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September 30, 2021
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Munch Machine is a well-known brand in the cannabis industry. The company makes industry leading cannabis harvesting solutions, including the Mother Bucker, Double Bucker, Cluster Bucker, and more. Munch Machine subscribes to the Cannabiz Media License Database to support its business development initiatives and to connect with cannabis cultivators across the country.
Despite offering a product that cannabis cultivators want, Munch Machine was getting low open rates and click rates from their email marketing campaigns. As a result, their campaigns weren’t driving the results and return on investment (ROI) they expected.
When Cannabiz Media’s Email Success Team identified deliverability problems for the email campaigns Munch Machine had been sending through their own domain via the Cannabiz Media License Database, they reached out to Munch Machine sales representative James Loveridge who handles most of the email marketing for his company.
“The Email Success Team emailed me, told me they noticed our delivery rates weren’t very good, and offered to help us out,” shares James. “We were so clueless, we didn’t even know how bad it was. Less than 15% of our emails were actually being delivered. The fact that the Email Success Team reached out to us and were proactive was just amazing. I cannot speak enough about how great that was.”
The Email Success Team researched Munch Machine’s previous campaigns and identified a number of opportunities to improve deliverability and results. With background information, improvement opportunities, and a To Do list ready, the team held an Email Analysis session on Zoom with James to share the results of their research in a comprehensive report and presentation.
The Email Success Team discovered that Munch Machine was suffering from a poor domain reputation that was affecting their email deliverability, open rates, and click rates. The solution to the problem was three-pronged:
James took the advice from the Email Success Team – both in the Email Analysis session and by watching many of the team’s monthly email success webinars – to learn how to effectively use email marketing to connect with leads in the Cannabiz Media License Database.
The first step for Munch Machine was to improve its domain reputation. James explains, “We changed quite a bit of the things we were doing. Before the Email Success Team helped us, we were doing what we call the pasta method. You know, toss it on the wall and see what sticks.
“That method basically trashed our domain to the point where all of our email deliverability was being affected. My boss wasn’t even getting emails from some of his reports. They were going to spam, so that was really bad.”
Munch Machine took the Email Success Team’s advice and completed a domain warmup to rebuild its domain reputation and get back into inboxes. “We stopped emailing for a while,” says James, “and then, we went down to super small lists. So we’re talking we went down from sending 10,000 emails per month to 150 and then 300 and then 500 and then 800.
“We started by sending one email to just people who have engaged and opened emails from us. We were being really conservative and cautious to make sure we were only dealing with engaged people. That fixed our domain reputation.”
The next step for Munch Machine was identifying their true target audiences, finding them in the Cannabiz Media License Database, and segmenting the email marketing lists they created to ensure they were connecting with the right people. The Email Success Team explained the importance of segmenting lists so only people who are truly interested in the content receive the messages and so the messages can be personalized and as relevant as possible to each audience.
“I started segmenting my lists by each of our sales territories,” James explains. “Then, I filter down again to just the larger grows, because those are the folks who want Munch Machine’s equipment. I also segmented by level to focus on people in C-level positions and decision makers. I excluded everyone else.
“I think that segmentation is what really helped us get more clicks because there are more appropriate people seeing our email messages and less inappropriate people seeing them. When we damaged our domain before, we were sending the same thing to everyone. We’d send a message about harvest season to everyone, but harvest season is a lot different in Georgia than it is in Washington State. We use more personalization now.
“We also changed the focus of our messages from sales to service and support, which prompted us to do a whole bunch of other things. We started writing more blog posts and have a place on our website called Buck University where we offer really good information. We use those posts for our email campaigns.
“For example, we launched a new product called the Cluster Bucker that will buck nearly whole plants. Throughput goes from 150 lbs. per hour to 800 lbs. per hour. I wrote a blog post deep dive about it and sent an email campaign where we promoted the blog post and along with it, we promoted the Cluster Bucker.”
The third part of the solution to Munch Machine’s deliverability problem was to ensure they didn’t include anything in their campaigns in the future that could cause their messages to be flagged by email service providers as spam.
James explains, “We had links to everything in our previous campaigns, including redundant links. We got rid of a lot of links when we learned from the Email Success Team that an excessive number of links compared to text is a spam trigger.
“We also took a lot of the Email Success Team’s suggestions on how to craft emails to get better engagement. We stopped using a lot of ‘we’ and ‘us’ and talking about our company. We changed the tone to ‘you’ and ‘your’ and talking about ‘what you can do’ instead of saying, ‘here’s our cool stuff, buy it.’
“I feel like we’re only implementing a third of what the Email Success Team taught us, but we’re getting better.”
After Munch Machine completed its domain warmup to rebuild its domain reputation, they began sending new email marketing campaigns with more relevant content to segmented audiences. With improved copywriting, they’ve seen higher delivery, open, and click rates than ever.
“We’ve seen higher delivery rates within the messages we send from the Cannabiz Media License Database and our other email marketing platforms,” says James. “The Email Success Team helped us with our other outbound marketing issues too. When we improved our domain, it wasn’t just for Cannabiz Media License Database emails. It was for everything, and I don’t know if people understand that. This is Internet-wide, not just within the Cannabiz Media platform.”
When it comes to open rates, click rates, leads, and sales, Munch Machine saw improvements across the board after implementing the solutions recommended by the Email Success Team. Open rates after implementing the recommended solutions climbed to 10X higher than before, and click rates jumped 40X higher.
“We get more engagement with the right people now,” says James. “I would say our qualified sales leads went up between 30-50%. We’re getting way better leads to chase, and that’s half the battle right there. Since we’ve repaired our domain reputation, sales we can connect directly to Cannabiz Media have gone up 20%, so we have more people to chase and they’re better people to chase.”
To learn more about how the Cannabiz Media License Database and the Email Success Team can help you get more qualified sales leads like Munch Machine, schedule a demo today.
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