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Welcome to High On Marketing - A weekly newsletter where I show you how to strengthen your email marketing strategy for your cannabis brand. Learn how to nurture your audience, increase retention rates, and sell more weed.

⚡Quick Tip⚡

Today’s Email:

• The 5 Most Common Leaks in Dispensary Marketing Strategies (and how to fix them)

• Your 5-step Email Audit Checklist

• Final Thoughts

Let’s Roll 🛼

Your email strategy is like a cargo ship in the open ocean.

Your customers are your precious cargo, and your ship - AKA, email strategy - is helping guide them to their destination (your dispo).

Most cannabis customers don’t stay loyal to a dispo because the dispos’ “ship” is full of leaks.

They’re taking on water without even realizing it.

That’s why we audit our email strategies.

To see where those invisible, but detrimental, leaks are.

There’s thousands of “Email Strategy Auditors” out there that will charge you and arm and a leg to analyze your data and give you some ChatGPT mumbo-jumbo advice.

But you can actually audit your own strategy pretty easily for free.

At the very least, your at-home audit can help find some cannonball-sized holes in your strategy that you may not have noticed yourself.

Here’s how you can do it today:

Let’s start with the most common “leaks” found in dispensary marketing:

Leak #1: Low Open Rates

What to Check:

• Are your subject lines compelling, personal, and curiosity-driven?

  👉 Or do you sound like a robot?

• Are you testing send days/times?

  👉 Or did YOU decide when you send?

• Are you segmenting your audience to improve relevance?

  👉 Or are you sending the same email to everyone?

Benchmarks:

• Open Rate Goal: 20–25%

• If you're below that: your subject lines or sender reputation may be the problem.

How to Fix It:

✅ A/B test subject lines weekly
✅ Use first names in subject lines
✅ Stop shouting promos: “BOGO SALE NOW” isn’t helping your cause
✅ Try curiosity angles: “We saved something for you, {First Name}…”

Leak #2: High Unsubscribes

What to Check:

• Are you sending too frequently (or too infrequently)?

  👉 Both are bad!

• Are you only sending discounts?

  👉 People act on emotion more than opportunity.

• Are your emails aligned with customer preferences?

  👉 Segment, segment, segment!

Benchmarks:

• Unsubscribe Rate: Aim for under 0.3% per campaign

How to Fix It:
✅ Use preference centers (let them choose frequency & content type)
✅ Follow the 60/30/10 rule: 60% educational, 30% promo, 10% engagement
✅ Segment your campaigns by product interest

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Leak #3: Low Click-Through Rates (CTR)

What to Check:

• Do your emails have a single clear CTA?

  👉 Or multiple, confusing CTAs?

• Are your offers relevant to the subscriber?

  👉 Or are they not segmented properly?

• Are you using engaging visuals and buttons?

  👉 Don’t use too many! Quality over quantity.

Benchmark:

• CTR Goal: 2–3% minimum

• Click-to-Open Rate Goal: 10–15%

How to Fix It:
✅ Keep your CTA above the fold for better visibilty
✅ Use action-based CTAs (“Reserve Your Favorite,” “Claim My Pre-Roll”)
✅ Test buttons vs. text links
✅ Only one primary CTA per email

Leak #4: Weak (or Missing) Automations

What to Check:

• Do you have a Welcome Series?

  👉 Introduce new subs and start their customer journey.

• Do you have a Post-Purchase flow?

  👉 Encourages their next purchase

• What happens when someone hasn’t shopped in 60+ days?

  👉 Win-back unengaged subs with re-engagement flows

How to Fix It:
✅ Build a simple 3-5 email Welcome Series (educate + incentivize)
✅ Use post-purchase emails to cross-sell & upsell
✅ Create a Win-Back sequence: “We Miss You - Here’s 15% Off to Come Back”

Leak #5: List Bloat & Deliverability Issues

What to Check:

• When was the last time you cleaned your list?

  👉 You should do it at least quarterly

• Are you emailing people who haven’t opened in 90+ days?

  👉 Most of the time people just need a reason to come back. Segment and target inactive subs.

• Are your bounce rates or spam complaints climbing?

  👉 Could be from irrelevant content or emailing too much

How to Fix It:
✅ Remove or re-engage inactive subs (60–90 days of no activity)
✅ Segment VIPs vs. zombies
✅ Set up domain authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)
✅ Test your emails with tools like Mail Tester before sending

Your 5-Step Email Audit Checklist:

✅ Step 1: Pull your past 5 email campaigns
✅ Step 2: Check your open rates, CTRs, and unsubscribes
✅ Step 3: Review your flows (do you even have them?) Are they working?
✅ Step 4: Look for patterns: What segments are engaging? What offers convert?
✅ Step 5: Clean up your list - remove anyone totally unengaged for 90+ days

When You’re Ready, Here’s How I Can Help You…

Click HERE to download the High On Marketing Evergreen Templates - 50 pre-written emails tailored for cannabis brands to educate, engage, and encourage action from your audience

Stay on top-of-mind while building a well-informed, loyal customer base.

Get your templates today and have the next 6 months of canna content covered!

⬇️Don’t forget to use your subscriber code for 50% off!⬇️

9VVS85T

Final Thoughts:

Your emails should be making you money all the time.

If they’re not - you either have a traffic problem, a message problem, or a segmentation problem.

The good news?
All of those are fixable.

Email marketing can be complex, but it doesn’t have to be in order to make you money.

You don’t need a full rebrand - you just need an audit.

Want Me to Audit For You?

Reply with “AUDIT” and I’ll review your latest emails and automations to show you exactly where you're leaving money on the table.

Talk soon,
– Steve

P.S. ⬇️⬇️