Matt Dell
June 3, 2021

Cannabis Dispensaries Respond: 3 Ways to Use Text Marketing in 2021

Cannabis dispensaries are starting to use data-driven marketing strategies to increase the efficacy of their text campaigns.

Text messaging has become a popular method of communication because it is practical, reliable, and provides immediate customer feedback.

By using texting as their primary means of contact with customers, cannabis dispensaries can improve various aspects of their business, such as conversion rates or brand awareness.

In this blog post, we share our follow-up survey with dispensary teams and three ways to use text marketing & data for your dispensary's success!

Increase Conversion Rates

Using a data-driven strategy for texting campaigns, you can increase conversion rates, and therefore, generate more revenue for your dispensary.

How does data help with this?  It allows you to target customers who are the most likely to convert.

The more personalized your message is, the higher conversion rates will be!

"We have achieved a greater conversion rate than originally anticipated," writes Kirk Pagenkopf from Diem on the benefits of sending data-driven SMS marketing campaigns via Hapyy Marketers.

Dispensaries can use data to improve text messaging in the following ways:

Essentially, if you're not using data for campaign optimization, it could cost you money!

Customers who respond best will make more purchases.

And what company doesn't want that?

Understanding Cannabis Customers

a photo of the basa dispensary that uses text marketing campaigns
Cannabis consumers at Basa's San Francisco location.

Dispensary text marketing is one of the best ways to use marketing and data to understand your customers better.

Texting can provide a more personalized touch for your customers and allows you to learn what they are looking for in products.

Using data from a point-of-sale (POS) system, dispensaries can readily deploy marketing communications to customers segmented by expected preferences.

Dispensaries that use marketing platform Happy Marketers can identify key opportunities in POS data, for text campigns and learning more about their cannabis consumers.

Kara Reagan from Basa explains:

Happy Marketers has helped us to connect to all of our customers and let them know about all the deals, promos, etc., based on their buying behavior. So, we can make sure they are getting texts about sales that are relevant to them, and not about things they wouldn't be interested in.


Like any data-driven campaign, simple text marketing often requires a ton of guesswork and may negatively impact the customer experience.

For example, sending high-frequency messaging or irrelevant content could push cannabis consumers away and even result in compliance-related issues.

However, dispensaries that access their data can deploy more personalized campaigns that, in turn, are more likely to engage and convert customers.

"We have been able to send targeted messages that we believe our consumers appreciate, which in return gives us the confidence to continue to expand our marketing efforts to increase ROI," added Enrique Macias from Dreamy Delivery.

It's all about understanding consumers' behaviors so that you can acquire and retain more customers.

And if there's one thing that cannabis businesses have? It's their data!

Gain Dispensary Website Traffic From Weedmaps Orders

Investing in Weedmaps is often a point of contention for dispensaries focused on reducing customer acquisition costs and excessive marketing spends.

Depending on where you operate, their services could be unaffordable, so you'll need to find an alternative or a strategy for migrating Weedmaps-acquired customers into your marketing channels.

Dispensaries that use text marketing with data can engage and retain Weedmaps customers outside of the platform.

Urban Flavours elaborates on how they're doing it in Oakland:

Repeated reminders of what we have in stock and on sale to our customers is a great way to train our customers to go to our website instead of Weedmaps, which increases our customer retention.  

Bringing Weedmaps-acquired cannabis customers into owned channels, such as a website or opt-in lists, creates more opportunities for dispensaries.

customer retention and dispensary text marketing



Regular contact and rapport increase the likelihood of gaining sales in-store or online without the help platforms that require high-spend.

Therefore, using data-driven SMS campaigns in this capacity can significantly help cannabis retailers reduce customer acquisition costs and improve customer retention.  

It Comes Down to The Data

Successful cannabis text marketing depends on data. Data analytics and insights are the backbones of a text marketing strategy.

Why is this the case?

In the text marketing world, you are looking at conversions and customer lifetime value.

The data that underpins a successful cannabis text campaign is not just an accurate phone list of customers who have opted to receive texts from their favorite dispensary.

It also includes valuable insights into what those people like about your products or services, as well as which incentives drive them to respond most often.

It's more than just text marketing — data drives every aspect of your business.

As mentioned above, understanding how valuable each client is — what they buy, how much they spend, and when they're in-store — helps you run your business.  

You can use data-driven text campaigns to increase sales through targeted offers and create more personalized experiences.

Power Up Your Text Marketing Today

Data-driven text marketing is the future of how cannabis dispensaries will market themselves.

With so many already using data to optimize their results, it's time for you to get on board and start doing the same.

If your dispensary needs help getting started with data-driven campaigns or optimizing your current efforts, we can help!

Schedule a demo for Happy Marketers today.