Eduardo Silva: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our webinar today. We will be kicking it off here in just one minute, just allowing everyone else to join us, but please hang tight, and we'll get started here shortly.
Perfect. I think we'll just kick it off here today. In today's webinar, we're going to be talking about how NOT to lose business this 420. After all, cannabis is known to be a recession-proof industry, and with that being said, despite the current challenges, your dispensary can also be successful through this time. We'll share several tips today that will hopefully really enhance your overall experience through 420.
We'll dive right in. A little bit of an introduction on myself, your host here today. My name is Eduardo Silva. I am the VP of sales here at Foottraffik. A little bit on my background, so I have a total of 18 years of sales and marketing experience. I'll be bestowing some of my experience with you guys today on the line. And then also, little fun fact, I graduated from a high school, called San Rafael High School, where the genesis of 420 got started. So pretty fitting here that we're going to be celebrating 420, definitely indoctrinated into me from an early age, very excited about this topic.
And a little bit about Foottraffik before we get started as well. We are the leading dispensary and delivery services marketing agency in the United States, as well as Canada. We've been providing services to the industry for over four years, exclusively in the cannabis industry, might I add. We're really excited to continue to enhance the industry by adding a lot of value wherever we can.
So thank you very much for attending today. We hope you really enjoy the presentation we have put together for you. A little bit about us here. So, we obviously have a breadth of experience working with dispensaries across the country. These are just some of our customers. But overall, at any given point, we may be working with 200-plus brick and mortar dispensaries across the country and in Canada, across all states and in Canada.
Quick housekeeping before we get started here with our presentation. We do have some great offers for you today, so please do stick around. We will be covering how to capitalize on those offers towards the end of our webinar.
Now, as we also prepare for the webinar here, let's just take a quick moment. We are going to be covering quite a lot of material in this 30-minute window, so I ask you to please mute your phones or silence them, put them down, face down on the table. That way, we can really get through all this content, and you can walk away with a ton of value.
Also, take a moment to just familiarize yourself with the Zoom conference interface. If you look at the bottom of the screen, you should see a Q&A section. We do have several panelists helping us address all of those questions live, so whatever questions you have throughout the webinar, please do ask them of our panelists. They will be answering those questions. And obviously, throughout this webinar, you will have an opportunity to engage with us, um, through various means, one of which will be SMS and just keep your eyes peeled for those little keywords there.
Alright, so let's get right into it. Today we're going to be talking about 420. You may be thinking to yourself, what's the point of 420 this year? After all, everyone is holed up in their homes, right? And with the recession looming, they're probably trying to save money as well.
Well, just remember, 420 is our holiday, right? So it's the equivalent of the Black Friday for the cannabis industry. It's also important to note that 420 usually generates three to four times a dispensary's daily revenue totals. So keep that in mind. Not having a plan in place is essentially letting money slip through your fingers. So since it is 2020, right, we are in the year 2020, just remember this, April number four, year 20, it is literally 420 the entire month, people. So take advantage of this. Your clients are going to be really excited. Everybody is still very much active, they're just online. And we'll talk about this as we go through the slide here.
So why is it important, right? In addition to generating record sales, do keep in mind that 420 also offers dispensaries the unique opportunity to expand their brand reach. You get to engage with your current customers and build relationships with new ones. Okay, so keep that in mind.
And then let's talk a little bit about the biggest topic all over the world, COVID-19. Now, COVID-19 poses a really interesting challenge for everyone. Let's talk about that. So because COVID-19 has driven everybody to their homes, essentially what that means is that it has altered the landscape for how dispensaries must market and also launch their 420 promotions and events. All of your customers, once again, are still active. They're just online, okay?
So, this challenging economic climate means that dispensaries have to focus on building successful business practices, not only short term but long term. Okay? So don't just think of cashing in a 420, implement strategies here that you can capitalize on for the rest of the year. And that's what we're focusing our energy here today on.
So here's the good news. Once you implement these online measures that we're going to be discussing here, you won't want to stop them after 420 is over. This is your long term goals meeting your short term business opportunities. These proven strategies will give your dispensary an advantage over your competitors and get you in front of the best customers while also driving them to purchase from your online menu.
