Collecting opt-ins for SMS marketing is an ongoing project. You need to have a system for patrons at your dispensary to sign up to receive your texts.

Maintaining that list once you create it is often more important but less discussed around opt-in strategy.

Depending on your state, customers can be very aware of the content you send via text and might unsubscribe if the campaigns don’t meet their expectations.

Keep reading for a handful of tactics you can use to build and maintain an opt-in list at your cannabis business.

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#1: Incentivize Opt-Ins at Your Point-of-Sale System

When it comes to dispensary text marketing, the best way to collect opt-ins is at the point of sale. Why is this the case?

Remember, you want to make sure you’re texting customers that can legally purchase or already have from your store.

Opt-ins at the point-of-sale verify proof of age and transaction, making the contact more valuable for your dispensary's text marketing.

POS providers like Treez can collect opt-ins natively via their systems. Others like BLAZE require a telephone number for first-time customers.
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These features at the point-of-sale also enable SMS providers like Happy Cabbage Analytics to help you convert new and repeat customers more effectively.

Some POS providers don’t have a native opt-in system – and that’s okay too. You can collect their contact information in the following ways:

If you run a loyalty program, offer a 15% or greater discount for signing up. Now you'll have a customer opt-ed into both your program and SMS marketing.

Plus, you can target new loyalty program customers with Happy Marketers to ensure they start engaging with your store sooner than later.

If you’re looking to build your list, run a discount or BOGO for a customer who completes the opt-in form with their order.

You've now verified that a cannabis consumer that's given consent can legally purchase from you and has provided data that helps you send them targeted offers.

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#2: Use a Compliant & Awesome Opt-In Form  

As you probably know, compliance is huge when getting opt-ins for your text marketing campaigns – all the way down to the form customers use to sign up.

You need to make sure that you have a compliant opt-in form. Most importantly, the required fields and policy text meet the standards set by the TCPA.

Based on the standards set by the TCPA, you should including the following text on your form:

• Business name
• STOP instructions – how customers can opt-out
• HELP instructions – how to gain more information about the communications
• Frequency notification – how often customers can expect SMS communications
• Msg & Data rates notification – customers may incur a charge for the texts
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Here’s an example of what an opt-in form for Happy Cabbage looks like:
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Most SMS providers won't tell you that opt-in forms can act as a marketing channel. What do we mean by this?

You can design your form to either collect more information about your customers or build credibility on review sites.

Happy Cabbage Analytics provides custom opt-in forms to all our clients that route their customers who want to leave a review to Weedmaps, Yelp, and other customer feedback sites.

Adding this optional feature to the opt-in form allows you to generate more quality reviews for your business, increase online and in-store traffic, and build SEO value for your business.

Who said opt-in forms couldn't be fun? They are!

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#3: Collect Opt-Ins via Digital Channels

Start focusing on digital channels to increase sign-ups after creating an opt-in channel at your in-store POS. These can include the following:

• Dispensary website
• Online menu
• Weedmaps profile
• E-Commerce platforms such as Jane or Tymber
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Don't forget that the caveat of digital forms is that they don't verify proof of age and purchase.

Your goal is to build a quality list of subscribers, so you should either monitor the opt-ins you receive via these channels or invest in solutions that collect opt-ins after online purchases.

E-commerce solutions like Jane and Tymber offer an opt-in feature after purchase, which helps providers like Happy Cabbage verify proof of age and transaction.

Customers can order from your online menu, sign up, and then you can target them using their order data.

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#4: Regularly Clean Your List

At this point, you've probably sent out a few campaigns and have enough data on customers that have opted in to your SMS marketing. What's next?

Cleaning your SMS marketing subscriber list.

There will inevitably be customers that won't engage with your marketing. That's just what happens with any channel— SMS, email, apps— that requires opt-in.

Will you have a sender reputation score for texts like you do email? Not necessarily, but if your campaigns aren't generating engagement, they could start being filtered into SPAM.

How you maintain your list has everything to do with that, especially if you’re collecting opt-ins via your website.

Imagine collecting many contacts that are either fake, underage, competitors, or don't care. You don't want to risk sending texts to their cellphones!

Sending texts to them could result in greater SPAM filters, significantly impacting your campaign deliverability and whether actual customers receive your texts.

That's another reason it's essential to build a system for collecting high-quality contacts.

You don't want to waste time managing then clean contacts that won't purchase from your business and pose a potential risk to your SMS marketing channel.

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#5: Always Target SMS Campaigns  

Okay, so now you have a list of high-quality contacts for SMS marketing. Your number one priority is to keep them engaged with your dispensary!

Other solutions might encourage you to mass text your customers. You should never do this – under any circumstance whatsoever.

Mass SMS texting kills your list.

Imagine if you received a vague discount from a shop where you just ordered. You gave all your contact information for a promotion that you either don’t want or doesn’t apply to you?

You'd probably unsubscribe – and so would your customers.

That’s why it’s critical to segment your audiences before sending out dispensary text marketing campaigns.

Thankfully, Happy Marketers can relieve you of building audiences by automatically segmenting your customers based on when, what, and how much they purchased.

Creating marketing segments of customers based on multiple attributes is best because it accounts for all the key behavioral aspects of your buyer.

We often see dispensaries targeting buyers of a particular product or brand while forgetting how often brand consumers purchase.

Segmenting by order frequency allows you to send campaigns at the exact moment when customers are considering another order – making it more likely they’ll buy from you again.

This is why segmentation is vital to keep subscribers on your list. It allows you to send relevant SMS marketing to customers ready to buy.

They appreciate the text reminder, will potentially place another order, and stay active on your list of customers that opted-in for SMS marketing.
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Like this post? Book a demo for our text marketing tool, Happy Marketers. We offer some of the best opt-in solutions in the cannabis industry, ensuring that your customers love your texts, never opt out, and keep buying from your store.