Master Your Cannabis Email Strategy: A 3-Month Email Marketing Plan

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Email marketing remains one of the most effective strategies to connect with your audience, drive conversions and maintain brand loyalty.

Setting a cadence for your email marketing has two benefits: 1) It can help keep your contacts engaged and 2) it keeps your domain reputation high so your messages don't end up in the spam folder. Weekly or bi-weekly has long been considered the ideal cadence.

BUT JESSICA, I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH TIME/CONTENT FOR WEEKLY EMAILS.

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What if I told you that you do most of this work anyway?

As an email marketing consultant in the cannabis space, I see countless email campaigns sent to different segmented lists and all sent on the same day. These are what are known as “spray and pray” campaigns. These are generic emails sent to large lists in the hopes that someone – anyone – will bite. The problem with these types of campaigns is that they don't work. Billions of emails are sent to businesses every day. Gone are the days when you could write a simple, generic message about your business and send it to everyone. Email marketing has evolved, and to get the best response, you need to be specific and direct in your messages to audiences.

Let's look at how to structure your email marketing campaigns to target three different distribution lists. For simplicity, we'll use three different lists focused on retail and dispensary licenses, but the same formula can easily be adapted to any licensing activity or state you want to market to. Build your lists to gradually grow larger. It's best to send less than twice as many contacts as you did the week before. Randomly sending to huge lists will make email clients suspicious. Slow growth is safe growth.

Let's explore how to choose a send day and develop a three-month plan for sending targeted emails to different lists. For this example, we'll be working with Tuesdays, but Wednesday and Thursday have also been shown to be good send days for B2B emails. We're assuming your domain is already warm and has a medium or good reputation on Google Postmaster Tools. If you need to warm up your domain, read this article first.

First, review your past emails to see what day of the week and time of day you get the most positive responses. Many email marketing service providers, including Cannabiz Media, offer the ability to show you the best days/times to schedule your emails based on when your recipients have opened or interacted with your emails in the past.

Month 1

Month 2

Month 3

Once you're happy with that pace and are getting a consistent open rate of 20% or more, consider increasing your send numbers. Add a few more lists targeting other states that you'll either send to on your set send day, or you can choose a second day to expand your reach. Remember, your growth shouldn't be sudden, but gradual.

A few more tips for your success: All emails you send should include:

• A sending domain that matches your email address and has DMARC, SPF, DKIM, and CNAME settings already applied. (So if you're sending from a @cannabiz.media email address, your matching sending domain should be cannabiz.media.)
• A compelling subject line (The CoSchedule site has a great subject line tester! Check it out here.)
• Tailored email content that focuses on content relevant to their specific needs. Consider completing the Cannabiz Media Email Marketing Content Specialist certification to become an expert in creating cannabis email content.
• A strong CTA will move a recipient further through your funnel. For more information on using CTAs to build your funnel, check out this post.

Do you have to follow it word for word? Absolutely not! Customize the lists and messages to best suit your business. Remember, this guide is designed to ensure your messages are relevant, targeted, and valuable to each segment of your audience. This approach not only helps maintain a good reputation for your domain, but also increases engagement and conversion rates. Remember, consistency and relevance are key to successful email marketing. By tailoring your content to the specific needs and interests of each list, you'll maximize the effectiveness of your campaigns and build stronger connections with your audience.

Have fun emailing!