April 20th, often known as 4/20, is a big deal in the cannabis community as a day to celebrate and enjoy cannabis. This date has evolved from a discreet code among enthusiasts into a widely recognized event, celebrated across the globe with festivals, social gatherings, and plenty of cannabis consumption.
For dispensaries, 4/20 is the busiest day of the year. It presents a unique opportunity to attract new customers, delight regulars, and significantly boost sales. The cultural significance of 4/20 has turned it into a prime shopping holiday within the cannabis industry, similar to Black Friday in the retail sector.
Dispensaries must therefore take advantage of this day by using focused marketing techniques meant to increase exposure and generate traffic, both in-person and online. Let’s explore how to make the most of this holiday for the cannabis industry.
1. Exclusive 4/20 Promotions and Deals
Crafting a winning promotion for 4/20 starts with a deep dive into your customers’ preferences and purchasing patterns. Typically, dried flowers stand out as a top sellers for most cannabis retailers.
By leveraging your sales data, you can identify the most impactful products to highlight during your 4/20 campaign. However, some of the most popular promotions include:
420 Bundle Kit
Create a special selection of products bundled together to make a set. This can range from a mix of cannabis flowers, edibles, and accessories that complement the overall experience. Packaging these items together at a reduced price not only offers value but increases average order size too.
Offering a percentage discount
Simple yet effective, percentage discounts on specific products or across the board can drive significant traffic. Consider deeper discounts on high-demand items to draw in the crowd.
Source: Weedmaps
BOGO offers
Buy One, Get One Free” deals or “Buy One, Get One Half Off” promotions are particularly appealing. They encourage larger purchases and can help move inventory quickly, making room for fresh stock.
Source: Weed On Call
Gift with purchase
Sweeten the deal by including a small gift with purchases over a certain amount. This could be a branded item, a sample of a new product, or an accessory that enhances the use of a purchased product. Gifts with purchase not only add value but also increase customer satisfaction.
Reward points
Double reward points on 4/20 purchases can incentivize customers to spend more, knowing they’re earning towards future discounts or exclusive offers. This strategy also promotes loyalty and return visits.
2. Improve Your SEO for Product Pages
As you may know, it’s nearly impossible to advertise cannabis for retailers. This is why optimizing the SEO for your products is essential to generating awareness. It may come as a surprise to most, but there are thousands of people searching for their favorite strains monthly.
Keyword Research
For example, the search term “Pink Kush” has 2600 monthly searches in Canada and 1700 in the United States.
And if you take a look at the keyword “Pink Kush Strain”, there are 1100 monthly searches in Canada and 1000 in the United States. That’s a lot of free traffic for one particular strain. Now imagine the search volumes from all strains put together.
Source: BC Cannabis Store
Content Optimization
High-quality, informative content on your product pages can also boost SEO. Ensure that your product descriptions are detailed, engaging, and include the keywords you’ve identified. Adding customer reviews, FAQs, and usage tips can make your pages more informative and valuable, encouraging higher search rankings and customer engagement.
Local SEO Tactics
For dispensaries with physical locations, local SEO is crucial to attract customers in your area. Ensure your business is listed in online directories like Google My Business, and include local keywords in your page titles and content. Encourage satisfied customers to leave positive reviews on these platforms, as high ratings can improve your visibility in local search results.
3. Create A Personalized Shopping Experience
Given how competitive the cannabis industry is, offering a personalized shopping experience is essential to making an impression and winning over new customers. Personalization greatly improves the buying experience by making clients feel appreciated and understood.
This personalized strategy may be used in both physical dispensaries and online stores, ensuring that each consumer engagement is unique and engaging.
Online Personalization
Personalization for online buyers begins with using data to provide tailored product recommendations based on their browsing history, purchasing habits, and interests.
Dispensaries can offer product recommendations that are appropriate to specific customers by using algorithms that analyze their activity. This makes the customers’ shopping experience more convenient and relevant.
Improving the online user experience involves making sure your website is easy to navigate, mobile-friendly, and offers live chat assistance. These improvements make it easier for customers to find what they’re looking for and enjoy their time on your site.
Using Breadstack’s Live Chat To Deliver Personalized Shopping Experiences
Breadstack’s live chat feature is designed to do more than just answer questions. It provides personalized shopping assistance, leveraging customer data to offer recommendations and advice in real time, making every interaction feel personal and valuable.
In-Store Personalization
Training employees to identify and recall regular customers can have a significant impact in physical retail settings.
