Email marketing stands out as a powerful growth channel for Cannabis and CBD brands, especially given the unique challenges of the industry. Finding a cannabis-friendly email service provider (ESP) that perfectly aligns with your specific needs can be a daunting task. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore essential email marketing software and strategies designed to help your Cannabis or CBD brand thrive.
Effective communication with your customers is paramount, and email offers a direct, owned channel to nurture relationships, promote products, and expand your customer base. Let’s dive in!
Why You Need a Cannabis-Friendly Email Service Provider
Email marketing is consistently one of the most effective channels for Cannabis and CBD companies. It provides a direct line to your customers, enabling genuine interaction, product promotion, and robust customer base growth.
As an “owned” media channel, email marketing gives you unparalleled control over your messaging. However, the cornerstone of successful email marketing in this space is choosing the right email service provider (ESP).
Selecting a cannabis-friendly ESP is crucial to avoid potential disasters like abrupt account cancellations, random suspensions, or restrictive marketing policies. Many general marketing software providers have unclear rules and unspoken policies regarding cannabis-related emails, making the selection process confusing.
Fortunately, we’ve curated a list of cannapreneur-friendly email service providers (ESPs). Say goodbye to worries about your hard work going up in smoke. Let’s explore them:
1. Moosend Review
Moosend is an email marketing service provider that openly accepts cannabis marketing. They cater to a broad spectrum of canna-businesses, from startup dispensaries to nationally growing weed brands. Whether you need to send newsletters, promotions, or any other email messaging, Moosend offers a robust and reliable solution.
The platform boasts an intuitive and clean dashboard, allowing users to seamlessly navigate from email campaign creation and list management to building complex automated messaging workflows.
Moosend provides a free trial with unlimited email sends and automation workflows. The platform supports automated email series and offers pre-made templates for common messaging categories.
Moosend Email Marketing Automation for Cannabis
The platform’s automated email tools empower cannabis businesses to create sophisticated logic behind crucial communications.
Here are a few cannabis-specific automations you can implement with Moosend:
- Abandoned cart email sequence: If a customer leaves items in their online cart, an automated reminder email can re-engage them, helping recover lost sales.
- Repeat purchase reminder: For customers who rely on specific medicinal-grade flowers or CBD products, set up automated reminders to prompt reorders, reinforcing loyalty and health support.
Moosend is an excellent fit for diverse businesses within this competitive industry. It’s considered one of the best email marketing services for new cannabis brands and startups requiring a dependable and scalable ESP. Consider its applications for the following businesses:
- Dispensaries
- CBD & Cannabis Cosmetics
- Marijuana-infused products
With the rise of destination smoking spots and cannabis event planning in urban areas, Moosend can also facilitate sending out event announcements or last-minute notifications.
Key Moosend Features
As a leading email service provider for cannabis businesses, Moosend offers a suite of powerful features:
- Email marketing and advanced email automation capabilities.
- A drag-and-drop responsive email builder for easy campaign creation.
- Management dashboard tailored for cannabis marketing agencies.
- Native integrations with popular CMS platforms, WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento, and other essential platforms.
- A drag-and-drop landing page creator equipped with built-in tracking, forms, and WordPress plugins.
What Does Moosend Cost?
Moosend provides a 30-day free trial with full feature access and chat support. Moosend’s monthly email marketing plan is priced based on the number of subscribers, offering unlimited email campaigns per month. You can save an additional 20% by opting for 6-month or yearly payment plans.
2. MailerLite Review
MailerLite is a cannabis-friendly email marketing service provider known for its affordability and suitability for startups needing core cannabis software functionalities. This intuitive email tool allows you to build pop-ups, landing pages, and email newsletters all within a single platform. It’s ideal for brands looking to develop and test marketing funnels for new CBD product lines, and a perfect solution for small business email marketing and bloggers.
MailerLite dashboard when you first log in
MailerLite offers a free plan that includes many premium features, allowing you to send emails to up to 500 subscribers and utilize landing pages, embedded signup forms, and pop-ups.
MailerLite for Cannabis Marketing
MailerLite is best suited for cannabis brands that don’t require overly complex marketing automation but seek to send engaging newsletters and implement simple autoresponders. It’s an excellent choice for businesses with small to medium-sized subscriber lists.
Getting Started with MailerLite
MailerLite makes it easy for your cannabis marketing team to get everything set up quickly. They have a straightforward account verification process: simply enter your details during sign-up, and an account manager will review for approval. If you’re sending from your own domain, you’ll be able to start sending emails right away.
