SMS marketing is a powerful tool for cannabis marketers. The average open-rate of text messages is 95%. The strategies and tips in this guide will help ensure that your text messages are delivered, read, and will generate revenue for your product. The more effective your SMS marketing is, the higher your sales will be.
For most companies, the main goal is to gain new business and improve relationships with existing customers to increase customer loyalty. Cannabis brands have been using SMS marketing to win CBD customers and drive sales for some time now. According to market research, cannabis SMS marketing has a much better success rate than email marketing. Almost all SMS marketing messages will be opened within twenty minutes of being received. However, there is a disadvantage: using low-quality marketers, who are usually inexperienced, may result in high exit rates and poor message deliverability. Some people even face legal proceedings.
Understanding the good and the bad of SMS marketing for cannabis before starting a marketing campaign is essential. There are three things you must be crystal clear about before you even think about moving on.
Text Deliverability
While you plan for 2022 and beyond, you will have many things to think about: pricing, product planning, design, branding campaigns, and distribution, among others. These things are vital, and sometimes we miss the details in other areas. You may have a lot of time to create text messages, but have you thought about the delivery capacity? Your provider could say that they will guarantee text delivery, but most prominent carriers have sophisticated algorithms to detect spam. You may spend a lot of money by sending SMS and MMS texts that are not received. You must ensure you have a high supply fee by structuring your messages and your platform to avoid the “spam” trap. For example, if you continually send long lists in your SMS marketing messages, your delivery capacity may be negatively affected.
Diversification
Sending great deals via SMS often results in purchases almost immediately. Maybe the marketer just started his first SMS marketing for cannabis campaigns, and you think, “How easy is this?” The natural reaction is to send more messages. Please do not do it! Your customers could have loved the first offer, but it does not take much for them to feel that you are bothering them. We all feel this way. All this sounds obvious, but it is incredible how many brands fall into this trap. It is difficult to resist temptation when you see the money come in with the first SMS campaign.
Number of Offers
The Analytics platform suggests that if you send more than four special offers in a week, its exclusion will increase, and its delivery will collapse. The key with SMS marketing for cannabis is to diversify your messaging. For example, you could send an MMS about special treatment and follow it with an SMS about an event or promotion in the store the next day. The adverse effects of SMS marketing are often limited by doing this.
Don’t Just Sell
Many companies think they do not have enough content to participate in SMS marketing for cannabis. The THC and e-commerce brands often have only a limited number of products. They are also limited in the information that can be shared. The key to e-commerce and THC companies is loving the customers. They must go beyond their customers by sending informative texts instead of continuous sales information. Links to revisions of your products, educational information, and videos sent after the texts about excellent offers, for example, are a perfect way to develop relationships with your customers and keep loyalty. There really is no limit to what can be done, and the SMS marketing for cannabis will not disappear soon, so you should consider.
While text-based marketing may sound like an easy solution, it is not cheap, and retailers must understand the landscape before implementing a text-based marketing strategy. Companies must be competent in mobile carriers’ content filters, which screen for words related to cannabis that can indicate illegal drug sales. You should also ensure the texts comply with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) regulations designed to limit telemarketer and spam applications. The rules, administered by the Federal Trade Commission, require companies to obtain two forms of consent and offer a clear exclusion option for consumers who change their minds after enrolling. Not following the FTC regulations can result in fines, judgments, and settlements of the court. The Cell Phone Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA) offers better practices and suggestions to maintain SMS marketing within federal guidelines.
Personalization is your ability to use the data you have about your audience to understand how your content adapts best to your needs or interests. This guarantees that visitors and customers obtain messages adapted to them.
Now It’s Time for Your Plan
Now is when marketing plans for cannabis have become an essential tool that most intelligent cannabis brands are adding to their marketing strategies. It is powerful and has the versatility that will be used in a variety of applications. It would be best if you verify the guidelines for use that are available online, and then you can use your creativity to test different techniques and find out which appeals to your customers, both old and new. Go for it!