Direct Is Best

An email marketing explainer.

The Broccoli Report 
Friday, September 30, 2022
Time to read: 11 minutes, 22 seconds. Contains 2276 words.

Direct Is Best: An Email Marketing Explainer.

You probably see (and delete) email marketing every day—brands you’ve purchased from announcing new releases, longer-form dispatches from organizations or associations you follow, a blast about a limited-time discount at your neighborhood pet store, newsletters (ahem). 

Email has become a powerful hub for commercial communications. In the work-from-home era, inboxes are where people clock in—a familiar, navigable home base for most demographics. And it generates a goldmine of usable data. Open rates and clicks offer precious insights into customers’ needs that can reveal what they find valuable about a brand and how best to grab and maintain their attention. 

For cannabis companies, direct email is a safe space where we know our account won’t get suspended for mentioning weed too many times. We can’t direct text consumers, but legislators haven’t banned cannabis brands from emailing consenting adults about business that’s legal in their state. And it is the rare advertising realm open to all brands—licensed and plant-touching, hemp, synthetic, Delta-8, etc. 

Today, we’ll outline why cannabis and plant-adjacent brands should build and maximize their email marketing, providing a review of how it works and helpful platforms. We’ll also look at how two brands manage and evaluate their email marketing programs.

If you’re new to the Broccoli Report, you may be wondering, “Wait, what does email marketing have to do with weed?” I get it. Our Friday posts are an eclectic array, covering everything from a hemp legislative update to a hypothetical essay on the farmers’-marketification of weed. And in a few weeks, there’ll be a new witchy weed trend report. While our coverage might feel a little all over the place, it’s all anchored by the same core principle: good weed business. We work to share the ideas, solutions, resources, and inspiration needed for creating the kind of ethical, diverse cannabis industry we want to see, where small businesses making the effort to do things right thrive. 

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