Grow with Pop-ups and Forms
In an industry where every email counts, leveraging list growth pop-ups is essential. With customizable design options and your brand’s aesthetics, you can create overlay pop-ups to effectively grow your email signups.
MailerLite allows extensive customization of your pop-ups, including adding background images, mixing and matching buttons, and incorporating opt-in boxes.
Examples of how a Cannabis brand can use these forms:
- Combine your pop-ups with a templated landing page. For a CBD retailer with a wide array of products—vapes, gummies, infused soft-drinks, and even hemp bones for pets—MailerLite allows you to create an email campaign for a new pet CBD product line, matched with a consistently branded landing page.
MailerLite, of course, serves various businesses:
- Cannabis media, blogs & publications
With a wealth of cannabis content being produced, consumers constantly seek information. Weed review sites and marijuana publications are rapidly emerging, and MailerLite helps them distribute their content. - CBD Nutrition
If you offer a specialized line of CBD-infused nutritional products or supplements, MailerLite efficiently supports simple, product-based email campaigns. - Cannabis and CBD Vaporizers
For popular vape products, you can comfortably launch new lines with exciting flavors.
Other Interesting Features
- An RSS-to-email feature automatically pulls content into an email and sends it out on a predefined schedule.
- Extensive “click-maps” for your emails and landing pages, including heatmap analytics to visualize customer interaction.
- Drag-and-drop landing page creator with built-in tracking, forms, and WordPress plugins.
What Does MailerLite Cost?
MailerLite’s pricing is transparent, based on a flat monthly rate determined by your number of subscribers. Yearly payments offer a 30% discount. Pricing begins with a free version, and the first paid tier for up to 2,500 subscribers costs $15 per month. You can also add extras like dedicated MailerLite support or a dedicated IP address.
3. Klaviyo Review
Klaviyo is a marketing automation platform specifically designed for eCommerce businesses. As more eCommerce platforms become accessible to Cannabis and CBD companies (such as Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento, and WooCommerce), Klaviyo seamlessly integrates with your webshop. It leverages your eCommerce data to power targeted campaigns, making it a smart choice for businesses in the cannabis and CBD industry.
With its campaign, flow, and template features, Klaviyo provides all the necessary tools for effective email sending. Klaviyo offers a free email marketing account for up to 500 email sends and 250 contacts, making it easy and cost-effective to explore the platform.
Klaviyo for Cannabis eCommerce
As you may have experienced, navigating payment processing and other crucial software in the cannabis and CBD industry often presents numerous issues and unexpected roadblocks. Klaviyo simplifies connections with your chosen payment processors and POS systems. If a direct Klaviyo integration isn’t available, you can easily feed information via their API or manually through a CSV upload.
Here are a few cannabis eCommerce applications:
- Imagine running a Black Friday email special on CBD gummies. Klaviyo ensures your emails reach the right customer segment—those interested in or who have previously purchased CBD—and provides updated metrics on the revenue generated from those emails.
- Klaviyo is a popular choice for cannabis brands engaged in eCommerce, capable of managing moderate to large lists with complex automations and integrations.
While Klaviyo suits many types of cannabis companies, it particularly excels for:
- Marijuana Subscription Box Services
- Cannabis Accessories
- Cannabis & CBD eCommerce
As the marijuana industry matures, more opportunities for business experimentation arise. The direct-to-consumer (D2C) marketplace is perfect for weed subscription box services to differentiate themselves. Klaviyo aids cannabis marketing for brands with extensive product catalogs, catering to the large ancillary market for recreational users who regularly purchase rolling papers, pipes, grinders, and more. Your eCommerce and email program must adapt to your customers’ unique and personalized needs, making Klaviyo and an unrestricted eCommerce platform essential for these businesses.
Key Klaviyo Features
The platform organizes its main features into distinct sections, providing easy access to review lists, sales metrics, and user profiles via the toolbar.
Klaviyo email marketing templates
- Comprehensive email marketing and marketing automation.
- Ability to create custom dynamic content blocks for reuse across multiple email campaigns.
- Automated product recommendations from your eCommerce store, advertised directly through email.
- Specific dashboards for key metrics, tracking revenue and other financial performance indicators of your campaigns.
The integration section is particularly noteworthy, allowing Klaviyo to centralize all your data for unified management.
What Does Klaviyo Cost?
Klaviyo’s pricing is straightforward, based on a flat monthly rate determined by your number of subscribers. A free trial is available for up to 250 contacts. For example, 1,500 subscribers cost $30 per month, while 100,000 subscribers are $1,250 per month.
