2020 has presented both obstacles and opportunities. Nielsen reported that in March 2020, COVID-19 confinement led to a screen time spike of more than 3 additional hours than that in Q3 of 2019. With more screen time comes the opportunity to catch more eyes via digital marketing. And the outlook is really good on digital marketing and its returns.
According to a HubSpot Research 2019 global survey, over the course of the year 78% of marketers saw an increase in email engagement — And that was before a global pandemic led to a surge in screen time. Pair the email marketing engagement upswing with the fact that in 2019 email marketing generated $42 for every $1 spent, and it would clearly be remiss for any business to sit out.
As one of the first cannabis PR agencies in the United States, marijuana email marketing is our bread and butter at NisonCo. Success in the cannabis industry means constantly staying apace with new innovations, and enhancing cannabis content email efficacy is an area of expertise for our NisonCo marijuana marketing team.
The following tips aren’t just relevant for the cannabis industry though: Using foresight based on a few major digital marketing trends, it’s fairly simple for any company to optimize email marketing efforts and operationally streamline their integration.
If You’re Still Batch Sending, You’re Doing it Wrong
“Integrate segmented campaign optimization” is the marketing guru’s way of saying create customized, targeted email streams. For example, business-to-business contact emails captured at a trade show should receive separate, curated content than that sent to newsletter subscribers gained through your main website for customers. Other segmented campaigns could be possibly made around geographic regions, the subscriber’s purchase history, or a plethora of other considerations. Segmented campaign optimization will ultimately depend on the targeted outcome of each brand communication, but the underlying purpose should always be to create a connection with the consumer using some unifying trait.
Cannabis SEO Here, There and Everywhere
Ideally you know what Search Engine Optimization is, or are at least familiar with the idea. The tip here is this: make cannabis SEO integration a reflexive aspect of all content created. When you weave cannabis SEO strategy into blogs, social media posts, newsletters, etc., it means that content is doing double-duty: acting to engage consumers while also driving traffic to your website by targeting certain keywords/phrases. Those keywords/phrases in turn help rise your company toward the top of search results seen by consumers.
For NisonCo, reflexively integrating cannabis SEO is made simple by keeping a list of phrases that we choose from before writing anything — be it a Twitter update or a piece for Forbes. Careful eyes will see sprinkled into this post “cannabis PR agency,” or “marijuana email marketing,” a few of NisonCo’s own phrases targeted as a marketing agency with a focus on SEO strategy.
Pack a Lot into a Little
Most email communications should be fairly short and sweet. Long-form communications should be housed on your website in the form of a blog post or announcement that can be linked from an email, which drives traffic to the site.
Feel free to sprinkle in a button or two of “actionable material” — a call to sign up for a free event, a giveaway and of course at least one direct link to purchase your good or service. These tiny tools speak for themselves and provide a clear avenue for customer action.
Images aren’t just for visual enjoyment in an email any more: they should also be put to work for your communications. If clicked, images should link away from the email — perhaps to your site, a product, promotion or partnering company. Alt text/descriptions also tend to be severely underutilized, which is a pity as they are helpful both for visually impaired readers and to improve SEO ranking.
Make Use of the Metrics
Never underestimate the value of good, direct data collected from your consumers. As part of your posting checklist, be sure to set a reminder for a week or two after sending the email communication to assess the metrics. Brush up on your email marketing metrics here. Adjust times emails are sent, who you send them to, etc. to better target your consumers. Email communication should not be static, or it will lose the interest of your audience.
While early on in the design process, it can be helpful to include a “customer feedback” button/survey to adjust course more quickly and successfully. That button could also then be reintroduced intermittently, as a means of constructive assessment.
In Conclusion: Sharpen the Tools in Your Kit
The best part of these tips is that none require a digital marketing expert to master at your business. Most email marketing platforms such as MailChimp or AWeber make it simple to segment campaigns, integrate SEO, hyperlink/alt text images and assess metrics.
Take advantage of the current high-volume online traffic in this ever-changing world, and if email marketing integration sounds like a headache, you can always reach out to us here or at Nisonco.com to help you send carefully crafted communications.
