Halloween Promotions For Your Dispensary

1. Add Seasonal Flair to Your Ecommerce Menu

Now is the perfect time to update your online menus and put together some festive graphic design for your online presence. To get started, why not add a spooky background to your website or ecommerce menu? This will set the mood and help to create an extra layer of excitement for customers.

Not all ecommerce platforms make it easy to customize the look of your menu, but our partners at Budsense make it pretty easy to implement all of your Halloween dispensary ideas

To get an idea of the incredible level of customization Budsense can give you check out their full article on upgrading your menus look!

We’ll also be hosting a webinar together with Budsense to show how you can optimize your online customer journey using Budsense’s customizable ecommerce platform

2. Throw a Marijuana Monster Mash

Hosting your own special event for Halloween is an awesome way to bring in some foot traffic and boost sales. It is a great opportunity to not only mingle with your loyal customers but also to make more connections with your community. Most events Include things like:

• Live music
• Free food and drinks
• Raffles for prizes from your inventory
• A costume contest

By putting together a proper graveyard ganja smash you get to create an experience that people will appreciate.  If you run a sale simultaneously, you increase the chances of turning those party-goers into shoppers. Come for the costumes, stay for the THC candies!

Now that you’ve got people through the door, it’s time to encourage them to sign up for your dispensary’s loyalty program.

There are a few ways you can get people to enroll in your dispensary loyalty rewards program:

1. Text-to-join code using your dispensary texting software
2. QR code
3. Online or In-store Custom Join Forms

As always, adding some VIP perks could be just the incentive customers need to sign-up. You could print out flyers and cards, then set them up around the store with a promotion like:

“We are throwing an MJ MONSTER MASH! If you want to get a penny p-roll at the door, join our VIP Club before October 23rd!” 

Then, you can set the offer to send automatically once they’ve joined. To include current members, just set up another automation to send the offer to everyone signed up before a specific date.

Finally, set the offer to expire the day after your party. This way, you won’t have a ton of people trying to come in the next day.

Don’t want to throw a party? Try to decorate with a haunting or festive vibe. If you don’t have access to a fog machine, there are alternative methods of filling a room with smoke ;). Putting some Halloween themed candy at the cash register can easily snag a few extra dollars for a customer with the munchies and a craving for peanut butter cups.

3. Create a Cannabis Costume Contest 

Don’t have the resources to turn your dispensary into a haunted house? That’s ok, you can still hold a cool costume contest! Set up a campaign that invites all your cannabis rewards program members to stop by the shop in their best cannabis-inspired costume on Halloween, with a big prize waiting for the winner.

“Hey ghouls and goblins, [business name] are throwing a CannaCostume Contest! Stop by during your trick-or-treating and show us your best cannabis-inspired costume. We will announce the winners Friday, November 1st on our Facebook page

 

First place prize- will receive [offer here]

Second place prize- will receive [offer here]  

Third place prize- will receive [offer here]” 

This is a simple way to encourage customers to stop by your store to pick up their goodies while out trick-or-treating. You can also promote the contest through print materials in-store, but creating a text campaign is a great way to ensure a wider audience sees what you’re offering.

You can always skip the cannabis-inspired part and just go for the coolest costumes, too. Whatever works best for your brand. Either way, it’s sure to be a lot of fun.

4. Showcase Savings on Spooky Strains

Another awesome way you can celebrate Halloween is to showcase special sales on those strains with spooky names. Whether named after a costumed clown criminal, a nuclear disaster, or magic monsters these strains are sure to get your customers in the mood for more of those THC infused peanut butter cups.

Our Top 10 Favorite Halloween Themed Strains

• Frankenberry
• Ghost OG
• Harlequin
• Black Widow
• Chernobyl
• Jack Skellington
• Jack the Ripper
• Green Goblin
• Witches Weed
• Zombie Kush

Remember, most people aren’t versed in every strain of cannabis on the market. Make sure to place them front and center with Halloween themed imagery where they are sure to catch the customer’s eye.

5. Have Cannabis Candy and Other Edibles 

Parties are the number one Halloween activity after trick-or-treating. Most of your customers will leave the trick-or-treating to the kids (at least until the adults catch a case of the munchies), so you can count on party favors being a hot item.

