Cannabis marketing companies are aplenty and getting your SEO, email marketing, and content strategy together is an essential part of promoting your business. However, If you want your dispensary to capture your customers entire cannabis wallet, you need unbreakable customer loyalty. To create a cohesive strategy for customer retention, follow these 8 steps and turn your customers into walking, talking brand ambassadors.
8 Ways To Create Unbreakable Customer Loyalty:
1. Know your customers by name:This seems simple, but you’d be surprised how many people forget this essential touch point. Train your staff and managers to value each individual customer as a potential brand ambassador. As soon as they enter the door they should be greeted with a friendly, “Hi (insert customer’s name here). I’ll be right with you.”
The number one reason clients leave a service provider is not due to dissatisfaction with the service or product, but because of perceived indifference. If your customers perceive that you don’t know them or care about their business, they will go elsewhere. Know each and every customer’s name, use it, and they will feel valued. If your clients feel valued at your establishment, they will be much more likely to choose it over the competition and return again and again.
2. Consumer Education: When you help build your customers’ knowledge base you position yourself as an expert in the field and build large word-of-mouth marketing networks. If your clients leave your dispensary feeling more educated, confident, and interested in cannabis you will have kickstarted a marketing chain reaction. People with a special understanding of cannabis tend to share that knowledge. When you turn your clients into connoisseurs, they become the experts in their respective circles. Consequently, their recommendations hold more weight, and they will send a lot of business your way.
Make sure your budtenders know how to transfer that knowledge seamlessly to your customers. (Check out GreenCulturED’s programs for staff and consumer ed). Educating your clients will not only keep them coming back, but it will also create brand ambassadors that are happy to share their deep knowledge of your cannabis products with anyone interested enough to listen.
3. Rewards Programs: Rewards programs are easy to implement and create incentives for clients to return to patronize your business. They are designed to target the top 20% of your clients in order to increase their monthly spend and encourage customer loyalty. Here are a few loyalty programs you can start today:
- Points-Per-Purchase programs: Points-Per-Purchase programs track your customers spending at send them a reward when they reach a certain amount. Companies like SpringBig, Alpine IQ, and Dabber have software solutions that address all compliance issues.
- Social Media Rewards: Just because you can’t advertise your dispensary on social media directly doesn’t mean your clients can’t! Social media rewards programs offer incentives to customers for posting selfies, creating how-to videos, or posting reviews or other creative content to their social channels. This is a great way to turn a good customer into a bona fide brand ambassador without spending a dime.
- Membership Program: Forget Amazon Prime, how about Free Delivery for platinum members? A monthly flat fee program can create MRR for your business while locking in customer loyalty. Other ideas for membership benefits – Pre-Roll Tuesdays (2 for 1), 10% off on Thursdays, or free classes.
- Referral Rewards: Referral rewards are one of the best ways to increase customer retention. These programs usually offer both the current client and the new customer an incentive. The new client could receive a discount on their first purchase while the referring customer could receive a free gummy as a reward. How ever you decide to structure it, be sure to incentivize both sides – the referring client and the referral for optimal engagement.
4. High-Quality Product: You do not want a reputation for selling bad or low-quality products. If you don’t have the experience necessary to distinguish between high and low quality, you’ll need to bring in an expert. Having a pharmacist on your team could be invaluable, especially if you are in an area that highly values the medicinal benefits of cannabis. Ideally, as an entrepreneur in the space, you need to be able to recognize good cannabis when you see, smell, and touch it. Knowing your product is an incredibly important part of running a successful cannabis business. There are many tools and resources available to become more knowledgeable. Check out the new Gangier certification program powered by Green Flower Education. If you can, become certified and you’ll never have to ask, “Is this good weed?” ever again.
Whether you bring additional help in or educate yourself, consistently carrying high quality flower, edibles, and other products is essential for building customer retention.
