Email Marketing for Cannabis Cafés: A Guide

You are in the process of building what once was only a dream—a cannabis café. With an establishment that boasts a unique combination of a social venue and cannabis, you can have a lot of natural public attraction to your business. However, working to bring new people in and keep those people interested in your brand is still highly important. Email marketing for cannabis cafés is one of the easiest ways to keep the customers heading in your direction and keep them coming back over the long term.

At CannaPlanners, we help our clients build some pretty impressive email marketing campaigns, so we have a lot of insight to share. We’ve pulled together some specifics to give you an idea of how email marketing could be valuable for your cannabusiness.

The Value of Cannabis Café Email Marketing

Email marketing may be one of the oldest strategies in the book but remains one of the most effective. For every single dollar spent on email marketing, business owners average a $38 ROI. Email use has not waned over time; nearly four billion people check their email on a daily basis.

Offer Enticing Promotions

Email interaction makes it possible to entice people to visit your establishment through special promotions. For example, you could offer exclusive deals to customers who provide their email on your website or even create a rewards or loyalty program for frequent customers to take advantage of when they share their email. Remember, customers are more likely to visit and even recommend an establishment if they are part of a loyalty program.

Engage in Two-Way Communication with Customers

Email can be invaluable for engaging with customers and can be the preferred way for some customers to communicate. In fact, 73 percent of millennials actually prefer email communications with the brands they know. So, even though cannabis café email marketing campaigns may be about spreading awareness and getting or retaining customers, email can be a way for customers to interact with you, ask questions, or get information as well.

Segment Your Customer Base Into Smaller Groups

Email marketing makes it possible for you to segment your customer base into easier-to-target groups. Segmenting allows you to target the right customer with the right types of messages. Examples of segments of your customer base could be:

• Customers who have visited your café in the last 30 days
• Customers who open 15% or more of the emails you send
• Customers who have signed up to receive your café newsletter

Outside of email, this type of targeted marketing is a lot harder to pull off. But the ability to personalize to certain segments of your target audience is simply doable and highly effective.

Generate Buzz Around Upcoming Events or Promotions

Having a special guest or form of entertainment at your café? Perhaps you are offering a savings opportunity for guests that come in on a certain day of the week or that buy a certain item on your menu. These events and promotions can be hard to advertise outside the digital world, but they can be exceptionally easy to promote via email.

Stay Relevant in the Mind’s of Your Customers

Regular emails generate a certain level of relevancy of your brand’s voice in the minds of your customers. As more cafés open and more cannabis lounges show up, you may find it even harder to maintain initial success. Basically, brands in a well-saturated market are easier to forget, so you do have to work to hold your place. Emailed newsletters, promotions, and other messages are an easy way to do just that.

Best Practices with Email Marketing for Cannabis Cafés

Email marketing for cannabis cafés holds a lot of value, but you will only see a real return on your efforts by following some best practices that can apply to all marketing emails. Here are a few to remember.

Keep it short and sweet

Emails between under 200 words have the highest chance of provoking an action or response. Whatever email you are sending out, keep the message short and concise. Sometimes, the most effective message will be the one that a customer can open and read within a few seconds. Otherwise, you can risk the loss of interest.

Include a clear call to action

Why are you sending the email to your cannabis café customers? Know the answer to this question before drafting the message so you can integrate a clear call to action or ask. For example, if you are sending out an invitation to reserve a spot, leave a clear call to action at the end of the email with details or a link to do just that. Even an email that is more informational may have a “learn more” call to action.

Track every email marketing effort for ROI

Creating and sending emails is important, but knowing what those emails are doing for you is even more important. It is always a good idea to track your email marketing efforts to see which emails are getting opened, which ones are leading to website visits; this is called an email open rate. This allows you to perfectly hone your campaign as time passes, so you have more effective outcomes.

Optimize emails for mobile

At least 81 percent of emails today are opened on a mobile device. If your emails are not optimized for mobile, you could be alienating a HUGE part of your customer base. Everything from graphics to text content should be placed in a way in the email that will translate well to a mobile device’s smaller screen.

Make it more than just sales and promos

Only ever emailing your audience in an effort to sell something can mean you eventually have a lot of unopened emails. Work toward sending your visitors valuable messages. For example, if you have a custom website for your café that has a blog, you can send an email when you post some new information a customer may be interested in reading.

Ready to Build an Email Marketing Campaign for Your Cannabis Café?

As you forge your own path in the world of cannabis, planting strong roots with your customer base will nurture strong growth for the future. Email marketing can be a major component of the process. If you are ready to get started on email marketing for your cannabis café, reach out to us at CannaPlanners to get started. From building a strategy that works for you to monitoring the outcomes of the efforts after emails go out, we can help you every step of the way.