4. SendX Review
SendX is an email marketing platform that welcomes Cannabis and CBD companies. They maintain a clear policy against policing content, making them a straightforward choice. SendX is an affordable software solution, allowing you to quickly set up and create email campaigns for your business. It is a solid email marketing solution for those in the CBD industry looking to venture into email marketing, as well as for bloggers and general marketers.
Utilize SendX to send emails, gather subscribers, build landing pages, and more.
SendX for Cannabis Marketing
SendX is an excellent option for brands seeking a no-frills, streamlined email marketing tool. It helps create effective automations, collect subscribers, and build customer relationships through email. Let’s delve deeper into these features:
Create Forms/Landing Pages and Collect Leads
SendX offers pop-ups, embedded forms, and landing pages to transform your Cannabis website into a lead-generating powerhouse. Choose from 28 pop-up templates, 20 embedded form templates, and 6 landing page templates to begin attracting customers with compelling value propositions.
For instance, if you’re an online CBD seller, create pop-up forms for new product variants to effectively capture visitors’ attention. This makes SendX particularly interesting for companies with a Cannabis presence on their menu.
Cannabis lifestyle brands, ranging from craft growers to unique apparel companies, can greatly benefit from SendX. As cannabis consumption becomes more mainstream, weed destinations and even cannabis bed and breakfasts are becoming common. Platforms like Leafly and WeedMaps already serve as equivalents to Tripadvisor and Yelp for the cannabis industry.
Send Emails and Build Customer Rapport
Creating emails with SendX is effortless. You can send regular newsletters or implement drip campaigns, choosing from 64 templates that are easily rebranded for your Cannabis business.
If you’re in the Cannabis media and publication space, SendX’s intuitive drag-and-drop email editor allows you to quickly structure emails featuring your latest blog posts, announcements, and deals.
Utilize drip campaigns to strengthen your Cannabis brand’s relationships with subscribers. Send automated emails containing offers, growing information, and tips for proper usage and storage. These drip emails are an excellent way to connect with your customers and provide genuine value.
Create Automations and Delight Customers
SendX includes a powerful automation builder with over 25 built-in automation triggers. You can design campaigns for individuals who sign up through a CBD offer form or visit your landing page and make a purchase.
You can also establish conditions to automatically move subscribers into different segments for smart personalization. Automations are valuable for:
- Dispensaries
- CBD & Cannabis Cosmetics
- Marijuana-infused products
With SendX, you can set up your email marketing to run efficiently, allowing your products to sell themselves.
What Does SendX Cost?
SendX starts from $9.99 per month for your first 1,000 subscribers, with pricing increasing as your subscriber list grows. For example, 2,500 subscribers would cost $19.99 per month. This scalable pricing model is ideal for growing businesses, ensuring you only pay for the size of your audience. These packages include essential features such as analytics, integration support, A/B testing, and customer support.
5. Omnisend Review
Omnisend is a robust cannabis marketing automation platform designed specifically for eCommerce. It integrates seamlessly with all major eCommerce platforms, including Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Magento, and many others. This makes it a smart email marketing choice for eCommerce-focused businesses in the cannabis and CBD industry.
Omnisend offers a 14-day trial and an extensive free plan, which includes 500 email sends per month.
Omnisend eCommerce Email for Cannabis
Connecting your purchase data with your ESP can often be complex. Using a restricted email service provider and eCommerce platform can even jeopardize your business and digital marketing strategy. However, a combined setup allows for more strategic and personalized promotions.
Consider a limited edition water pipe for Halloween. Your eager customers are ready to purchase, and if you know you have only 100 units, you can sync this dynamic information with a live ticker in your promotional emails. The possibilities for driving revenue through personalized promotions are endless when you have such granular control over customer data. Omnisend is a staple for eCommerce brands and is best for cannabis businesses needing to engage customers on a deeply personal basis.
Great examples for matching eCommerce businesses:
- Marijuana Infused Products & Edibles
- CBD Oils
- CBD for Pets
Infused Edibles occupy a unique category with limitless varieties of appealing products. If you operate a culinary-focused cannabis company, you need the agility to differentiate and distribute your products quickly and reliably. Integrating Omnisend with your eCommerce platform allows you to create relevant messaging around your diverse product offerings.
As its name suggests, Omnisend excels at creating omnichannel experiences. With relaxing restrictions in the CBD industry, companies must maximize cross-channel exposure. Omnisend can help centralize data for retargeting prospects who engaged with your latest CBD for Pets guide.
