l marketing for CBD and cannabis brands [2023]
Cannabis businesses face many challenges in promoting their products. Content related to CBD or THC is restricted or prohibited in many digital marketing tools, including social media and Google Ads. It becomes harder to reach the audience you want.
Emails are still an effective tool. Although some email marketing tools also restrict cannabis brands, there are CBD-friendly options to streamline your email marketing strategy and grow your customer base.
We’ve put together this guide to help you learn more about emailing for cannabis brands if you own a cannabis dispensary or sell cannabis-related products. Discover the main benefits of email marketing, how to be successful, and what platforms you can use to achieve your marketing goals.
Cannabis Email Marketing Benefits
Here are the benefits of adding email campaigns to your online marketing strategy:
Increased website traffic
Email marketing is a great way to drive customers to your site. It’s a good complement to SEO and content marketing.
People who are interested in CBD and have opted-in to your list will interact with you. You can increase brand awareness by sending timely and relevant email campaigns to your potential customers.
By building and monitoring a email funnel you can personalize your campaigns and make up for lost revenue that you could have gotten by planning retargeting advertisements.
Higher Return
Email marketing can increase your revenue. Cannabis companies can reap the benefits of regular email communication with their customers and old ones.
Remember that some tactics, such as email automatization, and segmentation can be key in this process. Your email messages will perform better if they are more personalized.
Lower Churn rate
Email personalization is also a great way to increase customer loyalty. Email subscribers who receive related CBD recommendations based on their previous purchases feel that the brand cares about them.
Sending irrelevant emails or sending too many messages can lead to unsubscribes. This could also damage the reputation of the sender.
Improved Services
Monitoring your key metrics will also help you to understand what your prospects and customers value the most in terms of products and services.
You can also use surveys to get direct feedback from your customers. Find out more about your customers’ experience and how to make it stand out in the cannabis market.
Create an Email Marketing Strategy for Your Cannabis Brand
Here are some tips to help you integrate emails into your current strategy:
1. Email Marketing Platforms: Choose One to Use
To build your cannabis email strategy, the first step is to find an email service such as Moosend and Klaviyo that will manage everything from one place. It’s crucial to choose a platform to streamline your business processes, from creating beautiful campaigns to creating thorough reports.
These are the key features you should look for when searching:
It’s important to choose an email marketing tool that integrates with other tools such as CRMs and social media platforms to bring together all marketing efforts in one stack. Find the best solution for your budget by comparing their pricing.
You will also need an SMTP Server to schedule the transactional email. These automated emails are sent based on subscriber actions.
Not all email marketing platforms support cannabis. Next, you will find a list of top email marketing platforms that have excellent capabilities and are suitable for CBD.
2. Build Your Email List
Building an email list is a challenge for beginners. However, knowing your buyer personas will help.
Here are some simple methods for building your subscriber list.
- Subscribe forms: Add subscription form to your website as pop-ups or floating bars.
- Lead Magnets: Create gated contents which will appear on targeted consumers’ websites in exchange for their emails.
- Subscription Button: Add an subscription button to the checkout page in order to attract customers and prospects.
- Landing Pages: Share converting landing page in your social media or on your website to get opt-in.
- Giveaways Give products away for free to prospective customers in exchange for their email addresses
- Contacts: Ask for the email addresses of your contacts.
You can’t build a list that is worth reading overnight. It’s important to try different methods of collection until you find what works.
3. Segment Your Audience
Bulk messages sent to all your subscribers will not bring you the best results for your cannabis business. allows marketers to send more targeted emails to their audience in order to maximize conversions.
It’s a process that divides your subscribers into groups based on common characteristics such as demographics or location. You can decide which variables to use based on the needs of your audience.
The main benefit of email segmentation, in a nutshell is that you can target your messages as much as possible. You can, for example, send different content to clients who purchase CBD as a therapeutic or recreational product, focusing on products, pain points and solutions.
This email campaign by Prima is a beauty-focused campaign that aims to nurture people who are interested in beauty services and products.
Subject line 7 reasons to try CBD
4. Automate Workflows
Marketing automation is a powerful tool that can help improve the performance of your email marketing. It is a process that involves setting up automated emails to target subscribers at specific times, based on triggers.
Automated workflows can help you save time and send the right message to your audience at the right moment. Many email marketing platforms, like Moosend, offer premade recipes that will help you set up workflows such as abandon cart or onboarding emails.
If you run an online store that sells CBD products, for example, you could send a welcome message with interesting content and then schedule a second one with your best products three days later.
5. Create Effective Campaigns
You’ve now learned how to build an email marketing campaign that will showcase your brand to the fullest. You can use an email platform that has premade template to showcase your brand if you do not have the budget or design skills to work with a marketing company.
Include these email elements:
- It is important to have a clear sender’s name in order to reduce spam and confusion.
- A subject line that is relevant and attractive will increase the open rate.
- Copy that is relevant and interesting to your audience.
- The content will be easier to read if you have a clear outline.
- A simple email introduction that introduces the reader to the idea.
- Your cannabis business will be featured in the footer of your email.
You can use this excellent example of Goodboy Wellness as inspiration for your next campaign.
Subject line: Transform your morning with CBD Coffee
6. Monitor your key metrics
To optimize your strategy, you should monitor the email metrics. Many email marketing services offer reporting and analytics tools that allow you to track important email data, including:
- Open Rates
- Click-through rates
- Bounce rates
- Spam complaints
- Unsubscribe
As soon as you recognize patterns that are effective, keep them in mind to continue nurturing your audience and increasing your sales. You can integrate the platform with an advanced tool like Google Analytics to dig deeper into these insights and come up with safer conclusions.
