Cannabis Direct Mail Advertising: Score New Customers with a Dispensary Direct Mailer Campaign

{}Introduction and Welcome

Eduardo Silva: Good morning, or good afternoon if you're joining us from the East Coast, we'll allow another moment or so for other participants to join us, and we'll be right back with you, thank you once again for taking the time out of your day to join us for yet another podcast. We're really excited about this particular podcast, and that it is not necessarily following your traditional path of marketing, it is, however, very important to consider some of these more traditional advertising strategies — so we're really excited to share our experience with direct mailers, "got mail, how to score new customers with a dispensary direct mailer campaign," we're going to be talking about how to get online sales with geo-targeted campaigns and mailers. On our agenda for today, why direct mail campaigns are still effective, how to maximize your campaign to drive more people to your website, and what you need to get started on your first direct mail campaign.

Speaker and Company Introduction

Eduardo Silva: A little bit about myself, my name is Eduardo Silva, I'll be your host for today's podcast, I have 18 years of sales and marketing experience, and I'm really excited to have been part of this industry, and be able to help a lot of businesses find their digital marketing footing. A little bit about us, we are a dispensary digital advertising agency, we have been in business for over five years, exclusively focusing within this industry and nothing else, at any given point we may be helping over 400-plus stores across the United States and Canada find customers and retain them. We're really excited to be helping you today with some key strategies to ensure your business is continuously growing, so let's get started.

Housekeeping Items

Eduardo Silva: Before getting underway here, let's take a moment to familiarize ourselves — if you're joining us from the podcast, on the Zoom interface, there is a Q&A function, do take a moment to find it, it's either at the top of your screen, hidden, or on the bottom, we do have panelists here live today who can address any questions as they pop up. And then, finally, cell phones, we absolutely love them, they're the key to our digital marketing strategies most often, but during this podcastwe're going to be covering a lot of content, so we do ask that you put those cell phones face down for just a moment, so we can get through all of this content and make it really impactful for you. And, finally, make sure to stick around, we do have a special offer for those attending today, at the end of the podcast, as well as some more Q&A time.

Why Direct Mail Still Works

Eduardo Silva: So, let's get started — when you get a mailer from a brand you're interested in, what do you do? You save it, right, maybe you tack it up on your fridge with a magnet, so you can remember it next time you want to use a coupon, or you keep it on your desk so you can go to their website when you have a free moment. Yes, there are pieces of mail that inevitably go right into the recycle bin, but when we receive mail that's relevant to us and our goals, we tend to hold on to it, that's the idea behind a dispensary direct mail campaign. 73 percent of American consumers say they prefer being contacted by brands via direct mail, because they can read it whenever they want — that's a huge percentage of your customers, and what they're saying is clear, direct mail is convenient.

Eduardo Silva: Great, so people like receiving mailers from particular brands, that doesn't mean they act on them, right? Well, thankfully, when we run it correctly, a direct mail campaign can have a response rate of around nine percent, and, with some strategic targeting, your response rate could actually go even higher. As long as you create a targeted campaign that reaches your ideal customer, you can stay top of mind with your customers and create further brand recognition — in addition, because most cannabis dispensaries aren't doing this, you'll stand out from the competition. Targeting is really key here, not only will it make your mailer more effective, but it'll help you stay compliant with advertising regulations — you don't want to waste time and effort sending mailers to people who aren't interested in your products, or who can't buy them because they aren't old enough, and you don't want some regulator finding you because you sent mailers to someone who is 19 years of age.

Choosing the Right Mailer Size and Format

Eduardo Silva: So what type of mailers can we make for you? Depending on how large you want to go, you can create regular-sized postcards, large postcards, flyers, and even brochures — these are the most economical options, but if you want to make a splash, we have no problem sourcing alternatives for you. The size you choose should depend on the message you want to convey — large postcards, which are about half the size of a regular sheet of paper, are the most popular option, because they're big enough to grab attention and feature an eye-catching design. If you want to require that people bring your mailer into your store to get a discount, then consider making your mailer a lot smaller, like a postcard size, so it's easier for them to carry around. Larger flyers and brochures may be useful for sharing information, and may make sense if you want to talk about your free consultation or educational resources. Ultimately, the size of your mailer matters less than what's actually on it — you can have a larger mailer and fail to make an impact because your design and copy weren't well thought out, and you can have a smaller postcard that scores you tons of sales because you included a great deal.

