How The Bright Spot Won the Emerald Cup Award for Best Dispensary with a Helping Hand from Happy Cabbage

When a strong community presence is activated by powerful SMS marketing, great things happen.
Winning an Emerald Cup Award represents high praise within the industry due to the group's reputation for maintaining strong integrity and fostering an incredible level of competition. Product awards are determined by a panel of judges, whereas retail awards are provided based on most votes.

Your customers and community have to support you to win the latter. If you want the community to show up for you as a retailer, you need to have an authentic relationship with your community. Building this relationship was a long road for The Bright Spot, but they clearly succeeded.

So how did they win the award and manage to generate more than $40k in sales on top? It’s a cool story that every retailer can learn from.
Opened
Location
Product
Services
2021
Fairfield, CA
Happy Marketers
Dispensary, Delivery

Humble Beginnings

Jim and Valerie Inglebright, who were born and raised in their community of Fairfield, CA, independently own and operate the cannabis retail store, The Bright Spot.

Before The Bright Spot, Jim ran a tow truck company, a NASCAR team, and an auto body repair shop all over the span of 42 years. He’s best known in Fairfield as a race car driver and entrepreneur.

Years later, the Inglebrights became caregivers for Valerie’s mom Doris. They discovered Doris was overtaking opioids and needed to find another option for her medicine. The solution was to find a cannabis dispensary. Fortunately, she was able to use cannabis gummies to transition off of prescription painkillers. Her quality of life improved greatly.

Jim and Valerie became believers in the power of cannabis, and decided to open a cannabis retail dispensary on the same land they had owned and operated their other businesses on for over two decades.

Emerald Cup Winner
1st Place Dispensary in Northern California 2023
Emerald Cup Award Logo for 2023

Authenticity is the Key to Success

The Bright Spot team engages with the community consistently, authentically, and with loving spirits. They give back to their community by throwing events every quarter which are packed with giveaways and educational materials. These events cultivate community, and attendees span from growers to producers to customers and neighbors. They connected with the people of Fairfield and beyond through authenticity and care.

The Bright Spot saw a spike in sales on these event days by using Happy Operators for data and insights. The Operations Manager of The Bright Spot, Nick Avey, insists that Happy Operators is his “favorite form of analytics bar none.” According to Nick, their text marketing focuses more on engaging their community and less on selling products, but these efforts still naturally generate sales.


Happy Operators is my favorite form of analytics, bar none.
Nick Avey, Operations Manager

How They Mobilized Their Customers to Win the Emerald Cup Award

Two text campaigns sent through Happy Marketers helped them secure the finalist position in the first round of the Emerald Cup Competition. After winning the top three finalist position, the voting period for The Emerald Cup award lasted for only three days.

Normally they don’t send back-to-back texts, but this award was important to them, so Nick sent out three days worth of texts through Happy Cabbage, and the community showed up in support. During this time, customers in the store frequently told them at check-out, “we just voted for you guys, hope you win!”

In total, The Bright Spot sent 5 text campaigns that equalled 21,187 touches with a link to vote on The Emerald Cup’s website. With the help of their campaigns, The Bright Spot now holds the coveted “Best Dispensary in Northern California” Emerald Cup Award.

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The Results - Winning Linked to Growing Sales

Last but not least, while The Bright Spot aimed to drive votes for the award, they passively earned $44,594 attributed to sales from those texts that occurred in the 24 hours after they were sent. The Bright Spot was not trying to drive sales with these campaigns, but sales came through regardless.

This is the power of using SMS marketing the right way; engaging customers is not always about purchasing a product. It is about engaging the community and recapturing customers that may have left for other retailers. This campaign led to 47 customers coming back that hadn’t made a purchase in 90+ days!

21,287

Campaign Touches

In total, The Bright Spot sent 5 text campaigns that equalled 21,187 touches with a link to vote on The Emerald Cup’s website.

$44,594

Sales Over 24 Hours

While The Bright Spot aimed to drive votes for the award, they passively earned $44,594 attributed to sales from those texts that occurred in the 24 hours after they were sent.

47

Customers Recaptured

This campaign led to 47 customers coming back that hadn’t made a purchase in 90+ days!

Teamwork

Nick credits Happy Cabbage for helping with the success at The Emerald Cup, and says it’s teamwork that makes this all possible. The Bright Spot has a great relationship with their community, Happy Cabbage just gave them the boost they needed to take the top prize.

The Lesson Learned

It is important to give back to your community and be authentic in your support and loyalty to the people within it. Using text marketing to activate that community is how you see the most success! To learn more about Happy Marketers, schedule a demo.

Staying ahead of your competition starts with knowing the opportunities you need to seize. Take our roadmap today.

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