Remarkable eCommerce Features
Omnisend’s deep integration with eCommerce platforms is evident in its Live View feature. You can monitor website visitors in real-time, distinguishing between existing customers and new prospects. Cannabis products benefit significantly from unique automated messaging. Instead of generic texts for dwindling CBD drops, you’ll find a useful replenishment feature.
Omnisend’s custom automation workflow allows you to set automated emails triggered by your own defined custom events. If your data analysis reveals that most customers need to re-up every three and a half weeks, you can define an email trigger to capitalize on that insight.
What Does Omnisend Cost?
Omnisend offers a free option and two paid plans: Standard (starting at $16 a month) and Pro (starting at $59 a month). Pricing is determined by your list size.
6. Ongage
Ongage is an email marketing service provider that accepts cannabis marketing. It boasts a large number of native integrations with eCommerce platforms and email delivery providers. Ongage’s unique offering allows you to send emails through multiple SMTP services. This means you manage emails and your database from one central location, while optimizing deliverability and cost-per-send by connecting various SMTP services.
It’s an excellent choice for Cannabis and CBD companies that need to centralize both transactional and promotional emails. Ongage provides a free 14-day trial to fully test the platform. It is best suited for medium to large companies requiring the ability to send a high volume of emails immediately.
Ongage for Cannabis Marketing
The burgeoning marijuana industry is highly competitive. Brands must effectively serve customers within a restricted environment while going above and beyond to differentiate themselves. For direct-to-consumer cannabis brands, an orderly system for both marketing and customer service is essential.
Ongage is ideal for cannabis brands that require an extensive multi-sender channel platform and meticulous monitoring of deliverability and costs.
Example weed businesses that benefit include:
- Weed Delivery Services
- Cannabis & CBD eCommerce (especially with large product catalogs)
- Weed Restaurants & Events
Weed delivery services have matured in American states with legalized recreational marijuana. Such services involve numerous moving parts that Ongage can manage. The ability to connect with SMS and various channels is crucial for sending important shipping notifications and real-time updates.
Marijuana-infused products and CBD-based cosmetics reside at the intersection of different product types. This often represents untapped territory. An infused cannabis product can be a supplement, foodstuff, or a consumable beauty product. Crafting the right messaging for these diverse products is key, yet they function much like ordinary B2C items. Similarly, Ongage possesses the capability to scale for Enterprise businesses, making it another strong option for large-scale, email-intensive cannabis brands.
More About Ongage Features
Ongage offers a range of advanced options for both promotional and transactional email messages. It features built-in integrations with SMTP, SMS vendors, and even other ESPs. The technically savvy cannapreneur can leverage Ongage to send automated shipping updates, text reminders, and utilize purchase data to plan additional personalized campaigns.
What Does Ongage Cost?
Ongage offers four distinct plans: Starter ($399 a month), Basic ($949 a month), Premium ($1499 a month), and Ultimate (Custom). Each plan’s features vary based on the number of emails you can send, contact list size, and the number of vendor integrations utilized.
7. dotdigital Review
dotdigital is an omnichannel email marketing automation platform that welcomes cannabis marketing. Formerly known as Dotmailer, their Engagement Cloud offers an impressive omnichannel suite, including Email, SMS, Transactional email, Page builder, Social, Forms, and native eCommerce integrations.
dotdigital offers a free trial, allowing you to thoroughly test out the software.
dotdigital for Cannabis Marketing
There’s no better place to control the conversation with your customer than on your own website. dotdigital empowers you to interact with your customer at multiple touchpoints.
Imagine running a grow operation and publishing a detailed guide on the best hydroponics rig. You can engage visitors with an on-site chat, followed by a call-to-action to subscribe to your newsletter. This prospect then purchases grow lights and expresses interest in your new Cannabis growing guide. All these interactions and data are seamlessly relayed through your systems without needing separate platforms.
dotdigital serves a wide range of businesses, making it ideal email marketing software for established cannabis brands with sizable email lists needing a multichannel strategy.
For example, the following types of email senders:
- CBD Essential oils
- Apps and SaaS businesses
- Medicinal Cannabis
- CBD Supplementation
For many, CBD has become a go-to solution for various ailments, available in countless forms from essential oils to multivitamin tablets. This requires a multitude of product categories and unique messaging to be sent. The cannabis industry is also seeing an exciting rise in Cannabis Apps and SaaS businesses, developing logistical software or cannabis-friendly supply chain management solutions. Cannapreneurs are constantly innovating, and dotdigital can handle email marketing, in-app messaging, push notifications, and automation for these new vendors.