Getting Compliant, Age-Verified Mailing Lists

Eduardo Silva: Before getting into what should be on the mailer, let's talk about the addresses — how can you get addresses that belong to known cannabis users or people of age? Because this is such a pain point for clients, we've made the point of sourcing mailing lists that feature predominantly of-age recipients. Many states require that any dispensary advertising must reach an audience composed of at least 75 percent of individuals 21 or over — we don't want our partners to get dinged by regulators, so we've already done the pre-work for you. You don't just want to focus on everyone over 21, though — as I mentioned earlier, targeting can increase the effectiveness of your campaign, and, depending on your location, you have a couple of different options available.

Geo-Targeting Your Mailer Campaign

Eduardo Silva: If you're in a populous area, like a metro area or a city, consider starting with only certain neighborhoods, you don't want to blanket the entire city with your mailers, rather, pinpoint the neighborhoods where your customers are most likely to live. If you run a delivery service, it may seem like sending a postcard to everyone within your delivery area is a great idea, but it can actually be a waste of effort — instead, start with just a segment of your delivery area, focus on addresses that meet the demographics of your target market. For example, if you run a cannabis concierge delivery service focusing on high-end cannabis products, you'll want to hone in on particular demographics, like income or education level, this will help ensure your advertising gets into the right hands. Geo-targeting is very important for mailers, people aren't going to drive over an hour to get to your dispensary, unless that's the only option for getting legal cannabis, so it doesn't make sense to send mailers to areas that aren't home to your target market. Be sure to have a general idea of who your ideal audience is and where they live — if you have a business plan, this information should already be in it, and if you've been operating for a while, you can look at your customer database to identify common traits and create some personas to help narrow your focus.

Design Principles for an Effective Mailer

Eduardo Silva: Let's talk about how to maximize your campaign and get more people to buy from you. Some people spend a lot of time on the design of their mailers, and, I'll be honest, though it's not the most important part, it's still a crucial element, because you want anything associated with your brand to look good. When thinking about your design, you want anything you create to be in line with your style guide, attractive to your target audience, and recognizably from you — you don't want it to look like you could have come up with anything else, as a last resort, this helps build brand trust and recognition within your market. As you're working on the layout of your mailer, think about how much text you want, and make sure to give a prominent spot for your logo — you want to be focused on your message, and free of clutter, stick to just a couple of main points, and if in doubt, cut the extra stuff out. When choosing design elements like fonts and colors, stick to your style guide, unless any of those elements fail to transfer well on paper — if your chosen font is difficult to read, opt for something more consumer-friendly, similarly, if your brand colors make text hard to read, tone some of them down. You only have a few seconds to capture the audience's attention, you don't want to waste those rare seconds with them being frustrated because they can't read your font. We've designed several mailers, and understand it can be hard to nail down the right design, because of this we always make several iterations, so our clients are better able to determine what they like and don't like.

Writing Copy That Gets Read

Eduardo Silva: Some people are attracted to design, others to catchy headlines — what you say can matter just as much as what your mailer looks like, in fact, for some mailers, the copy is the design. I'm sure you've received a mailer that just had bold text on one side, it can be pretty eye-catching, because it forces you to read it immediately — this style isn't for everybody, though, so your copy should be brand-appropriate and convey your message very clearly. Let's say you're opening a new store and want to drive enrollment into your loyalty program, you can have your company logo on one side of the card and text about your loyalty program on the other, along with a special introductory deal for signups. If you want to capture attention, you'll want to make the most of the space you're given — that doesn't mean cramming in as much text as possible, though, you want your copy to be easy to read, in a large font that can be read from about a foot away. Once you've decided on your text, make sure to run it by an editor, you don't want to send out a mailer full of mistakes, and this really should be a separate person than the copywriter — your editor can help you tailor your message and trim any excess, you want to be concise and cut out any extra words that distract from what you're trying to say, or ensure there's no redundancy, they're just taking up space — better to increase your font size than waste it on extra words.