So let's dive right in and share some of these best tips for a slam dunk 420 in 2020, the year where 420 is an entire 30 days.
All right, let's talk about that. So tip number one, use data to determine your deals. Your specials must be based on facts. So when it comes to creating deals, you should take a look at a few different data points. First, check what sold best last year and what your hot items are right now. If you haven't stocked up, you better start placing your orders now to get that inventory in place because you're gonna need it.
So let's dive a little bit more into this. Tip number one, look at what you're having problems selling. You could bundle problematic products with other products. This will help liquidate some of that inventory that you have, but also not lose money, I guess in the process. For example, putting a not-so-popular tincture with a popular vape cartridge or a high-CBD cartridge with a high-THC cartridge, these can be part of your 420 wellness bundle. You can also offer a spend threshold discount and either tempt customers to try smaller samples of more expensive products or discount hard-to-move inventory. So, for example, spend $200 and get a free topical.
In addition, make sure that customers come back after 420. How can you do this? Well, offer an exclusive coupon for 420 customers with a discount that can be used at a later date. This comeback coupon increases the likelihood these customers will buy online again and become your loyal customers. After all, it's great to get a new customer in the door, but you want them returning to you. That's very important.
Let's move along to tip number two. Promote your loyalty program. Don't have one? Text "loyalty" to 411669. Let's get started talking about it. Let's get you set up.
Your loyalty program is a great tool for generating repeat business. It's essentially a list of your loyal customers that you can continue to market to virtually via text messages and email marketing.
With a good loyalty program, you can capture customer data and send personalized messages that will result in a higher ROI for each of your customers. Right now, in addition to marketing to people currently in your online loyalty program, you should promote your loyalty program itself.
To get more signups, consider increasing the rate at which customers earn points for the month of April to encourage more signups and purchases and showcase it prominently on your website. You can also offer VIP only specials and events like the ones we'll be covering shortly. Once again, text "loyalty" to 411669 if you'd like to know more about it.
Tip number three, leverage your SMS marketing. SMS and MMS messages get you right into the palms of your customers. You don't have to fight a Facebook or an Instagram or even a Google algorithm to get your message noticed. Very important. Use prominent calls-to-action on your website to collect phone numbers and then craft campaigns to share info about your 420 deals and events. So calls-to-action are very important to your website.
If you don't have one, think about implementing something of that nature, but don't stop there. Use SMS marketing also to extend beyond 420. After investing time and resources into capturing customer data, make sure you are using it to drum up more sales. Once again, SMS is not just a 420 special promotion and or way to really increase your customers, right? It is a long term strategy. Ladies and gentlemen, you should be implementing this regardless of this promotion. But during 420, this is going to be the best way you get individuals to order from you.
Tip number three continued. So here are some example post-420 messages you can use to increase your sales after the holiday.
"Running low on certain products. Get X percentage off for a limited time." Great way to drive a call-to-action immediately to their hands.
"Did you miss out on our 420 special? Good news! You can grab it for insert percentage here right now."
"Don't forget to use your 420 coupon before it expires. Lost it? Here it is again." Right? Put it in their hands. It's very important. Drive those actions.
"We overstocked for 420. Oops, my mistake. Well, that's your gain. Get percentage off X today."
Customers really like this level of engagement, people. And for you, it's a great way to capitalize on it, right? And drum up that loyalty. Keep them coming back.
Let's move on to tip number four. Another great way to drive online customers through this 420, considering we do have a crisis in our hand, right? Shelter in place throughout the country here, right?
A lot of orders once again are going to be generated through your online menu. So let's talk a little bit about online customer support.
So 420 may result in customers placing an online order for the first time, right? So a lot of individuals are going to learn about you for the first time if you're doing promotions correctly. And a lot of these individuals may not know how to navigate it; they may not be familiar with it. One great way to really help here is to be prepared to offer online support, right? So how can you do that? Let's talk about it.
Customers that just want to be heard sometimes, give them an easy way to chat with you online. There's a couple of technologies out there and certainly reach back out to us. We can give you some tips on great technology to create this online chat platform. That's a very easy way to convert customers that are online for the first time trying to place an order.
