Email marketing remains one of the most effective strategies for engaging with your audience, driving conversions, and maintaining brand loyalty.

Keeping a set cadence in your email marketing has two benefits: 1) it can help your contacts remain engaged, and 2) it keeps your domain reputation warm to ensure your messages stay out of spam boxes. Weekly or bi-weekly has long been considered an ideal cadence.

bUt JeSsIcA, i DoN't HaVe EnOuGh TiMe/CoNtEnt fOr wEeKLy EmAiLs.

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What if I told you that you are doing most of this work anyway?

As an email marketing advisor in the cannabis space, I see countless email campaigns sent to different segmented lists, blasted out all on the same day. These are what we often refer to as “Spray and Pray” campaigns. These are generalized emails sent to large lists, hoping that someone—anyone— will bite. The problem with these types of campaigns is that they don’t work. Billions of emails are sent to businesses every day. Gone are the days that you could write a simple, generic message about your company and send it to everyone. Email marketing has evolved, and to get the best response, you must be specific and direct with your messaging to targeted groups.

Building Your Lists

Let's look at how to structure your email marketing campaigns to target three different targeted distribution lists. For simplicity, we’ll use three different lists that focus on Retail and Dispensary licenses, but this same formula can easily be adapted to whatever license activity or state you wish to market to. Build your lists so that they gradually grow in size. Best practice is to send to less than double the number of contacts you sent to the week prior. Sending to huge lists randomly makes email clients suspicious. Slow growth is safe growth.

Three-Month Email Schedule

Let’s explore how to pick a send day and develop a three-month schedule for sending targeted emails to different lists. For the sake of this example, we are going to work with Tuesdays, but Wednesdays and Thursdays have also been proven to be good send days for B2B emails. We will assume that your domain is already warm and has a Medium or Good reputation with Google Postmaster Tools. If you need to first warm up your domain, check this article out first.

First, check your previous mailings to see what day of the week and time of day you tend to see the most positive engagement. Many email marketing service providers, including Cannabiz Media, have an option to show you the best days/times to schedule your emails based on when your recipients have opened or interacted with your emails in the past.

Month 1

Month 2

Month 3

Once you are comfortable with this pace and are keeping a consistent 20% open rate or higher, consider increasing your sends. Add in another few lists that target other states that you send to either on your designated send day, or you can pick a secondary day to expand your outreach. Keep in mind that your growth should not be sudden, it should be gradual.

Additional Tips

A few other notes to make you successful…all emails you send should include the following:

• A sending domain that matches your email address with DMARC, SPF, DKIM and CNAME settings already applied. (i.e. if you’re sending from a @cannabiz.media email address, then your matching sending domain should be cannabiz.media)
• A compelling subject line (The CoSchedule site has a great subject line tester! Check it out here.)
• Tailored email content that focuses on content relevant to their specific needs. Consider completing the Cannabiz Media Email Marketing Content Specialist Certification to become an expert in cannabis email content creation.
• A strong CTA is what pulls a recipient further through your funnel. For more on using CTAs to build your funnel, check out this post.

Key Takeaways

Do you have to follow this verbatim? Absolutely not! Customize the lists and messages to best fit your business. Keep in mind that this guide is meant to ensure your messages are relevant, targeted, and valuable to each segment of your audience. This approach not only helps in maintaining a warm domain reputation but also increases engagement and conversion rates. Remember, the key to successful email marketing is consistency and relevance. By tailoring your content to the specific needs and interests of each list, you maximize the effectiveness of your campaigns and build stronger connections with your audience.

Happy emailing!