Supercharge Your Marketing and Sales with Automation

By Brian Pappalardo

Why you need marketing automation to grow your cannabis business

Marketing automation is a highly effective tool in today’s competitive environment. It helps with attracting the right prospects, meeting customer demand, growing market share, and ultimately spurring on more revenue.

There are many advantages to using marketing automation software for your cannabis business such as being able to identify new leads, follow up with prospects who have visited your website or store, and send personalized messages based on each customer’s interests and past behavior.


The challenge of marketing your cannabis business

We don’t have to tell you that marketing a cannabis business can be tricky. First, there are restrictions and regulations which vary from state to state in terms of what is and isn’t allowed. Then, there’s the fact that most advertisers restrict cannabis-related products and services. While it’s possible to advertise your product or services, you have to be REALLY careful about what you put in your ad and landing page copy.

Because you can’t just throw more money at Facebook to bring in leads, it’s really important to make the most of each lead or customer that you can get. That’s where marketing automation comes into play.

Elizabeth Michael in Little Rock's Healing Hemp of Arkansas CBD Store

What is marketing automation

When most people think of marketing automation, they think about sending emails. While that’s definitely part of it, we’d like to invite you to think even bigger.

Marketing in general has changed a lot over the last few years and marketing automation has been a big part of that.

Elizabeth Michael shops at Little Rock's leading CBD store Healing Hemp

Bud Agency’s Elizabeth Michael in Little Rock’s Healing Hemp of Arkansas CBD Store

Old-school marketing is a dance where the company leads. They might decide to run a promo next week that’s open to everybody. So the company sends out the same newsletter to thousands of people, hoping that some of them are ready to buy. 

Marketing automation is a dance where the customer leads. The job of the company is to build delightful and valuable experiences for their customers. So, instead of running a promo for everyone, they might send out a highly personalized one two weeks after a customer’s third purchase, offering a specialized message, or incentive, depending on local regulations. 

Or the company might run a campaign to customers who haven’t purchased in six months, to try to get them to buy again. 

A good marketing automation tool will capture all kinds of behavioral data on your customers: 

  • How many times they’ve viewed your website in the last 30 days, and which pages they’ve viewed
  • The last time they purchased from you
  • Their average transaction size
  • Their lifetime value
  • How many times they’ve shopped with you 
  • Their interactions with marketing campaigns that you’ve run in the past
  • And a whole lot more

This data is really valuable because it helps you segment your customer lists so that you can talk to them in a way that’s appropriate based on their past behavior. You wouldn’t talk to your super-customers who buy from you every week the same way you would talk to a brand new customer, would you? 

Common marketing automation campaigns

Below are a few campaigns that every business should start implementing today.

Pre-purchase campaign

Marketing automation works best when you are actively working to grow your marketing list. While some people think that email marketing is old-school, there’s truly nothing else that’s as much bang for your buck as having an engaged contact list. You might entice people to join your list with an incentive when they make their first purchase with you.

While some people might take you up on it right away, others will need some follow-up. So run a pre-purchase campaign that educates your prospects on why they should buy your products, and why they should buy from your company, specifically. Sweeten the deal by offering an enticing incentive if they don’t purchase within the first few emails, given your local regulations allow it.

A “get to know us” campaign

It’s becoming more and more important for consumers to feel a personal connection to your brand. If you have a strong “why” behind what you do, consumers will want to buy from you and tell others to do business with you as well.

A good use of a marketing automation workflow is to periodically share information with your contacts that builds trust and affection toward your brand. This normally happens early on when the contact enters your database. If you can position your company as a leader early on, that’s a big win for you.

A post purchase campaign

A common and very important part of marketing automation is what happens directly after the sale. If you’re keeping track of who is buying what (which you can and should be doing with a marketing automation platform), you can create campaigns that ensure your new customers are successful with their new purchases. Maybe some tips around using their new pipe or vape, showing off complementary products, and more.

After you’ve shared some helpful tips, it’s always a good idea to ask the customer how they liked their purchase. This allows you to catch (and fix) any negative experiences, and identify your happiest customers and point them in the direction of Google or Facebook to leave a review.

Sales & operations automation

While a marketing automation tool can and should be used to automate your marketing efforts, don’t forget about the rest of your business! If you have a sales team selling your product to dispensaries across the country, a marketing automation tool can help make sure your sales team follows a similar process and that leads don’t slip through the cracks.

If you have an office administrator who has a bunch of data entry tasks, it’s very possible that a marketing automation software can take a lot of that busy work off their plate. Data syncs and integrations can save your staff hours and hours each week, allowing your team to focus on delighting your customers and growing your business. It can even automate and help you execute important documents.

And that’s not all!

We’ve only just started to scratch the surface of how you can use marketing automation to propel your business forward. We’re specialists who help cannabis businesses embrace marketing automation to market, sell and grow better. Schedule a free consultation with our team to see what we can do for you.

Contact us today at cultivate@budagency.co to schedule a meeting.

About the Author: Brian Pappalardo

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