So let's look at some of the stats. 79% of customers prefer live chat because they offer instant responses, right? You cannot neglect this, guys, okay? Live chat has the highest customer satisfaction rate at 92%. Why is that? They're getting instant communication with someone, and it's not costing you a lot of time. Like you can actually have some of your budtenders—you can have some of your other in-store personnel help you with this. This is very simple, right? Lot of the challenges that that will use or that they would encounter your customers can easily be overcome by just reaching out to somebody. So for 41% of customers, live chat is the preferred channel of contacting support teams. And then finally, 63% of customers who use live chat on websites are likely to return to that site. Because ultimately, it does amount to a better customer experience.
Customers can use online chat to ask general questions, reach out with questions about placing an order; they can also use online chat to talk with budtenders about cannabis-related questions. So think about this, right? Your business can learn a lot from these online conversations. Use this valuable customer feedback to leverage your blog, right? Leverage it on your blog, on an FAQ page of commonly asked questions, or post information about ordering online, right? So you're finding out what the challenges are through this engagement using delivery or redeem loyalty points. All of these are great ways to really get a lot of that information right?
And then finally, we recommend this platform here. Feel free to navigate to foottraffik.me/Olark. You can test it out for free, too. So if you are on the fence, go ahead. You know, try it for free. Give it a shot, 420’s around the corner. It's already upon us, if you think about it. 4 April, right? And it is the year 2020. So get started.
Tip number five, another great way to connect with your customers is using social media. Everyone is online right now, browsing Instagram. Make sure you are there, too. While we don't recommend sharing your deals on Instagram because that can get your post flagged, social media does allow you to interact with people who are interested in your brand.
Here's a pro tip—make sure that you have a URL in your profile. Ideally that URL, it's going to link to your online menu. What do people want when they navigate to your website? They want to place an order, so make that easy for them. If you have one, if you have a social media platform or if you do have a 420 deals page, it's another great way to actually leverage that and make that of your landing page. Send potential customers to it.
Another tip here. Use hashtag 420 insert your city name here, right? So show me the hashtags to engage with people in your area and let them know that you're still open. Share trivia, tips, and info on your events. It's another great way to engage your clientele as well as your community.
Let's touch on tip number six. I personally really liked this, after all, we are doing a live stream event here, and it's very helpful to get information in front of people. So tip number six is really try to be creative. Create a live streaming event. Share the fun, right? Don't let Coronavirus take the fun out of 420. With so many streaming platforms available, you can take the party online. Really, the only limits are your creativity here. Okay, so let's talk about some of these tips.
Here are some great ways to create events virtually that will certainly drive attention to your brand. Showcase a local talent. Have a comedian or band, perhaps a poet or even other creatives in a virtual room. Plenty of creatives would love to partner with you. You can even format it like a studio session, though everyone will be remote. And asks your guests about their favorite cannabis brand or their go-to edibles. You can also do budtenders Q&A. Let your budtender share their knowledge and recommendations in a virtual chat or webinar. You can have multiple panelists talking about terpenes, cannabinoids, and more. These are just some creative ideas. Guests can ask questions in the chat room and have their answers live. This is a great way to engage with your customers. Know where your audience is, right? They're all online. Another great way here is a live art session. Have some talented staff members in your team. Great way to have your very own Bob Ross or your Martha Stewart from your crew engage with your customer in your audience. So create that platform for them. They already have the personality, if not just, you know, leverage one of the other tips, right?
Partner with the local business. We, by now, know that the munchies are real, so why not partner with a local restaurant to offer a delivery special. Or even a yoga studio to offer classes to help your customers relax even more. Another great way here, live tweet a movie session. Why not make a date with your customers to watch a movie or even a series together? Whichever route you end up choosing here, these are just some examples.
We do encourage you to engage with your audience and offer giveaways where permitted. If your state doesn't allow giveaways, consider special coupon codes for attendees. That's a great way as well. Some platforms even let you record these virtual events, which means that you can share it more widely with your audience afterward. So you can also create videos on Instagram stories that users can play on demand so they can shape their own 420 experience.
All right, moving along here. So tip number seven, launch online advertising now. You need to be prepared for this. If you don't have this as part of your communication strategy with your customers. Once again, everyone is online. You need to start actually today on this. You're almost late to the party. If you haven't started advertising, you need to start it now. You can offer the most amazing discounts and events, but none of it will matter unless you get the word out.