The dotdigital engagement cloud is invaluable for personalizing landing pages and emails. If you need a secure provider to manage your medicinal cannabis patient data, dotdigital’s quick data integration tools can assist.
Key Marketing Features
What makes dotdigital stand out?
- Email marketing and robust marketing automation with a drag-and-drop automation builder.
- dotdigital is a Magento Premier Technology, Shopify Plus, and BigCommerce partner. It also offers native integration with CRMs like Salesforce and MS Dynamics.
- Lead scoring and visual reporting for comprehensive customer personas.
- Dynamic product recommendations.
- A retail dashboard that calculates key metrics such as revenue, average order value, and customer lifetime value.
What Does dotdigital Cost?
dotdigital offers multiple packages: Accelerate (for small marketing teams), Amplify (for teams seeking a multichannel solution), and Custom (for high-volume senders or businesses requiring tailored solutions).
Now that you’re familiar with cannabis-friendly email service providers, you can select your ESP and begin building your email program.
Best Email Service Providers for Cannabis and CBD Brands
To recap, we’ve reviewed 7 cannabis-friendly email marketing providers, each with distinct strengths:
- Moosend – Easy email marketing for newsletters and more.
- MailerLite – Simple and clean email marketing tool.
- Klaviyo – eCommerce email and automation to grow your green.
- SendX – The simple email marketing tool that won’t police you.
- Omnisend – eCommerce email and automation to grow your green.
- Ongage – Send your mails through multiple SMTPs for maximum deliverability.
- Dotdigital – Mature email and omnichannel automation platform with advanced features.
How to Market Your Cannabis Brand
In the immortal words of musician Peter Tosh, “Legalize it, don’t criticize it.” And to that, we echo, “Legalize it and we will advertise it.”
We’ve come a long way since the prohibition days and the debilitating “War on Drugs.” Over the past decade, legalization has swept across various regions, giving birth to a dynamic new industry.
The regulated cannabis industry is projected to exceed $75 billion by 2030, according to investment banking firm, Cowen and Co. Close behind is CBD, the burgeoning cousin of THC, which has experienced tremendous growth and societal acceptance. The United States CBD Market is expected to reach $20 billion in sales by 2024, as per BDS Analytics and Arcview Market Research.
Cannabis businesses are making significant inroads into major stock exchanges and new sectors like health, consumables, lifestyle, technology, and more.
Despite the industry’s rapid growth, cannabis marketing still faces significant hurdles on certain parts of the web. Running ads through the “triopoly” of Google, Facebook, or Amazon remains largely impossible. While authorities won’t bust you, Google might flag your ad account.
We’ve already highlighted some of the best email marketing software for Cannabis brands. Now, let’s explore the most effective ways to market your cannabis business, keeping in mind the restrictive landscape.
Be aware that some marketing channels and platforms currently prohibit cannabis marketing.
What Are the Restrictions on Cannabis Marketing?
Major tech giants and social media platforms generally ban paid cannabis advertising, and many also restrict CBD marketing and the promotion of hemp-derived products. Here’s a quick overview of the restrictions you’ll encounter on these platforms and their terms of use:
- Amazon: The eCommerce giant Amazon classifies cannabis, CBD, and hemp under its prohibited products and services category. This means you cannot sell or advertise these items through its platform.
- Google: While your organic content is not restricted by Google’s search engine, their policy prohibits running any Google Ads to promote Cannabis, CBD, or related paraphernalia. Non-compliance risks your Google Ads account.
- Twitter: You cannot use Twitter ads to promote cannabis or CBD products. However, you have the freedom to tweet organically about your cannabis business or products.
- Facebook & Instagram: Facebook and Instagram do not permit paid advertisements for cannabis or cannabis-derived CBD products. However, you may advertise if your CBD products are derived from hemp. These restrictions do not apply to non-paid Instagram posts or Facebook pages.
- Banking & Payment Processing: Many banks and payment processors refuse to work with or associate with cannabis or CBD vendors. It is crucial to review their terms of use before selecting a payment processor or bank.
- E-commerce platforms & Email Service Providers: If your email service provider is not on our recommended list of ESPs, you cannot be certain they will accept cannabis or CBD-related marketing. Similarly, always confirm with your eCommerce platform before listing your products.
