Dispensary Data: Why it Matters
April 1, 2022
In an industry where competition is fierce and customer loyalty is of the utmost importance, dispensaries need all the help they can get when it comes to figuring out which operational and marketing tactics work for them and which don’t. In this post, we share why dispensary data that you are already collecting in your dispensary point of sale system can be used to better understand customers and help improve sales – but only if you know how to make the most of it!
The Power of Dispensary Data
Data drives business and commerce like no other resource in human history. Data is used to make decisions, solve problems, and inform us on what our customers want. As a result, data has become the most valuable asset in any business; however, not everyone is using their data effectively.
Understanding your customer’s behavior through data allows you to make better decisions, which ultimately leads to greater success in your business and gives you a leg up on the competition.
Using data to understand your customers allows you to create more robust and targeted marketing campaigns that better suit your business objectives. This can be beneficial in two ways:
- It helps you to build loyalty among existing customers. By building smart customer profiles, you can better understand customer preferences, helping improve relationships with those customers and increasing the loyalty of your existing customer base. For example, if you know products in your inventory that are expiring soon, you can offer a discount on these items and make tailored suggestions to customers you know are more likely to purchase items that are on sale.
- It also helps with marketing. The more information at your disposal, the better you can tailor your marketing strategies and advertisements to appeal directly to customers’ interests. We’ve seen some businesses use customer segmentation effectively , with great results. For example, if you know which customers are more likely to purchase discounted items you can market inventory nearing the end of it’s shelf life to them in order to help move product.
In short, this means that you’re only making investments in marketing activities where there is a realistic chance of success — both in terms of increasing revenue and improving customer experience. This tactic also makes it easier for you to evaluate whether or not the money spent on each campaign is bringing worthwhile returns on investment or costing too much without doing anything fruitful.
What to do with your Data
Dispensary data analytics are a key factor in helping operators formulate their business strategy by providing the necessary information to take advantage of the latest trends and market opportunities. Cannabis operators can identify and target customers and patients more effectively, improving overall satisfaction and increasing revenue at the same time. The combination of data that can be captured from all areas of in-person and online purchases has become readily available, meaning companies can implement an effective data-based marketing strategy, which helps to improve conversions and overall sales. Increased use of data modeling techniques and tools like Cannalytics also makes it possible for companies to make predictions about pricing, product placement, and inventories.
Data analytics plays a further role in cannabis by improving the structure of dispensaries, boosting productivity, and increasing profitability. Analyzing cannabis retail data is one of the most important aspects of running a successful business as it provides valuable insights into the performance of your operation.
Dispensaries can benefit greatly by implementing the most appropriate strategies in order to increase their earnings while reducing costs. Data analysis is essential for operators who want to stay competitive in this changing market where consumers have a growing number of options when purchasing cannabis products.
Bottom line is that you do not want me to be an operator who makes decisions based on intuition rather than facts and figures.
The Future of Cannabis Data
Moving forward, there are a multitude of dispensary insights that can be gained as cannabis data streams become more robust and operators better understand how to leverage the information to gain the most value. Dispensaries that are able to identify and understand their baseline KPIs around their products and customers will be able to implement data-driven changes to stand out in a saturated market. For example:
- Customer wait times can be regressed against average ticket spend to optimize staffing, and much more
- Product margins can be analyzed to better understand which contracts need to be renegotiated
- Customer segmentation can be utilized during the purchase process for better tailored upsell opportunities that will increase overall ticket amounts
As the cannabis space becomes more mainstream, and companies continue to innovate, cannabis insights will continue to enhance the consumer experience while enriching the entrepreneurs that know how to use them properly.
Conclusion
In today’s hyper-competitive environment, dispensaries need to drive efficiency and productivity to remain competitive. The cannabis industry is experiencing a rapid change in consumer behavior and expectations, driven by technology.
In the past, operators were able to manage dispensaries by relying on data they generated themselves. But in modern operations, the ability to collect, organize and analyze data has become increasingly important in helping businesses make critical decisions that drive competitive advantage.
Nowhere is this truer than in customer marketing, where the use of dispensary data can help companies improve their performance and achieve greater profitability through targeted marketing campaigns, relationship building with customers and online business operations—all of which can be achieved with better data analysis capabilities, like Cannalytics.