Dispensaries can't leverage social media advertising, but you can leverage geo-advertising and Google Ads. It's true. Increase your reach. Once again, this is part of a long term strategy, ladies and gentlemen, meeting your short term opportunity.
Okay, our recommendations here: Geo-ads and Google advertisement.
Why Google ads? It works and is very prominent, and geo ads is a great competitive tool. So let's talk about these and if you want to learn more, once again, text "Geo" or "Google" to this number right here (411669), we're going to put it in the chat window as well for you. Make sure that you have access to it. So let's jump right in.
What is geo-ads? Geo-advertising is the use of display ads on mobile devices within certain geographic areas. Geo-ads allow you to connect with new customers, right where they are, with the record of increase in internet usage since COVID-19 hit the country. Online display ads help you keep your 420 deals front and center with your customers.
We have a network of compliance, cannabis-friendly sites and apps that allow you to share your display ads and drive the sales. Okay, so let's talk about that.
What are geo-ads strategies? So first and foremost, there are three basic ways that you can leverage geo lads. One is proximity, where you can target customers in an area around your dispensary. So think of drawing a parameter of one mile, two-mile, or five-mile around your dispensary, right? This is your customer base. That's a very good way, right? And so all of the customers that access these mobile apps and mobile websites that we do offer these advertisements on, they’ll see it only when they’re within that geo-fence that you put up.
Geo-conquesting, this is a great way to target consumers. Create a competitive advantage for your dispensary as well as gain market share by offering a special for these individuals within certain areas on the map.
And then finally, geo-fencing, target locations that your customer base is likely to frequent right now? Yes. Which location that may be? If you're thinking supermarkets, you are a genius. Everybody's lining up in supermarkets. They're out and about. What a great way to just get them to stop by your local dispensary on your way back home. Pick up that doobie before 420, right? Perfect way to do that. Lines are long at the supermarkets and people, what would they do? They grab their phones. They start browsing the web and playing with apps, so it’s a great way to do that. Think also of the specific neighborhoods that your target customers live within.
Finally, this is an example of what that looks like. You can draw those geolocation coordinates that are really compelling to your customers, where they are, or even competitors. And then finally start geo-advertising within a specific area. Think of your delivery service, right? This is your delivery area. So therefore, advertise within your boundaries. These are some examples of some advertisements. Keep in mind that advertising online is not a one size fits all. You do have different regulations. Uh, you have different compliance needs within California. You do have to display your license. So in other areas, keep that in mind. We certainly can help you navigate those rough waters there.
Okay, and then finally, I'm gonna just real quickly here, share this case study. High Season was a customer of ours. We needed a way to really acquire a lot of customers during their launch.
And so what do we do? We created a geo-ad within a 20-mile radius to advertise their platform. Within that area, we were able to generate 212,000 impressions. What does impressions mean? It means individuals engaging with the ad. A total of 1,038 customers became purchasing customers. So that is great for them at a store launch, having 1,000 brand new customers, great experience for them.
Google Ads. Let's talk real quickly about what Google ads are here. So Google ads is a platform by which you can boost your visibility. Okay? Google makes up 93% of all internet searches in North America. Okay? This is Canada and the United States, 93%. So if they make up 93%, don't you think it's a good idea to be there where your customers are already engaging? So that's why Google ads are very important. So let's talk a little bit about what that is for you from a business strategy standpoint.
So first and foremost, Google Ads is a pay-per-click, and it shows above every single search result. I do have some examples here in the next couple of slides, so you will see that. But ultimately, what that is, is a predictable cost per acquisition. You know exactly how much it will cost you to acquire a new customer to make a purchase. There's a lot of data, right? Everything's trackable. So all of those results, results are reported back to you so you can make intelligent business decisions.
And then finally, working with Foottraffik. We have over four years of experience doing advertisement within this industry, and knock on wood, not one campaign blocked or shut down yet. Compliant, right? Be compliant. If you are compliant, your ads will never shut down, right? But if you do make a mistake, Google will rip your ads out. So that's very important for you.
Okay, and let's advance here. I want to show you what this looks like. So this is an example of organic search results. So you see here in San Francisco, right? You have these dispensaries that have authority within Google itself. This is what it looks like when you advertise. You show up above everybody else. Okay?
