We recently joined Justuno, Sendlane, Springbig, Refersion, and Arctic Leaf in a webinar focused on Top Trends for CBD Marketing. From SMS marketing to subscription strategies, our partners highlighted solid tactics for brands in the CBD space to implement for increased average order value, revenue, and lifetime value. Here’s a recap of the key points from each speaker:

Justuno

Justuno provides on-site conversion tools designed to collect data points for hyper-personalized messaging. In this webinar, Justuno focused on full-funnel onsite optimization for different customer segments. Because CBD is a newer industry, it’s crucial to communicate to customers an exit or cart abandonment offer if they leave your website. 

Starting at the top of your marketing funnel for new visitors, either new to your website or new to the overall CBD industry, first impressions are everything; Justuno encourages DTC merchants to make sure to start off on the right foot by collecting additional data points, age gates, and traffic sources. Collecting additional data points via lead capture allows brands to build customer profiles with accurate goals tailored toward their preferences. Justuno encourages brands to include age gates, when applicable, and be sure to use this as a branding opportunity. Identify where your visitors are coming from so you can present them with a personalized experience, such as traffic sources to sync up with messaging and offers. For example, create a welcome pop-up that is a lead capture, which could include email, SMS, social media, or a combination of these to allow for a deeper dive into a brand’s visitor base. In the example below, the brand uses a pop-up to learn more information about its visitors’ goals as well as gain their email addresses for promotions. 

Additionally, CBD brands must emphasize education when engaging with new visitors. In-page product carousels on blog or resource pages can reduce abandonment. Suppose a visitor has come from an email campaign but wants to exit the page. In that case, Justuno may incorporate a product review or testimonial to drive the relationship you wish to build with potential customers. 

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At the middle of your marketing funnel, leveraging personalization to build trust and remove any roadblocks to conversion is paramount. Specifically, showing pop-ups at the right time in the right location for the right visitor helps customers feel a connection to the brand. For example, a pop-up of a store location geo-targeted to show customers where they can purchase a brand’s products in person builds validity.

At the bottom of your marketing funnel, brands should focus on delighting their customers by providing additional value and encouraging long-term behavior. Knowing if someone is a return visitor and how many times they have visited a brand’s website in the last 30 days can help build strategies around average order value, cross-selling and up-selling, and even how you present your subscription options. Use this data to suggest additional products that may be of interest to customers or give them refer-a-friend options where they receive a discount for referrals.  

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Sendlane

Sendlane is an email and SMS marketing automation platform. Email marketing is the core of retention marketing, so use that information to ensure your customers are engaged.

Sendlane emphasized focusing on four must-haves for automation and retention: new promotion, upselling and cross-selling, re-ordering of products, and abandon cart. For new promotions, these subscribers and buyers are already on your list, are familiar with the brand, and have opted-in. Incentivize your list for being an active member with promotions and offerings like newsletter-only coupons. Sendlane suggests adding scarcity tactics to encourage quick usage, utilizing terms like “limited time only.” Upselling and cross-selling are the quickest ways to increase your average order value. Paying attention to which products complement each other well and what the most purchased second item is can go a long way, such as in this image.

For re-ordering of products, do not hide in hopes that people will forget about their upcoming orders or subscriptions. People want to be reminded about their next order, and reminders show personalization and care. For CBD products and consumable products in general, Sendlane encourages staying in front of replenishment reminders at around 30 days. 

Next, 88 percent of shoppers will abandon a cart before making a purchase, so include abandon cart reminders. Timing is important, and Sendlane recommends 1 to 4 hours later with more than one email that contains compelling copy, visuals, buttons, and direct links.

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Springbig

Springbig is a leading provider in customer relationship management, loyalty marketing, and communications solutions for cannabis brands and dispensaries. Springbig focuses on driving traffic before the sale, increasing customer spending during the sale, and staying connected with your customer base after the sale. Keep merchants engaged with their customers across critical points of the customer journey with things like loyalty, referral, and feedback programs.

SMS marketing in the CBD space has many challenges and has gotten more difficult from the 10 Digit Long Code Messaging (10DLC) regulations. 10DLC is a new texting system that uses standard long code phone numbers to give carriers and customers more transparency into who they are and the content that is being sent out. 10DLC has some benefits, though, like consumer confidence and enhanced deliverability if you do it in a compliant manner. As industry leaders in cannabis marketing, Springbig planned ahead for the introduction of 10DLC  to ensure their retail partners were ready for any changes. Springbig can send up to 4,000 SMS messages per minute per a 10DLC campaign. Springbig is the only company in its vertical that partnered with the leading spam filtering provider that works directly with two major US carriers. 