5. Well-Trained Staff: What does it mean to have well-trained staff? When a store is run well, it shows on the face of every employee. Your staff should know the company SOPs like the back of their hands. In addition, you need to communicate clear expectations and frameworks for hitting sales goals. Once each staff member understands the greater, overarching mission of the company and their place in it, they will be able to take measured action toward those goals. Giving them solid expectations and a framework for success creates well-trained, happy staff members and trust between your brand and your customers. People buy from businesses they can trust.
(If you’re just getting started and in the research phase, check out our blog on how much it costs to open a dispensary).
6. Be “Human” In Your Marketing: Something really weird happens when we start creating marketing materials. We get . . . . creepy. Imagine walking into a cocktail party, minding your own business, sitting down to a much needed drink when all of a sudden a man I’ll call, “Larry the life insurance guy” jumps into the seat next to you and screams, “HEY!! Would you like to buy life insurance from me??!!!”
Can you imagine this ever working IRL? Probably not. So why do we do it in marketing? When you write copy or create marketing materials and plans, remember that people are humans, not robots. Creating customer loyalty takes time, just like dating. Start slow. Get to know your customers. Ask questions and listen for answers. Speak as you would to a friend in your marketing copy. Create and nurture strong relationships, and those relationships will create and nurture a strong business.
7. Clear Brand Differentiation: You’ve heard it a million times: What’s your secret sauce? What’s your differentiator? What’s your UVP? Branding is all about what makes you “YOU” and not “them.” And it is super important because companies without strong brands die in the face of adversity. This is make or break it type stuff, so it’s important to decide who you are, what you stand for, and why your company should exist at all.
If it sounds existential, it is. I personally believe that making money is not enough. If you start a company just to make money, you will inevitably be challenged past your desire for riches, unless of course, you are Ebeneezer Scrooge, at which point only the Ghost of Christmas Past can help you. When you are deciding what makes your brand different, I suggest starting with what makes YOU different. (Start to discover your brand DNA here.)
Your business is an extension of your personal values. So ask yourself – why cannabis? Why a dispensary? Why now? Which personal values are you expressing through opening your dispensary, and why on God’s green earth should anyone else care about it? Once you answer that question you will be ready to build your company’s mission to express those unique values. These are the essential first steps to building your brand DNA – what makes you “you” and not “them.” When you clearly communicate your mission and why your customers should care – you will differentiate your brand and be on your way to creating a slammin’ secret sauce.
8. Clean, Comfortable Environment: This one’s easy to accomplish if you put into place good SOPs for sanitation and have the cash to hire a top-notch designer to get the vibe “just right.” If you are working on a shoestring budget, you’ll need to be more creative. Remember, comfort means different things to different people.
Think about your target market – what will make their experience the most pleasing? Many years ago, when weed was just becoming legal in CA, I had an acquaintance who made a mint on creating medical-grade glass pipes and bongs. He couldn’t keep them on the shelf and was selling out constantly. Why? Because there was a large population of consumers that were not comfortable walking into a “head shop” to purchase a bong. They were much more comfortable purchasing medical equipment online.
Think about your target client personas. Are they more comfortable with a “head shop” vibe, something upscale, or more wellness-oriented? Make sure that whatever you decide is in alignment with your brand DNA and values. Then keep it CLEAN. Don’t allow smudges on your cases, kiosks, or door knobs. Keep the floors clear. Make walking into your dispensary a welcoming breath of fresh air and respite from the outside world and your clients will be looking forward to their visit, every time.
Need Ideas? Check out 12 of the Countries Most Stylish Cannabis Dispensaries
Marketing in the cannabis industry can be tough, which is why once you get a client through the door you need to keep them coming back. Yes, top cannabis marketing agencies will sell you “Cannabis SEO,” “Cannabis Email Marketing,” “Cannabis Content Marketing,” and “Cannabis Social Media Marketing,” and all sorts of digital media services. These are important, but they can’t build client retention. Only you and your staff can do that. The most important thing to remember is that building a strong business is really about building strong business relationships. Do these 8 things and you will be well on your way to creating rock solid customer loyalty.
