google Map listings so that consumers can more easily find them. The company covered this and many other points for dispensaries to consider with their Google My Business Optimization guide that is designed to help businesses to better understand the need for Google Map locations and what those Google maps can do for them with regards to helping customers to find them.

Winn says that once a company has verified their Google Maps location, they should begin submitting their links to directories. Winn adds that any dispensary or cannabis related business that is unsure about how they should proceed with marketing their business can contact the company to learn more about the processes that they should consider.

Those who are interested in learning more about how to properly and effectively market a dispensary or other cannabis based business can visit the company on their own website or reach out to them directly for a consultation. Winn adds that THC Internet Marketing shares information on their various social media sites and he says that they regularly offer new information and guides related to marketing these types of businesses in an effort to help cannabis businesses to reach their desired customer base. More on this and other services that the company offers can be found on their official website.

SOURCE: Press Advantage [Link]

The following blog post THC Internet Marketing Announces Comprehensive Cannabis Business Listings is courtesy of: THC.IM Blog

THC Internet Marketing Announces Comprehensive Cannabis Business Listings posted first on https://thc.im

THC Internet Marketing Announces Google My Business For Dispensaries

THC Internet Marketing, a boutique digital marketing agency specializing in providing traffic for cannabis dispensaries, is pleased to announce the launch of their latest post in a series of guides about Google My Business optimization for cannabis dispensaries. The series is made up of a number of highly informative posts meant to teach dispensary owners how to market themselves effectively, a process that cannabis dispensaries often find difficult to manage. The article can be found here: Google My Business Optimization for Dispensaries Part 2.

The first part in the series showed dispensaries how to set up a listing and optimize it while waiting for it to be verified. Building off this information, the recent post discusses the steps that dispensaries can take to optimize their listing after verification. “Hopefully, at this point, you’ve become somewhat familiar with the interface and will be familiar with each section in the back end of your listing,” says the post, noting that the dispensaries, “should have already filled out the basics such as your hours etc.”

The post, and the series as a whole, is written under the assumption that the reader is using a newly set up (or claimed) listing and, since GMB optimization, like most SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategies, is an on-going process, the post aims to help the reader set up a good foundation for future marketing endeavors. The first step is to enter a name for the business, and this is usually done when initially setting up the listing. The post advises dispensary owners, “If you claimed your listing from Google and the name they had was incorrect, now is the time to fix it. It should be the name that you are registered under or at least your DBA name. The name that you would list in the phone book—you will be adding yourself to the Yellow Pages once this is all done.” Read the first part of the series on GMB optimization for dispensaries at the link provided.

According to Google, the name entered should reflect the business’ real world name, as used consistently on its storefront, website, stationery, and as it is known to customers. This is crucial because accurately representing one’s business name helps customers find it online. The post states that one is only supposed to include the name and nothing else. Some multi-location business will include the city or neighborhood of a particular branch in their Google My Business listing name which is, technically, not allowed but does not usually cause any problems, and can be a good way to differentiate separate locations that are close together.

After entering a name, the next step is to enter the category, which will ‘cannabis store,’ followed by the address, the service area for businesses that do deliveries, and service hours (including holiday hours), and an opening date if the business hasn’t opened yet. The post also advises dispensaries to include their ‘short name’ on their listing, along with their website URL.

The actual marketing is done in the ‘Description’ section. “This is where you get to pitch your business,” says the post. “Google gives you 750 characters but it will be truncated at 250 characters in the Knowledge Panel and it will be on the “About” Tab on Mobile. I could, and probably will, write an entire post on how to write the description. I went over this in Part 1, but to reiterate, consider this your chance to pitch your business, don’t keyword stuff, and keep the most important parts at the top as anything after 250 characters will require the user to click to see it.”

After explaining how to set up a listing, the post then goes into detail about many other aspects of the process, including the various tabs, how to respond to negative reviews, what kind of images to upload, and much more to help any business create the perfect listing.

THC Internet Marketing has developed proven systems for marketing cannabis dispensaries and achieved positive results through these methods. The company’s aim is to increase in-store visits by expanding their clients’ visibility and providing reputation management solutions to convert that visibility into loyal customers.

Anyone looking to improve the visibility of their cannabis dispensary can rely on THC Internet Marketing’s tried and tested marketing methods. Cannabis marketing takes a lot more than just SEO, and THC Internet Marketing is ready to go the extra mile to make their clients’ stores more visible. Find out more about the dispensary marketing agency at the link provided.

SOURCE: Press Advantage [Link]

The blog post THC Internet Marketing Announces Google My Business For Dispensaries is courtesy of: https://www.thc.im

THC Internet Marketing Announces Google My Business For Dispensaries posted first on https://thc.im