Creating a Compelling Offer and Call to Action

Eduardo Silva: Let's talk about the most important part of your mailer — if you want people to take action, what better way to motivate them than with a time-sensitive deal? Your deal and call to action are crucial for getting the most out of your direct mail campaign. To create a worthwhile deal, you need to be clear about your goals, whether it's online sales, new customer acquisition, or loyalty signups, then you need to make it clear to the recipient what you want them to do, and why they should do it. With the previous example, we wanted new loyalty signups, we could say, "join our VIP program for exclusive access to deals on your favorite products, like 20% off Fat Panda, text JOIN to 55555" — simple, right? This type of call to action may not lead to immediate sales, however, by increasing your loyalty signups, you can continue to market to those individuals without having to pay to capture them again and again in the future. If you're trying to acquire new customers, you can offer a deal for a percentage off their first purchase, just be sure to make it worth their while — take a look at what your competition is doing, and differentiate yourself, whether it's your product offering, branding, or deals. Many places are still under restriction — while dispensaries are open and considered essential, you may want to limit the number of people coming into your store and how long they stay, if this is you, you might want to run a campaign focused on online orders, offer a discount for online-only orders, share your free delivery deal, or talk about how easy your curbside pickup is — make it exciting, and again, be clear on what you want the recipient to do, for example, "take $10 off when you order online." Depending on your CTA, you may want to include an SMS opt-in code on your mailer, to encourage recipients to sign up for your loyalty program — again, this is so you don't have to pay to capture the same individual again, they'll start receiving your text offers or emails instead, and, while it's not a sale, it's still an important conversion, they've entered your sales funnel and are aware of your brand — you still have time to get them to your online menu or into your store. I've mentioned this a couple of times for a reason — once someone is on your list, you're able to continually market to them, they've already expressed interest, and you can now do the work towards getting them to become a loyal customer, the more touchpoints you get with them, the more likely they are to convert into a customer.

QR Codes and Tracking

Eduardo Silva: Putting a QR code on your mailer can make it easy for recipients to shop on your menu, it also lets you track the effectiveness of your campaign, which is extremely important — to do this, you'll want to sign up for QR code tracking, or work with a team like us that will do this for you. You'll also want to ensure your Google Analytics is set up properly — we found that too many dispensaries either don't have Google Analytics installed, or it isn't set up correctly, and this is a huge problem when it comes to revenue attribution, which we're going to discuss in just a moment. Where your QR code goes will depend on your messaging — you can go to a signup page for your loyalty program, your menu, your consultation scheduling page, your deals page, or your home page, we can help you determine which is the right one for your campaign — for many of our clients, we opt to link directly to the menu, so recipients can easily place an order.

Setting Up Revenue Attribution

Eduardo Silva: Let's talk about money — why have Google Analytics installed on your site for a mailer campaign? Well, one of the most important things you can do for your advertising efforts is to ensure that revenue attribution is set up. Revenue attribution is the act of tying your sales to your advertising efforts, and it's crucial for monitoring the impact of your marketing, because if you can't track it, you won't be able to manage it. When you're able to track how much revenue your advertising campaigns generate, you can pinpoint the channels most effective for your dispensary, and invest more into those specific channels — it's vital information every dispensary should invest in, without revenue attribution, you're practically flying blind, basically throwing money at a problem and hoping it works, and with the technology available nowadays, it doesn't have to be that way. Why waste time, money, and effort, and then not measure how effective your campaigns were? This is really important for us, as you can tell, we've made revenue attribution and transparency part of our mission — we want to bring the cannabis industry up to speed, on par with other industries, by implementing tracking and measuring the effectiveness of your marketing, you can make the most of your budget — and, let's be honest, advertising and marketing budgets are often the first to get slashed when money is tight, so don't let this happen to you, because, with revenue attribution, it can show the impact of your efforts, and save your budget, or even get it increased. To get started, as I mentioned, you'll need Google Analytics, once that's set up, you'll want to use a UTM code to track your different traffic sources — you should be creating these codes to insert into your social media messages, text messages, and emails, and for your mailer, your QR code will contain unique signifiers to help track the effectiveness of your campaign. In addition to Google Analytics, you'll want a menu platform that works with Google Analytics e-commerce tracking, this helps you tie the UTM to particular transactions, so you can better parse the data later. Our team and I have spent a lot of 2020 working with different menu platforms, to help ensure our clients could properly set up revenue attribution — we found that some platforms are simple enough to connect if you want to do so, while others need complicated workarounds and engineering hours to properly enable revenue attribution. Because we believe this is such a valuable tool for our customers, we set this up with all of our services, I'd be happy to talk to you about this, as well as how we can help your dispensary grow revenue across all the different channels you're embarking on — you can schedule a call with us, we'll put the link here in the chat window for everyone.

