Cannabis businesses saw record sales this past ‘Green Wednesday’ and ‘Black Friday’. But now that those days have passed dispensary owners should be asking themselves how they are going to turn those holiday shoppers into repeat customers. We’ll provide 3 proven methods of boosting customer retention to get those holiday shoppers coming back for more through Christmas and beyond.

1. Create a Dispensary Loyalty Program
2. Use Dispensary Text Message Marketing
3. Fine-Tune your Customer Relations Management Strategy

 

1) Create a Dispensary Loyalty Program

 

Loyalty programs are a proven method of retaining customers and increasing how much customers spend. Not only do loyal customers visit more often, but they purchase a wider range of cannabis products and more of them, according to Headset. Traditional retailers are not nearly as restricted in their marketing efforts as cannabis dispensaries, and they still use loyalty programs. For example, Starbucks currently runs one of the most successful loyalty programs in retail.

If traditional retailers run loyalty programs then it’s clear that cannabis dispensaries should be incorporating a cannabis loyalty program into their dispensary marketing strategy.

In general, loyalty programs are structured in one of two ways; spend-based and visits-based loyalty. The former rewards customers for making a purchase, and depending on what dollar threshold they cross, they get a certain amount of points they can use toward rewards (penny pre-rolls, coupons, etc.).

We recommend a spend-based, points-per-dollar system where your customers earn one point for every dollar spent in your dispensary, which can be redeemed for rewards later. Using this structure makes tracking the cost and ROI of your program simple, and proportionately rewards your highest spenders. The Visits based system is reminicent of outdated punch-card style loyalty programs that are compatible with coffee shops where most items are the same price but not at a cannabis dispensary.

2) Use Dispensary Text Message Marketing

A recent study revealed that 77% of consumers with texting capabilities aged 18-34 are likely to have a positive perception of a company that offers text capability. This revolution has resulted in new channels of B2C communication in the cannabis industry. The same study found that SMS messages are opened within 3 minutes and have a 99% open rate.

Although some may think SMS marketing is only useful for broad-based outreach and not suitable for cannabis marketing, springbig gives dispensaries the ability to send specific campaigns to segmented groups based on their interests or their spending habits. This targeting, combined with springbig’s ease of use, analytics, and loyalty program, can help you craft messages that your customers will be glad they read and acted upon.

Unlike other dispensary marketing technology, spring’s dispensary texting software allows marketers to track the performance of each text message marketing campaign. Click rates, redemptions, and most importantly, resulting store visits are all vital data points that cannabis companies can’t get anywhere else.

3) Fine-Tune your Customer Relations Management Strategy

Another harsh reality we face in the cannabis industry is that providing your customer base with an amazing product is no longer all that’s needed to keep your customers coming back for more. They have so many other places to choose from, and every reason to go dispensary-hopping to test the market.

Research has shown that there are two motivating factors that drive repeat business in the United States: access to a loyalty program and a relationship with customers. Once you have a loyalty program set up at your dispensary all you need is a Cannabis CRM system to keep track of your members and ensure they are getting the best experience from it.

Springbig’s CRM software is proud to announce a new integration with TryBudtender’s dispensary survey software. TryBudtender provides dispensaries with all the tools they need to gauge customer satisfaction and get the full picture of exactly what their customers need. By integrating into springbig dispensaries will now be able to text customers surveys and incentivize the completion of the survey with dispensary rewards offered through springbig’s loyalty rewards platform and of course those points can be redeemed back to your dispensary.