4 Powerful Cannabis Digital Marketing Strategies
As discussed, owned digital media channels and traditional advertising methods remain strong options for marketing your cannabusiness. Here are a few unrestricted digital channels and methods to build a robust digital marketing strategy.
1. Drive Cannabis Traffic with SEO & Content Marketing
Your organic content can still achieve top rankings in search engine results. There’s immense public curiosity about the cannabis industry. If you offer an exceptional product or possess valuable knowledge, the most effective way to share it is by consistently producing relevant content.
Here are just a few types of content you can create:
- Blogs
- Webinars
- Podcasts
- Cannabis Ebooks
- Videos
We are continuously learning about the psychoactive and medicinal properties of the cannabis plant. This research alone provides endless material for content creation, not to mention the diverse product offerings ranging from B2B vendor software to commercial consumables. The cultural history and entertaining aspects of cannabis also provide rich content opportunities.
Remember why the cannabis industry is experiencing such a surge in interest and popularity: it’s fun for some, medicine for many, and a significant worldwide cultural staple for hundreds of millions of people for centuries.
Create amazing content, optimize it, and your audience will come! Great content guides customers to your website, where you can encourage them to join your email list. From there, you can cultivate relationships through email and convert curious visitors into paying customers.
Your site must be optimized for search engines. CBD and Cannabis products may be barred from ad sections, but not from organic search. Marijuana marketing has found a welcoming home on the search results page.
Weed dispensaries and most retail/eCommerce cannabis brands often face geographic constraints. However, this can be an advantage in the short term.
Local SEO is a highly effective organic marketing tactic. Your local search engine listings are frequently where customers will find you. At a minimum, ensure your business is listed on the following sites:
- Google My Business
- Leafly
- Yelp For Business Owners
- TripAdvisor
- Weedmaps
Seek out and get listed on as many high-domain authority cannabis websites and directories as possible. Local directories also enhance your brand’s trustworthiness. By producing original and unique content that consumers can easily find, you build a powerful tool for both customer acquisition and retention.
2. Develop Organic Social Media Content
What to do with all that new content? Share it organically through social media. You can create lifestyle pages on Instagram and regular business pages on Facebook, integrating this strategy with your content marketing efforts.
- Request and encourage product reviews.
- Cultivate an engaged social following.
- Post regularly and ensure compliance with each channel’s guidelines.
Authentic customer reviews will boost your brand’s trustworthiness and generate word-of-mouth referrals. CBD marketing, especially, needs to cut through the noise of network marketing by showcasing authenticity. Your social following can interact in numerous ways. Set up a customer support group via Facebook Messenger, launch video content through Facebook Live and Instagram Stories, and integrate your content across various organic social media channels as appropriate. Strategic influencer marketing is another valuable option.
The ultimate goal should always be to direct prospective customers to your owned media channels, and, of course, utilize the right lead generation tools to encourage them to sign up for your email list.
3. Create Your Own Website and eCommerce Platform
Cannapreneurs are a creative group. Faced with restrictive governments and often indifferent tech industry leaders, we’ve learned to rely on innovative solutions to conduct basic business.
Fortunately, the internet has once again proven to be an inclusive environment for innovation and cannabis commerce. Several eCommerce platforms now permit cannabis and CBD product listings to varying degrees. Seek out these platforms, or consider developing your own cannabis software.
With proper licensing and the right marketing tech stack, you can begin selling directly from your website. Explore niche software developed specifically for cannabis brands that can integrate with your website.
Some of these specific tools include:
- Seed-to-sale tracking
- Licensing software
- POS systems
- Payment processors
As the industry continues to mature, standing out with your branding and valuable offerings will be crucial. Simply “slinging flower power” is no longer sufficient. Marijuana marketing needs to evolve beyond generic imagery and become more creative. Well-designed cannabis websites serve multiple purposes. They are your digital storefront, where you can showcase your brand’s values, logo, branding elements, and product or service offerings.
Your site must be functional, navigable, and visually appealing. Obsolete design and poor user experience will deter most customers, even if you’re the only dispensary for miles around.
A few cannabis site and eCommerce best practices:
- Implement a clear navigation menu for easy access to your offerings.
- Highlight your company’s best products through testimonials.
- Feature visible Calls to Action throughout the website.
- Ensure responsive designs for optimal viewing on both mobile and desktop.
- Prioritize fast loading speed.
- Provide easy-to-browse product categories.
- Offer straightforward and secure purchasing methods.
