If you’re starting to get savvy with this whole dispensary marketing thing (or even if you’re not), you’ve probably noticed that this year there are two motivational factors that act as the key drivers for repeat business for your dispensary in the cannabis industry. Those key drivers, of course, would be having a quality loyalty program in place, and utilizing text message marketing to build and maintain a relationship with your customers.
The biggest part of effective dispensary marketing is sending the right message to the right person at the right time. A loyalty or rewards program along with an effective SMS or text marketing campaign in place can help you keep customers coming through your doors. By using these two tactics alongside marketing automation tools, you can schedule and automate your messages to go out to a segmented audience based on their buying behaviors and interests, which can increase traffic and sales.
If you want to attract new customers and nurture your current ones from all segments and interest levels with text marketing, you should try utilizing any of these examples of rewards and offers for your dispensary.
1. Fill up your store during slow hours with a Happy Hour.
Just like most businesses, you probably have a customer lull in your dispensary at some point during the day. If you’d like for that to change, you should try running a happy hour campaign during that period of time. Send a text out to everyone with an enticing promotion to get people into the store. Some examples include a percent off the whole order, a freebie, a discounted product, Buy one get one sale, etc.
You can also use this tactic when you’re already expecting to be busy. I know that sounds like pouring kerosene on a raging fire, but if you already know you’re going to be busy, you’ve already got extra staff and budtenders working. That means handling the influx of customers will be handled with no issue. You can even incentivize a refer-a-friend program by offering a really stellar discount or a freebie when a customer brings a friend along.
Happy hour can be as short as a half hour or as long as a few hours every day. Just take some time to find out what makes sense for you and your staff. Make sure your texts are short, simple, and to the point.
2. Bring new customers in with first-time specials and keep them coming back with a reward program.
If you want to attract new customers you should make sure you have solid first-timer specials in place. These can be as extravagant as you’d like, so get creative! Most dispensaries offer things like a 25% discount or $50 off on their purchase, or a free pre-roll. Some companies offer cheap ounces of flower and grams of shatter. You can also list your deals and specials in the Cannabis Coupon Book!
When a new customer comes in, you want to make sure that they come back which is where your dispensary loyalty program comes into place. Your rewards program can include just about anything. Many rewards programs include things like free glass or a big reward after spending x amount of money. After the initial sign up (which should capture their email and phone number, their name, and their personal preferences), make them feel like they just joined your family by sending them a warm welcome and a major incentive to bring them back.
3. Make everyone feel included by running daily deals that align with your audiences.
Most dispensaries run some type of daily deal, and yours should too! Your store offers a ton of different products that some people use more than others. If you have an entire audience dedicated to edible users, for example, you should be running a special once a week that discounts the edibles. There are 7 days in a week and 7 days of opportunity.
Many dispensaries use terms like Tasty Tuesday or Shatterday to describe the specials going on that day. For example, you can use Munchies Monday to promote edibles and drinks or Topical Tuesday to promote your bath bombs lotions or salves. Weed Wednesday is easy, and it promotes flower specials. Shatterday works for shatter deals on Saturday. Just get creative! There are tons of products in your store that you can promote.
You don’t have to send your audience a message every day to let them know what specials are going on. You can send a mass text with all of your weekly deals listed at the beginning of the week, or you can send one message to one group of people on a specific day of deals that makes sense for them and their preferences.
Keep it fresh, too. If your flower special is the same every single week, people might lose interest so make sure that new and exciting things are being promoted during the week.
4. Surprise them with stellar specials that require a minimum purchase.
One of the easiest ways to get customers to drop more money in your dispensary than they’d like to is offering a really exciting deal or promotion based on a minimum purchase. If you have a special item or accessory that outperforms everything else that your customers would LOVE to get for free or extremely cheap, you can send an SMS message that offers that special item for free when they spend x amount of dollars.
You can offer everything from vapes and accessories to glassware to discounted flower and concentrates. Many dispensaries in Denver use things like pre-rolled joints or blunts for a penny when they spend more than $100 on other products.
People naturally have a fear of missing out on a great deal or special, so you can definitely capitalize on specials like this. It also gets people excited. In fact, when an offer like this is going on, people tend to spend more than they initially wanted to. If someone came in for some weed and a couple edibles and their total came out to $90, it would be easy to persuade them to spend that extra 10 bucks so they can get that free joint. That earns the dispensary more money and created a happy customer that feels like they got a good deal, even though they actually spent more money than they wanted to.
5. Give your big spenders some extra love and attention, and make sure everyone knows you’re doing it.
Your goal is to earn more money with your dispensary marketing tactics, and you need customers to spend more money to achieve that goal. A great way to do that is to create specials and deals that are only for VIP customers, or customers who already spend a lot of money in your store.
Thank your VIPs by offering them special perks, deals, and discounts that simply aren’t available to other customers. This will encourage more of your regular customers to get on that VIP level because this creates fear of missing out. A VIP program also shows your regulars how much they mean to you.
To get started, send out a text campaign to let everyone know about VIP perks, which typically include things like an extra percentage off their purchases or a VIP only freebie. The goal is to encourage more customers to spend more in the store, so be sure to put out lots of information in and around your store to promote this list.
Dispensary Marketing Done Right
The cannabis marketing professionals at Team MaryJane help our cannabis clients all over the country develop strong, effective content marketing strategies and optimize all aspects of their marketing, including fine-tuning content, providing input on social media campaigns, creating content, and even helping you build your brand from the ground up. As one of the top dispensary marketing firms in Denver, we know we’ve got the tools to help you achieve all of your objectives. Get in touch with us today for a FREE no-risk consultation.