16 Tips to Conversion Rate Optimization for Cannabis Dispensary

Benefits of CRO to the Cannabis Industry

CRO allows cannabis dispensaries to take advantage of all demographics of visitors who come to the site while identifying any problem areas that your customers might be experiencing. Determining the gaps in your dispensary website can help increase customer interaction and drive more leads to your retail store.

How to Start Using Conversion Rate Optimization for Cannabis Dispensaries

1. A/B Testing: Create two versions of your page (A & B), testing different elements on your site: button colors, call to action text, the location of KPI's, and more. Split testing half the traffic to each version (A & B) will provide metrics on which version engages visitors best.
2. Sales Funnel: Some businesses jump right into pushing for a deal or driving customers to a retail store. In many cases, this drives customers away because they're simply not ready to make a purchase or visit your store. Create content that speaks to customers in the different stages of the sales process. The sales funnel begins with exposure and leads your visitor through the next steps to a conversion, and then retention.
3. Communicate Value: A common mistake made by cannabis dispensaries is they don’t communicate the value of their products or state their competitive advantage. Create extensive information on the strains, concentrates, and edibles you offer at your store to show value to your visitors.
4. Remove Distraction: A clean and easy path to conversion on your site is crucial for CRO. It’s easy to add bells and whistles to your site, but the more you add, the more a visitor is distracted from interacting with your call-to-action. Model the Google brand, where design simplicity is the solution to effective branding and marketing.
5. Heat mapping: Sites like Crazyegg and Luckyorange offer excellent heat mapping tools, which help you visualize where customers click on our website. Once you've gathered data, evaluate the metrics and make the changes necessary to improve your sales funnel. User behavior is always evolving so having periodic heat mapping can prove very beneficial in measuring these trends.
6. Surveys: The simplest way to understand problems in user experience is by going back to the basics and asking your customers. Google Consumer Surveys provides a survey tool which should be sent directly to your clients. Feedback from users provides valuable insight into campaign issues.

Once you’ve set up your heat mapping and conducted your surveys, you can follow the steps below to continue forming your CRO strategy.

1. Weaknesses: Work with your team and use your analytical data to identify campaign weaknesses. Are you not getting enough contact form fills? Are people leaving your site too quickly?
2. Hypothesis: Hypothesis creation is the step in which we convert weaknesses into strengths. Identify the problem, make changes to the campaign and use the data to escort you to a solution. If your site isn’t getting enough form submissions, is it because you have too many fields in your form?
3. Design of Experiments (DOE): Design of Experiments refers to how you’re structuring your experiments. Your DOE will determine the outcomes of your experiments in both insights and growth. How yNou structure your tests will give you the answers to your questions.
4. Live A/B Testing: Don’t put everything you’re looking to test within one test. Running only one variation per A/B test is important to identifying your weaknesses. If you want to test the color of your sign-up buttons and the number of form fields, you need to run two separate tests to isolate each data point.
5. Control Group: During A/B testing, a control group will help you identify differences in how customers interact with the proposed changes.
6. Results Analysis: If you effectively create your hypotheses and design of experiments, you’ll get a better understanding of clients. This data insight will ultimately help you achieve your goals.

Quick Tips

1. 2.5 Seconds: Keep your messaging clear and get your point across in 2.5 seconds. Make it fast and easy for people to find what they want.
2. Stand Out: A well-designed website and high-quality multimedia will help you stand out from the crowd.
3. Calls to Action: Have three call-to-action's above the fold asking them to call, visit or email the dispensary. If you don’t ask, they won't act.
4. Location: Your goal is to drive foot traffic to your store. So, it's imperative to have your business information in both the header and the footer of your website.