Sending a quick questionnaire to your audience can help you collect feedback and create better content.
5 CBD Friendly Email Service Providers
Explore the best email marketing platforms for cannabis brands. Learn about their features, pricing and more.
1. Moosend
Moosend offers a comprehensive email marketing platform that is easy to use and has flexible pricing. The platform features a drag-and drop editor, as well as a variety of ready-made templates that are tailored to different industries and business requirements. These templates are mobile-responsive and customizable, providing a great user experience.
This platform has an audience management tool and pre-made automation workflows that allow you to personalize and convert leads into customers. Real-time analytics and reporting will help you keep track of important metrics. With a score of up 98% you can be sure that your emails will arrive in your subscribers’ mailbox.
Moosend Feature
- Email Editor and Customizable Templates
- Landing pages and sign-up forms
- Email Marketing Automation
- Reporting and Analytics
- A/B Testing
- List management options and tags
- Integrations
Moosend Price
Moosend plans begin at $9/month and include unlimited emails, workflow automation, landing pages, forms and access to STMP servers. You can sign up for the 30-day trial before making a final purchase.
2. Klaviyo
Klaviyo combines SMS and email marketing to maximize outreach and conversions. It is a great choice for eCommerce CBD brands. It has pre-built automation and segmentation features to increase sales and ensure customer retention.
Klaviyo offers pre-made templates for email creation and a Design Showcase that allows you to draw inspiration from other email campaigns. This email platform also offers real-time analysis, insights into future behavior, and detailed reporting in order to boost your sales and optimize your performance.
Klaviyo Features
- Email and SMS integration
- Drag-and-drop email creator
- Premade automation sequences
- Personalised benchmarks
- Various sign-up forms
Klaviyo Pricing
You can use the free plan, but you will only have access to a limited number of features. You can upgrade your email plan to $20/month if you want more subscribers. This will allow you to send up to 5,000 emails. Email and SMS plans start at $35/month with up to 5,000 emails and 1250 SMS/MMS credit.
3. MailerLite
MailerLite offers all the features necessary to streamline an email marketing campaign. It offers a pre-made editor, as well as landing pages and signup forms for collecting valuable customer information.
The email service offers many advantages for eCommerce brands. These include a website builder, paid subscription to newsletters, and automation features that allow for personalization. Email verification tools will also be available to you to verify that all addresses on your list are valid and to keep spam and bounce rates low.
MailerLite features
- Rich-text editor with drag-and-drop functionality
- Sign-up pages and landing pages
- Website Builder
- Online Selling Options
- Automated multi-trigger options
MailerLite Pricing
MailerLite plans begin at $10/month and include unlimited emails for up to 1,000 users. There is also a free plan that allows up to 12,000 email messages with basic features.
4. Drip
Drip is another email platform for cannabis brands. allows you to create multi-channel marketing campaigns that emphasize emails. Starting with a user-friendly email builder and ready-made templates, you can build professionally-looking emails that delight your audience.
You can customize the automation workflows in this tool to create highly-targeted emails. You can test which email variations will resonate best with your audience using A/B testing. It also has powerful integrations that allow you to track the customer journey and convert leads into loyal customers.
Drip features
- Dynamic segmentation
- Automated workflows that can be customized
- Dynamic product blocks
- A/B Testing
- Integrations
Drip Pricing
Drip’s Pricing is based on your number of subscribers. It starts at $39/month and includes unlimited sends, migration for free, onsite campaigns and email support.
5. AWeber
AWeber is a popular tool for email marketing that allows cannabis businesses to market their products/services on the internet. AWeber has an email editor that is outdated when compared with other options, but it’s still user-friendly and includes email templates for saving time without compromising on quality.
It offers the same features as previous options: landing pages, signup forms, drag-and drop workflow editor, and automation of your emails. List management and reporting tools will allow you to personalize the customer experience even further and identify what needs improvement. Its CRM and SMS functions can help you win more business.
AWeber Features
- Drag-and-drop editor
- List segmentation and management
- A/B Testing
- Pre-built autoresponders
- Dynamic content
AWeber Pricing
AWeber’s plan costs $15/month and includes unlimited subscribers. To access more advanced features you will need to upgrade to the Plus plan which costs $30/month. AWeber offers a free plan with limited features.
Takeaways
While cannabis is legal in most regions, there are some advertising companies that restrict its promotion. This makes it difficult to develop a marketing plan. Email marketing can be used to nurture customers and prospects, and get the results that you desire.
Find a CBD friendly email service and create campaigns that will wow your audience. Moosend’s one of them. Sign up today to see our amazing features.
Email marketing for cannabis brands FAQs
Answers to some frequently asked questions
1. Is Mailchimp cannabis-friendly?
Mailchimp prohibits online cannabis business from selling CBD or THC products, even though they claim to support certain related services.
2. Can I promote my cannabis brand on the internet?
Many email marketing platforms, like Moosend, allow you to nurture and target your audience.
3. What is the best online way to promote marijuana?
You can create and send email campaigns, or partner with influencers to share your product/service with their audiences.
4. What are the best CBD-friendly ESPs available?
The best email service providers for CBD are Moosend. Klaviyo. MailerLite. Drip.
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