Dispensary Email Marketing: 10 Tips for Creating A Newsletter
1. Find the right email newsletter solution for your needs.
There are quite a few different platforms for generating virtual newsletters. Take a look at the service offerings to see which one might work best for you. Once you’ve picked one, spend time upfront creating a beautiful newsletter template that you can use over and over. And if you’re debating Plain text or HTML emails, go for HTML. HTML emails allow you to be creative and analyze metrics like Click Through Rate and Conversion Rate.
2. Make signup clear, easy, and immediate.
The signup form should be just a space for their email and a submit button. It’s tempting to ask lots of questions but just get in their inbox first.
3. Set expectations on your “Subscribe” page.
Really think about how much content you’ll have. Then get specific about content and frequency. Related to that, be reliable and consistent. Planning on a monthly newsletter? Share that info with potential subscribers.
4. Share valuable content.
Some examples of informative content:
- Blog posts
- Tips, tactics, how-to’s, and a video tutorial
- Product reviews
- Company news
- Recipes
- Staff picks
5. Don’t send direct promotions.
You can send promo-specific emails separately. Balance your content to be 90% educational and 10% promotional. Your newsletters will be a vital content marketing tool. Promos are better sent separately or via SMS marketing.
6. Curate.
People have short attention spans and experience information overload every day. Keep your copy concise in content blocks with plenty of white space in between. Lead them back with calls to action: “Learn More,” “Read More,” or “Watch the Video” for more juicy details. To further reduce overwhelm, dedicate each email to one topic. For example, if you’ve been running a terpenes series on your blog, your newsletter can highlight those posts and share some popular terpene-rich strains.
7. Have a compelling subject line.
If the subject line isn’t compelling your reader may not make it past “Hello.” For help with subject lines, Hubspot has this recipe.
8. Pick one primary call-to-action.
It’s ok for newsletters to have multiple calls-to-action (CTAs), but let there be one head honcho CTA to make it easy for your subscribers to know what you want them to do.
9. Let them opt out easily.
There’s nothing sketchier and more irksome than making it hard to unsubscribe. It leaves a negative impression you don’t want. If you’re using a service like MailChimp, this is auto-generated so you don’t have to think about it.
10. Test, test, test.
If possible, use A-B (or A-B-C) testing to determine what subjects, formats, templates, etc. work best. See which emails get opened most and which get the most clicks. Once you can start pinpointing what works, you can incorporate it into every email.
Time To Get Started
Dispensary email marketing takes various shapes. A newsletter is one of the most effective, but it takes more planning than you might think. Ultimately, your newsletter will start to engage customers in a new way, and that will bring more value to their cannabis dispensary experience.
