5 Ways to Retain Cannabis Customers and Ignite Loyalty

Creative ways to increase retail sales

There are many ways to engage with customers and encourage an ongoing relationship. Let’s start at the point of purchase to kickstart the relationship on a high note.

1. Collect data and create segmentations at point of purchase (POP) to personalize future communication

First, for online sales, be sure to create UTM links for all of your backlinks. This will allow you to track traffic in Google Analytics and discern trends in your customer engagement. Pair this strategy with a CRM software (like Hubspot or Dubsado) and/or an email marketing platform (like Klaviyo, ConvertKit or Flodesk) to tag and segment your customers. You can track details like traffic source, lifestyle preferences, product choices, location, buyer stage and much more. These important customer insights fit into the four segment types — geographic, demographic, psychographic and behavioral — which will help you customize communication in the next step and throughout your retention strategy. (The buzz: some of those links up there might earn us a few bucks if you sign up.)

For brick and mortar dispensary shoppers, the best way to hold their attention and encourage repeat purchases is to plan a point-of-purchase strategy with multiple touch-points. We want to get in-person customers to have digital profiles in your CRM and/or POS, so the goal is to collect their contact information. This can be achieved with a loyalty program offering, a scannable QR promo code or a discount on a future purchase with an email subscription.

2. Start strong with a new customer email sequence

Whether you’re selling online or in a retail setting, the first purchase is a critical moment to leave a lasting impression, earn loyalty, and retain cannabis customers. Once you’ve set up a method to segment and collect customer information, the next step is to implement a variety of customized, timed and automated email sequences that welcome them. This is the time to educate your customers further about your dispensary, brand or product offerings — based on the customer data you collected. This email sequence should be thoughtful and backed by a strategy to inform and educate, delight and wow, and give opportunities for feedback.

Then, review open rates and click-through data to iterate and improve the sequence. You’re more likely to increase brand awareness and earn consumer loyalty by providing added value early and consistently.

3. Help customers choose a product (and collect valuable data) with a quiz

Whether it’s the first purchase or the 10th, a quiz is one of many creative ways to increase retail sales and can be a valuable tool for customers and businesses alike (check out our cannabis website quiz). When structured well, quizzes are a gamified way to collect your customer’s geographic, demographic, psychographic and behavioral data (perfect for those segment types we mentioned above).

For customers, a quiz is a fun way to introduce new products and services based on their preferences, instead of feeling targeted by one-size fits all messaging.

4. Incorporate opportunities for feedback

If you want to delight and retain cannabis customers, implement routes for two-way communication. This allows your customers to feel heard and allows your business to fine-tune its products, services, messaging — all while collecting qualitative customer insights. Ways you might implement this may be:

• a link to a survey in email sequences that follow a purchase
• utilize a QR code on a product tag or receipt
• offer rating options on your product listings
• request reviews on google, Leafly, I Heart Jane or another cannabis platform

Whichever method you choose, collect responses in a centralized location, regularly review the feedback, implement sound changes and communicate back any innovations with your consumer base. Your customers will feel heard and connected to the brand on a deeper level.

5. Implement a dispensary rewards program or cannabis loyalty program

One of our favorite ways to increase retail sales and nurture the relationship with customers is to offer a dispensary rewards program or cannabis loyalty program. Dispensary rewards programs can integrate with your website and ecommerce platform to provide tiered rewards based on cart size, average order value (AOV), product preferences and more. The data from sales can inform future reward promotions, suggested offerings, and frequency of contact.