Websites can be custom-built or based on popular CMS platforms like WordPress. Crucially, your website must include an age disclosure to confirm visitors are of legal age, ensuring compliance with state marketing regulations. Secure a domain that accurately reflects your company name or is creatively related without detracting from searchability or brand awareness.
If you plan to process payments, your website must handle sensitive financial data securely and with encryption. Basic processes like transactional email receipts, shopping carts, and shipping details must be properly accounted for.
4. Advertise on Cannabis Niche Websites & Networks
Cannabis prohibition did not prevent a flourishing underground culture and network from emerging when legalization arrived. And indeed, it has. New blogs and platforms are constantly appearing. Several prominent associations and magazines are indispensable resources for cannapreneurs. For such a young industry, there is already a wealth of paid advertising options for marijuana marketing and CBD marketing.
High Times remains one of the most significant cultural touchstones in the industry. Websites like WeedMaps, Leafly, and Marijuana Business Daily offer numerous avenues to list and advertise your brand.
Cannabis niche networks allow you to:
- Place ads.
- Send sponsored emails.
- List your business.
- Form strategic partnerships.
There’s no need to feel constrained by platform restrictions and regulations. This industry evolves rapidly, and eventually, tech giants and regulatory agencies will likely adapt. But for now, a variety of effective advertising methods remain available.
Many cannapreneurs and professionals enter this industry driven by passion for their product. In this business, brand awareness is crucial for survival. How will consumers choose products amid a sea of uninspired offerings? While you may be a master of your craft or the best budtender, few possess the diverse cannabis marketing skills needed for growth. No single marketer has all these skills, but effective cannabis marketing agencies do. They comprise web developers, copywriters, designers, digital marketing specialists, and more.
We still have abundant cannabis and CBD marketing opportunities. Here’s a quick recap:
Cannabis and CBD marketing opportunities:
- Content for Marijuana Marketing & SEO Development
- Organic Social Media & Influencer marketing
- Custom Cannabis Website & eCommerce
- Cannabis Niche Website Advertising
- Traditional & Print Advertising (like Billboards, Direct Mail, Word-of-mouth)
- Cannabis Email Marketing
Achieving quality work that converts customers across these diverse channels requires a team of experts. Right now, email marketing is undeniably one of the most profitable and unrestricted channels for cannabis marketing. Even as legal frameworks solidify and more digital advertising opportunities arise, email marketing will remain a premier method for connecting with and selling to your customer base.
Here are 6 key tactics and tips to kickstart your email program.
6 Email Marketing Tactics for Cannabis and CBD Marketing
Once you’ve navigated regulatory hurdles, you can begin building powerful email campaigns. Engaging visuals, compelling calls to action, and adherence to general email marketing best practices will position you far ahead of the competition. While others struggle to connect with customers, you can focus on the rewarding aspects of brand building. Whether you manage email marketing in-house or partner with a cannabis marketing agency, here are a few essential tips for burgeoning cannapreneurs.
1. Combine Sign-up with Age Overlays to Get a Boost of New Subscribers
Your email list is one of the most valuable assets for your business. Website traffic will reach you through various channels, including organic search, cannabis-centric ad platforms, word-of-mouth, and offline advertising.
It’s crucial to capture these new prospects on your list when they first visit your website.
Many Cannabis websites require an “Age Gate” to prevent advertising to minors and ensure compliance with state marketing regulations.
Some companies implement this overlay, followed by an email subscription pop-up. As shown in the example above, including Terms and Privacy Policy links makes it a valid sign-up process. Smart Cannabis businesses combine their age gate and initial email overlay to expand their list and gather more information on new prospects, such as location and product interests.
To further boost sign-ups, smart sites also prompt visitors at different stages of their visit, using incentives or deals. The exit-intent pop-up is particularly effective, encouraging visitors to subscribe just as they intend to leave.
2. Get the In-Store Signups at Checkout
Dispensaries and cannabis retailers have the unique advantage of in-person customer interaction. Ask your customers if they’d like to join your email list after their transaction, creatively highlighting the benefits of signing up.
To increase in-person sign-ups, set up an iPad display with an email registration form. This is an excellent opportunity to include extra questions and gather important customer preferences. For eCommerce email marketing, the online checkout process is equally effective for gaining opt-ins. Add an email list opt-in at the end of every transaction.
3. Get Personal, Stay Legal with Location and Product Offerings
Due to varied regulations and market dynamics, the “Age Gate” is a necessary component for cannabis websites, but it can also serve as a tool for collecting more subscriber data. While recreational sales aren’t legal in most of the United States, CBD, hemp, and various paraphernalia are legal in different regions. By pinpointing subscribers by state and region, you can immediately determine what types of products they can legally purchase and, consequently, what products you can market to them.
