MJBizMag October 2021 - 124

BestPracticesInRetail | Solomon Israel
achievable for small teams such as his.
The company's social media strategy
focuses on lifestyle content with
photos of people wearing THC Canadabranded
clothing.
" We can do giveaways with that
clothing, give it to our customers, do
giveaways on social media and then
create a lot of content (of) people
wearing those clothes, " he said.
THC Canada works with a marketing
agency to develop some of its social
media content, but Bambury said a
strong social media strategy can be
developed in-house at a relatively
low cost.
" All you really need is a camera. A lot
of people can do it from their iPhone
these days, " he said. " It all depends on
the size, the scale of your ambition and
what you're trying to accomplish, and,
what your brand goals are. "
For cannabis businesses, social
media marketing often comes with
the risk of having accounts deleted for
posting cannabis-themed content, and
Bambury said THC Canada's accounts
have been shut down and deleted in
the past. " Social media networks are
not owned platforms, " he said, " they're
rented platforms. "
Social media is powerful but highly
volatile, advised Theory Wellness'
Winstanley. His team studies each
platform's social media guidelines
closely to learn what's allowed
and what isn't. The company also
monitors competitors' pages to better
understand what kind of content gets
accounts shut down.
" You should rely upon it knowing that
if (your social media account) went
away tomorrow, your business wouldn't
be hurt, " he said.
" That, to me, is the most important
thing: You have to be willing to lose it
to use it. "
Direct Marketing
In light of the fickle nature of social
media, THC Canada's Bambury recommended
using those platforms to drive
122 MJBizMagazine | October 2021
Colorado dispensary chain LivWell produced testimonial-style TV advertisements for a local NBC
affiliate station this year. Courtesy Photo
to events such as Fresh Drop Friday,
a monthly event offering free food,
product discounts and swag giveaways
as well as live music.
Bambury suggested retail managers
Thomas
Winstanley
traffic to more stable, owned platforms
such as a retailer's website or a directto-consumer
email newsletter. He said
at least half of THC Canada's email
subscribers come from social media.
" I personally find that email
marketing-especially for Canadian
cannabis retailers-is probably the
most important channel that you could
be investing in, " he said.
An effective email newsletter
creates a database of customers who
are open to communications " that no
other platform can take away from
you, " he said.
THC Canada's emails usually focus
on new product updates. The emails
offer a chance to communicate
explicitly about specific attributes of
cannabis products-an opportunity that
he said is generally not available on
social media-and to invite customers
encourage budtenders to focus on
signing up walk-in customers to
the company's email list. He finds
that emailed newsletters tend to
be particularly engaging for older
customers.
" I would say that individuals over
the age of 45 are going through every
single email, and they're seemingly
reading every word and clicking on the
links as well, " he said.
LivWell's Mapson considers directto-consumer
communications to be
a particularly cost-effective way to
communicate with customers.
" We already know that, because you
opted in to get this information, you're
going to read it, " he said.
Winstanley also runs email
campaigns at Theory Wellness, but
he finds that text messaging offers a
better connection to customers.
" If you look at a comparison of how
many emails you get a day versus how
many text messages you have a day,
and you compare how many unread
text messages you have versus unread
emails, there's definitely a lot more of
an attention-span-grabbing piece to
using text messages. "

MJBizMag October 2021

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