So what does this mean to you? Sure. Customers are going to see you despite the authority that all of these other dispensaries in your market have worked so tirelessly to build.
So here's a case study. We worked with a customer of ours to drive and attain a new audience within a particular launch market. They were launching their delivery services in Manhattan. This is a great example. It is a very densely populated area, but we targeted advertisements within specific regions of Manhattan to make this really compelling for the customers and drive higher ROI for our customer. Total revenue, $433,000 throughout this campaign. Unique visitors over 10,000. Hey, these are individuals that got routed to their website and then a total ROI of $56 for every $1 spent in advertising. If that's not true ROI to you, I don't know what it is, but that is certainly really compelling for me.
420 deals page, right? Having a landing page on your website that shares all of your 420 deals and events—make it easy for your customers to find this information in one place. In addition, it's also a great page to have for your Google ads and your Geo-ads. These ads can send people to this page when clicked on, right? So that's very important there.
And then finally, having a convincing call to action on this page is crucial. So think about your website, think about the structure of it. If you need some help, reach out to us. But at the end of the day, you need to have a concrete call-to-action on your pages. They need to really translate to converting customers into buying customers, so this is crucial. A buy online now button can really direct all of that traffic to your online manuals. So it's really important.
And then finally, let's put this all together. Let's summarize it for you. So Geo-ads and Google ads, right? A 420 deals page. If you don't have an online menu, you are definitely missing out on orders that are gonna come in online, right? So let's go ahead and get that established for you and then just translate that to online orders for you, right?
So we'll integrate that into your POS system and just get you cashing in all these deals. All your customers are online, so keep that in mind.
Are you planning to handle canceling 420 at this point? I sure hope not. So do not cancel your 420. Do not miss out on the biggest holiday of the industry. But remember, during these trying times, people will still want and need cannabis, whether medically or recreationally. So the stats have shown they're still buying and actually looking for deals more and more.
And we're just a little over our time here, so I'll just summarize this real quick for everyone. And we do have an offers page to stick around for just a couple more minutes here. And let's talk about that, right?
Solutions should drive sales. How would it feel to generate more revenue for 420 than you have ever done before? Would that give you a renewed sense of security about your business future during these challenging times? I certainly hope so.
And what if you implemented our recommendations and they worked? What if you, for every $10 you spent on marketing, you got a new purchasing customer, right? A customer that you can drive more loyalty through. So how would adding 500 customers right now, new customers, that is, over the next three months impact your business?
At Foottraffik, we are well aware that every dispensary has a heightened sense of anxiety about their bottom line right now in this crisis that requires social distancing. You absolutely must shift your mentality to reach your customers online. There are no other options, so we've come up with a couple of items here for you.
First of all, 500 new customers for $1,650 a month. Okay? So that's just under $5,000 spread across the 90 days. Should keep that easy on your cash flow. This offer's only valid until 4/9/20, okay, so April 9th. So once again, this is 500 new customers for a monthly cost of $1,650. We're going to be using two strategies here, right? We're going to be using Google Ads. We're going to be designing all your creative. We're going to be using geo-ads to target the markets where it's most effective in your region, and then finally a free 420 deals page. Only available to the first five people who sign up for the customer acquisition deal. If you sign up for a customer acquisition deal with us, we're going to design and implement a 420 page for you. So only five of these we're going to be able to sustain because it's certainly going to go quick.
And then finally, and apologies for going over here, three minutes, you certainly have qualified for a free Yeti. If you don't know what a Yeti is, it is the best thermal cup there is. It's rugged, and it is beautiful. Okay. So it keeps your drinks cool in the summer and your drinks warm in the winter. So feel free to navigate to this website here. Certainly, we want to get those in your hand and thank you so much for your time. We certainly appreciate you taking the time out of your day to spend the morning with us. Hopefully, this has been really, really helpful to your business.
Once again, text 42000, so that's 42000 to 411669. Let's get talking. Let's get you guys set up. Let's get you guys excited about 420 and again, and let's get you guys an impact on your bottom line. Okay. Thank you very much once again, have a wonderful rest of your day, and we look forward to speaking with you.