There would be no point in sending information about your latest bud strains if subscribers live in a state where only CBD products are permissible. Similarly, some clients may only be interested in pipes or vape pens, not flower. You can quickly ascertain your clients’ interests and their legal capacity to purchase cannabis or related products.
For the cannabis delivery company, Eaze, gathering location details is integral to its core business functions.
This company uses location information to identify available drivers for real-time delivery and to ensure that customers are within a legal municipality for cannabis consumption.
4. Segment Your Email Lists
Given the diverse regulations and inherent market forces in the cannabis industry, segmenting your email lists by specific products or offerings is essential. Segmentation is a best practice for any business; an Econsultancy report found that 74% of marketers report increased customer engagement from targeted personalization.
Different segments you could create might include:
- Recreational customers
- Medicinal patients
- Accessories (Pipes, bongs, rolling papers, lighters, etc.)
- Edibles
- Vape
- CBD
- Hemp
There are numerous creative ways to categorize your customer base to maximize returns and offer the most relevant deals. The Pareto Principle suggests that roughly 80% of effects come from 20% of causes; in sales, this often means 20% of your customers are your most valuable segment. These customers are more likely to make repeat purchases and are ideal targets for loyalty programs. For true effectiveness, segmentation needs to go beyond standard attributes like age and gender, delving deeper than simple product persona segmentation.
Now, let’s combine this for a conceptual super segment.
For example, imagine a segment of high-value, repeat recreational customers who are specifically interested in edibles. You observe they regularly buy and sample different flavors each month. With this information and newly defined custom segments, you could:
- Start a loyalty program that rewards them with an extra free bag of gummies after a certain number of purchases.
- Incentivize them to refer friends for reward points.
- On the non-sales side, gift them a specially crafted culinary ebook.
All this and more is possible when you personalize and segment your list. Forget generic first-name insertions; this is where true personalization delivers results.
5. Automate Your Welcome and Lifecycle Messages
It’s smart email practice to automate and fine-tune a few key sequences, including welcome messages for various customer segments and a range of lifecycle messages.
Your welcome email should convey a special value proposition to your customers, going beyond a generic “Welcome to the brand” message. Let your customers know they’ve joined an exclusive group, and ideally, offer them a gift, incentive, or another creative gesture that reinforces this feeling.
Your welcome email is the first impression of your entire email channel and must demonstrate true value from the outset. Set your welcome emails to send automatically and instantly upon a customer or subscriber conversion. Capture their attention immediately and guide them toward other content and products.
Every brand needs a variety of lifecycle emails. Throughout this article, we’ve mentioned creative cannabis-specific lifecycle messages, such as repeat purchase reminders for flower, content based on user preference, and more.
Your mainstay behavioral lifecycle emails include:
- Welcome series
- Abandoned cart reminders
- Browse abandonment follow-ups
- Order and transaction confirmations
- Surveys and reviews
- Replenishment emails
Just because your emails are automated doesn’t mean they should receive less thought or optimization. Test your cannabis lifecycle messages as much as possible. Devise new and clever messages unique to your business. Master behavioral browsing data and transform it into a powerful sales tool.
6. Combine Email Messaging with SMS Text Messaging
Cannabis regulations and acceptance in the broader digital marketplace will likely remain dynamic for the foreseeable future. The more you can reduce reliance on the “triopoly” of Amazon, Facebook, and Google, the better. Another excellent way to bolster your marketing strategies is to collect customer phone numbers for text-based messaging. SMS marketing serves as a potent complement to email marketing.
Once you’ve received your customers’ permission through opt-in, you can send them deals, promotions, and other vital information via text.
As illustrated in the example above, you can create SMS messages incorporating text and an illustration or graphic. Customers can text “STOP” to unsubscribe at any time.
Conclusion: How to Get Cannabis Email Marketing Success
Cannabis email marketing is undeniably one of the most effective ways to grow your brand and connect with your customers.
You now possess the tools to find the best email service provider for your cannabis or CBD business:
- Choose a marijuana-friendly ESP that accommodates your industry without restrictions.
- Focus on growing both your product line and your email list.
- Deploy emails that directly engage your customers, giving you a significant advantage while competitors struggle to market their cannabusinesses.
Stand out in this dynamic and exciting marketplace by creating cannabis email marketing campaigns that boost revenue, enhance engagement, and expand your brand’s exposure!