Personal connections, remembering previous purchases, and providing intelligent recommendations based on those interactions can all contribute to a more inviting and personalized shopping experience.
Targeted Email Campaigns
Another useful strategy for personalizing the experience is to run targeted email ads that include the consumers’ names and recommend things based on their past purchases. Exclusive deals, loyalty prizes, and information targeted to their interests can boost engagement and drive repeat purchases.
4. Stock Up And Promote Early
The secret to increasing sales during the 4/20 celebrations is to plan ahead of time. You’ll be surprised to find out that people are willing to purchase quite extensively throughout the whole month.
However, even though you’re selling a lot during the whole month, 420 is still highly anticipated, and dispensaries must be prepared to fulfill the increasing demand. To make sure your dispensary takes advantage of this big opportunity, stocking up on popular goods and starting promotions early will give you an outstanding month.
Start using social media, your website, email newsletters, and other platforms to tease your 4/20 promos and special deals at least one month in advance. Creating a countdown to 4/20 or offering early-bird offers can generate excitement and anticipation among your customers.
It’s critical to manage inventories well in advance of April 20. You may use Breadstack’s inventory management software to monitor stock levels in real-time and make quick adjustments as needed. To make sure you never run out of your most popular items, think about establishing automatic reorder points.
5. Leverage Social Media and Influencer Partnerships
Dispensaries can reach a far wider audience and improve their reach by utilizing the power of social media and working with influencers. Get the word out about your 4/20 events and discounts by using your social media platforms.
Engaging With The Community
Share engaging content that resonates with your followers, such as behind-the-scenes looks at your preparations, teaser videos of upcoming promotions, or educational posts about cannabis culture.
Polls and Q&A sessions are examples of interactive content that can create a feeling of community and keep readers interested. Don’t forget to include relevant hashtags in your content to boost exposure and motivate your fans to share it.
Influencer Partnerships
A powerful way to spread your message across the cannabis community is to work with influencers who support your business and have a sizable following.
It’s important to select for influencers that can effectively promote your products and 4/20 offers and who have a true connection to their audience. An effective influencer collaboration can help your dispensary reach new clients by introducing it to people who might otherwise not know about it but believe the influencer’s suggestions.
Creating Shareable Content
Informational, entertaining, or aesthetically pleasing content has a higher chance of being shared on social media. Consider creating high-quality videos, eye-catching graphics, or informative blog posts that followers will want to share with their friends.
Having shareable material makes your dispensary more visible and establishes it as a reliable and informed resource for the cannabis community.
Promote User-Generated Content
Encourage your consumers to share their experiences with your products or how they used them to celebrate 4/20. User-generated content, like images of your products, has the power to strongly influence prospective clients.
In addition to rewarding loyal clients, running this content on your own platforms gives your dispensary genuine endorsements.
6. Host Or Sponsor 4/20 Events
Taking part in or organizing events to celebrate the community spirit of 4/20 can greatly increase your dispensary’s exposure and encourage interaction with the locals. Events surrounding 4/20 are a great way to generate awareness, show off your goods, and strengthen relationships with your audience.
In-Store Events
In-store experiences that are memorable can have a significant influence, especially for dispensaries that have physical locations. People can visit your store if you offer product samples (where permitted), host workshops on cannabis education, or host meet-and-greets with well-known cannabis industry professionals. Make sure to follow local health guidelines to provide a safe environment for your customers.
Community Sponsorships
You can increase the awareness and reputation of your business by supporting cannabis-related events or activities in your town. Your dedication goes beyond simply selling weed if you take part in neighborhood 4/20 celebrations, donate to philanthropic causes in the neighborhood, or support cannabis advocacy organizations. It paints your dispensary as a vital member of the cannabis scene.
Source: 420 Vancouver
Bonus Tip: Custom Menus
If you’re like most dispensaries, you’re probably using Dutchie or Buddi as your website’s menu.
While these menus may be easy to use, they don’t allow for your cannabis products to be found on Google. They’re built on an iframe menu (essentially, a website within a website), which means Google does not recognize your products so it’s horrible for SEO.
Breadstack is an all in one solution, similar to Dutchie or Buddi, that makes it easy for dispensaries to manage their in-store and online experience. Breadstack completes the tech stack for dispensaries with:
- Same day delivery software
- AI live chat software
- Customer, order, and inventory management
- Points and rewards system
- Automated marketing promotions
- And more!
The best part, Breadstack will build you a custom menu and website that fits your brand for Free! Usually hiring a web designer to build a really good website can cost around $3000 – $5000. This free promotion is for first time customers only*