Edibles have the highest profit margin of most cannabis products, therefore, you should take advantage of a time where edibles are in high demand. Try putting together a bulk texting campaign to promote your cannabis edibles and remind customers of all the spooky snacks they can pick up at your dispensary, like:

“The best way to “infuse” cannabis into your Halloween party is simple, infuse cannabis into your food and drinks! Come into [business name] and pick up some of our sweetest holidays treats with [offer here] OFF all edibles!” 

You will obviously packaged edibles, but since you are trying to market towards social gatherings consider creating an “edible cooking kits”.  This will encourage customers to decorate their own ghoulish edibles with their friends as a party activity. Find some recipes containing ingredients with high profit margins and package them with THC oil and instructions on how to create the final product. Here’s a list of some Halloween themed edibles you can recommend. 

6. Promote all Things Pumpkin

In keeping with the all American obsession of ‘foodifying’ everything, let’s talk pumpkins. Unless you’ve been living under a rock you must have noticed the ubiquity of pumpkin spice. But it doesn’t have to be reserved for just pies and lattes.

Try stocking up on pumpkin spice flavored pre-rolls. Remember our talk about edibles? This is another great chance to highlight your best seasonal treats. You can even go the extra mile and have your budtenders recommend strains that pair well with the flavor profile. Here’s a list of some good strain and food pairings.

Not to mention, when it comes to Halloween, pumpkins are not just for eating. While other retailers are selling jack-o-lantern carving kits, your dispensary can sell a pumpkin bong carving kit! 

You could even take it to the next level and hold a pumpkin carving contest! Just apply the same kind of rules you would to the costume competition, or host it as part of your marijuana monster mash.

7. Stock Up on Seasonal Accessories

Any holiday is a time where customers purchase small, non-essential items that feature the holiday’s theme. Something about the seasons just gets people excited for timely trinkets, even small disposable items are especially popular due to the finite nature of a holiday. So grab you some little extras to toss in every goodie bag.

You can get way ahead of the game, too! A lot of people started their Halloween shopping on October 1st, so be sure to stock up early on Halloween themed disposables like:

• Novelty rolling papers
• Wraps
• Cartridges
• Pods

You could even keep it simple with a free Halloween themed key-chain or lighter with specific purchases. People love free stuff, just ask all the kids running around with bags to fill with free candy. If you do, throw it in a text campaign for your rewards members.

“Attention VIP, come into [business name] on Trick-or-Treat night and get a free

[insert seasonal accessory] with any purchase!”

8. Attend Cannabis Culture Events

Again, don’t stress it if you can’t throw your own Halloween event. After all, there are plenty of other chances to show up. This time of year just so happens to be a popular time for cannabis-related events in general, most notably High Times’ “Spooktacular” Cannabis Cup.

Check online to see if there are any conventions or community activities taking place in your area. If you can, try to see about sponsoring the event, or exhibiting your services. It is a great way to network with others in the local cannabis community and connect with potential customers.

Better yet, if there is something going on near you, offer out-of-towner specials or spotlight locally produced products for canna-tourists. Even if you don’t directly get in on the action, run some specials during the days those events are happening to try and draw in some of that crowd. These events are obviously a principle method of marketing your dispensary to the entire industry so don’t underestimate the power of a good Halloween promotion.

9. Keep Calm and CBD On

Finally, people love to get scared for Halloween. One of the most popular destinations this month will be Haunted Houses, Zombie Infested Labs, Escape Rooms, or really any other experience that attempts to induce the blood-curdling fear of being trapped in enclosed spaces in the presence of supernatural creatures.

Honestly, someone like me tends to avoid scenarios that make life flash before my eyes, but hey, you do you. Needless to say, on a night like Halloween I want to participate in the festivities with my friends, no matter how many painted clowns with chainsaws they have.

Thankfully, CBD has provided the solution. Not everyone is built for all that scary stuff. So you have a chance to boost your sales on those stress-relieving remedies just in time for the next Fright Night Horror Festival. Have your budtenders educate customers on the calming and anxiolytic properties of CBD, and have them promote it as a way to keep your cool when faced with ghouls. Then, leverage your cannabis text marketing platform to help spread the word.

“Hey [business name] club member. Don’t be scared to death this Halloween! Keep Calm and trick-or-treat on with [offer here] OFF all our calming CBD products until the end of October!”