The company also engineered a suite of Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) compliant data collection resources to make it easier for customers to enroll and engage with the brand’s content. This allows for options like text to join, tap to join, or dedicated QR codes to drive traffic to the secure join form.

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Refersion

Refersion is an affiliate marketing and tracking software. Working with influencers can help CBD brands circumnavigate the challenges of traditional advertising. Influencers can use their personal testimonials and authentic connection with their audience and drive brand awareness and sales. Partnering with influencers can reduce upfront advertising costs leading to better ROI. Incorporating influencers into your broader affiliate marketing strategy allows you to track performance against your brand’s goals. 

Many CBD brands have trouble with choosing the right influencers to partner with. Refersion recommends focusing on influencers with high engagement in categories that align with your products and whose content is focused on providing honest feedback to their audience.

Additionally, consider seeking out small influencers with moderate followings and a specific audience that is most likely to buy from your brand. Ideally, partner with influencers who genuinely believe in your product and who are aligned with your company’s values. 

Brands can use an affiliate marketing platform to track influencer performance and payout commissions. With Refersion, influencers can sign up to the brand’s affiliate program, receive a referral link or promo code to promote the brand, earn a commission when a customer makes a purchase, and brands then can pay influencers for their commissions earned. 

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Arctic Leaf

Arctic Leaf is a digital agency focusing on eCommerce best practices, from design and development services to email and content marketing.

Many companies don’t ask about specific objectives and goals, but knowing your brand is half the battle of developing a solid strategy. Arctic Leaf emphasizes the importance of taking the time to understand your customer and build personas; for new clients, they send out a quick survey about brand personas, the customer journey, price points, AOV, goals, and more. When brands understand the why, what, and where they are going, they can make better decisions about which tools to use and how to use them. Arctic Leaf takes an analytical approach where everything they do is driven by KPIs and numbers, giving their customers the right tools to make good decisions. 

Social CBD is an example of a real client’s experience with Arctic Leaf; Arctic Leaf shifted Social CBD away from doing continuous discounts and instead moved them toward a more authoritative voice. They found that people had a lot of questions revolving around how to use CBD and where it was coming from, so Arctic Leaf set up flows to send to customers after they purchased a product to validate that they were buying high-quality products, therefore building trust. Additionally, for customers not on subscriptions, Arctic Leaf set up a replenishment flow for customers where after they reached day 26 of a 30-day product, Social CBD sent out a message saying, “you only have a few CBD capsules left! It's probably a good time to restock your supply,” increasing conversions. 

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Smartrr

CBD makes for a great subscription product, and with Smartrr, many brands are defaulting to subscribe and save. Leading with subscriptions encourages customers to subscribe to receive a product or set of products regularly. Set the tone for the end consumer by giving them full autonomy of their subscription experience, allowing them to set the cadence to their specific lifestyle, and granting them the flexibility to make any necessary changes. Brands are seeing statistics of 2x subscription revenue in the first 90 days after switching to Smartrr. 

Delight customers with an elevated brand experience through a customized brand portal with strong brand continuity even on the back-end. The customer portal acts as an engagement hub, not just a management hub, where subscribers have total control over their brand experience and make adjustments as they see fit. We are seeing 15 times more sales over the lifetime of a subscriber for brands using Smartrr; rolling out the red carpet for your most loyal customers, your subscribers, is a huge opportunity. Offer subscribers exclusive products, add-ons, and up-sells to delight customers and increase average order value. Leverage your brand’s subscriber base to build brand awareness with referrals and gifting features for friends and family. The ability for subscribers to easily gift products within their account portal allows brands to ‘flip the funnel’ and continue building brand loyalty. 

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Takeaways

The CBD industry is saturated with fierce competition and strict regulations, which has increased the importance of having a strong brand, effective marketing, and optimized strategies. CBD brands can benefit immensely from implementing strategies revolving around subscriptions, influencers, and SMS and email marketing, ultimately increasing average order value and lifetime value. 

Want to learn more? Get full access to the webinar here!