Timing Your Direct Mail Campaign

Eduardo Silva: So let's talk about timing — when should you send out your direct mailer? The most basic answer is that the timing should align with your goals. If you're facing a slump and looking to boost sales, that could be great timing to create and send a mailer, as well as implement digital advertising efforts, like mobile banner ads, to help keep you top of mind with your customers. Mailers are also great if you're hosting an event — we know some dispensaries are still doing virtual events, which is great, why not spread the word with a mailer and insert a QR code that goes directly to your signup page, and be sure your page also includes an opt-in box for your email and text message marketing campaigns. Holidays are also a great time to run direct mailer campaigns — we have Valentine's Day in just a month, then St. Patrick's Day, then Easter, and, of course, 4/20 — you can do a spin on the traditional gifts for these holidays and feature edibles and cannabis beverages to help people celebrate differently. Honestly, there's no wrong time to send a mailer, it's all about what you want to accomplish, we can help you establish the right timing for your goals, not a problem.

Special Offer

Eduardo Silva: So, are you ready to take the leap and create a direct mailer campaign for your dispensary? So let us help you get your message into the hands of those who want to order from you — a direct mailer campaign can help you boost your online orders, build brand awareness, and keep you top of mind with customers in your area, whether you're an established dispensary or a new delivery service, a mailer can help you capture the attention of your target audience. Getting started is really easy, we have everything you need to get up and running fast, and will run everything by you so you have the creative input without having to do all of the work. So, as I mentioned in the beginning, we're running a deal for the rest of the month to help you get started with mailers and get them into the hands of prospective customers — so give us a call, let's get planning for your campaign, and if you get your consultation on the books before the end of the month, we'll cover the graphic design fees for your mailer.

Live Q&A

Eduardo Silva: So let's stop here for any questions from our audience, once again, there's a Q&A function at the top of the screen, so please take a moment to ask any questions you may have, if the Q&A button isn't visible for you, please feel free to use the chat function. All right, first question — how can you get targeted addresses? So, in addition to geographic targeting, we can actually target people based on age, income, and other demographic data — the way we like to do this with our clients, when planning a mailer campaign, is to first take a look at the data you actually have in your database, in your CRM, pertaining to your customers, where do they live, are they segregated to a specific geographical region, a zip code, we'd like to take a look at those areas first, we can run an analysis of the demographics in those areas, per zip code, and come up with a number of impressions we could send these mailers to, giving you an accurate estimate of how many people meet the specific criteria for your advertisement.

Eduardo Silva: Great question, oh, here's another one that's really interesting — how long does it take to get a mailer campaign launched? Mailer campaigns are not like digital campaigns, you can't just hit a button and have it live, right, you have to plan ahead — how do you do this, first and foremost, allocate time for your campaign, five business days on average to actually finish your creative, go through the entire revision process, make sure you have the time, as the customer, to really look at the campaign and make sure it meets your criteria, and then, finally, these mailers actually have to go to print and then be scheduled for delivery — so I'd say anywhere between two to three weeks, that's what you want to plan ahead for. So, I guess the big takeaway here, it's not a last-minute thing, you've got to plan it right, so work with us if you have an idea you want to run by us, and want to get started, perhaps for one of these holidays coming up, let's get the conversation started, especially with the deal we're offering now, just get you on the books, get you started, so you have something already in the pipeline to send out to your customers.

Closing Remarks

Eduardo Silva: Great question, I really want to just take a moment to thank everybody for taking the time out of their day to join us — if you have other questions, there were some we weren't able to get to, happy to schedule a time, even if it's 5 to 15 minutes, to just address those questions offline, one-on-one, happy to do so. Once again, thank you from our team for taking the time out of your day to join us, we're really looking forward to working with you in 2021, have a wonderful rest of your day.

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