Trust, Not Loyalty Points: How Cannabis Retailers Keep Customers Coming Back

For cannabis retailers, marketing often begins with a disadvantage.

Unlike alcohol, consumer packaged goods, or traditional retail brands, cannabis operators face strict rules governing advertising, branding, imagery, promotions, and even product packaging. Those restrictions vary from state to state, forcing multi-state operators to rethink marketing strategies market by market.

Yet according to the panelists at IgniteIt’s Cannabis Capital Conference in Chicago, the industry’s most successful retailers have stopped viewing compliance as an obstacle. Instead, they are focusing on the areas regulations can’t easily limit: customer experience, trust, education, and data.

Moderated by Tiana Arriaga, Vice President of Marketing at Standard Wellness, the discussion featured Kelly Heinichen, Vice President of Retail at iAnthus, Dominique White, Regional Director at Ivy Hall, and Kate Weber of CannStudio, who outlined the practices they believe will separate winning cannabis retailers from everyone else.

Trust Is The Industry’s Most Valuable Currency

Perhaps the panel’s defining takeaway came from Heinichen.

“I think it’s interesting too,” she said, “the most important currency in cannabis isn’t loyalty points; it’s trust.”

That trust begins long before a customer joins a rewards program.

It starts with consistent recommendations, knowledgeable employees, honest conversations, and confidence that every visit will deliver the same experience.

Unlike many retail categories where consumers enter stores seeking a specific brand, cannabis shoppers frequently arrive looking for an outcome.

That means trust in the retailer, and particularly the budtender, often matters more than loyalty to any individual product.

Customer Experience Is Becoming The Real Competitive Advantage

Dominique White said Ivy Hall has intentionally built its retail strategy around experience rather than promotions.

Operating in Illinois’ highly competitive dispensary market, the company continually surveys customers, asks permission before marketing to them, and uses events, education, and loyalty initiatives to strengthen relationships.

The strategy appears to be working.

White shared that a recent survey of Ivy Hall’s highest-spending customers found roughly 35% return specifically because of the in-store experience and education they receive from budtenders.

“Our customers get that difference in that experience,” White said.

Rather than overwhelming customers with promotional emails, Ivy Hall tries to make every communication feel intentional and useful.

“I unsubscribe from 20 emails a day,” White said. “How do we become that company that isn’t annoying?”

The answer, according to the panel, is relevance.

Budtenders Are Marketing’s Front Line

Throughout the discussion, panelists repeatedly returned to one conclusion.

The most influential people in cannabis marketing aren’t marketers.

They’re budtenders.

As regulations increasingly restrict product imagery, promotional language, and packaging, conversations on the sales floor become even more valuable.

“In Florida,” Heinichen explained, “I can’t always show you a picture of the flower.”

Instead, budtenders must describe terpene profiles, aromas, expected effects, and product characteristics clearly enough that customers feel confident making a purchase.

“If I can’t show you the product,” she said, “I need to make sure you trust me.”

That makes education one of retail’s highest-return investments.

White said Ivy Hall continuously trains and incentivizes budtenders to deepen product knowledge because every interaction can determine whether a customer returns.

“If you stay ready,” she tells her teams, “you don’t have to get ready.”

Consumers Often Shop By Effect—Not Brand

One of the discussion’s more surprising insights centered on brand loyalty.

Cannabis certainly has recognizable brands.

But unlike liquor or automotive, many customers prioritize the experience they want over the logo on the package.

“Cannabis is one of the few consumer packaged goods where consumers shop by effect,” Arriaga observed during the discussion.

If a preferred product isn’t available, customers frequently ask for something that delivers a similar result rather than abandoning the purchase altogether.

That creates both an opportunity and a challenge.

Retailers must understand customer needs deeply enough to recommend appropriate alternatives while maintaining confidence in the shopping experience.

According to the panelists, consistency in product performance becomes more important than flashy branding.

Storytelling Is Becoming More Valuable Than Traditional Advertising

Kate Weber argued that many of the industry’s regulatory restrictions actually push marketers toward stronger communication.

Rather than relying exclusively on promotional campaigns, CannStudio increasingly recommends native advertising and first-person storytelling, featuring patient experiences, founder stories, and educational content.

These approaches remain effective regardless of changing advertising rules because they communicate value rather than simply displaying products.

“We’ve really leaned into storytelling,” Weber said, noting that authentic narratives often survive regulatory changes far better than conventional advertising campaigns.

She also observed that cannabis marketers operate in an environment where the playbook itself continues changing, driven by AI, evolving consumer behavior, and new digital discovery tools.

“You need to innovate on the innovation,” she said.

Better Data Creates Better Marketing

The panel also emphasized that cannabis retailers often possess customer information that many traditional industries wish they had.

Weber pointed out that sectors like furniture still struggle to connect point-of-sale systems with customer relationship management platforms.

Cannabis retailers, by contrast, often know exactly who is buying, how frequently they return, and what products they prefer.

That information should guide every communication.

Rather than blasting identical promotions to everyone, retailers should identify who wants weekly updates, who prefers monthly communication, and which customers are likely to respond to educational content instead of discounts.

“It’s compelling,” Weber said, “that within this space, you already know who’s shopping with you.”

Cannabis May Already Have Better Customer Data Than Traditional Retail

While many retailers outside cannabis are still struggling to connect customer information across their businesses, Weber argued that cannabis operators may already have a significant competitive advantage.

She noted that industries such as furniture often lack integrated point-of-sale and customer relationship management systems, forcing marketers to rely on third-party demographic data to understand who their customers are.

Cannabis retailers, however, frequently know exactly who is shopping, how often they return, what products they purchase, and when they stop buying.

“It’s compelling to me that within this space, you already know who’s shopping with you,” Weber said. That information, she argued, allows retailers to identify similar consumers, refine marketing campaigns, and build more sustainable long-term growth strategies.

Good Marketing Takes Patience

Panelists also cautioned against expecting immediate results from every marketing campaign.

According to Weber, companies often abandon campaigns before enough data exists to properly evaluate their effectiveness.

Successful strategies require multiple touchpoints throughout the customer journey, from awareness campaigns at the top of the funnel to promotional messaging aimed at existing customers.

“It does take patience and a strategy to really see the true results of any sort of marketing effort,” Weber said. “Sometimes folks take their foot off the gas too soon before they can actually see the results.”

She added that retaining existing customers typically produces faster returns than acquiring entirely new ones, making long-term strategy just as important as creative execution.

Storytelling Can Outlast Changing Regulations

As marketing restrictions continue evolving across cannabis markets, Weber believes one tactic has proven remarkably resilient: storytelling.

Rather than relying exclusively on traditional advertising, CannStudio has increasingly encouraged clients to tell authentic first-person stories about founders, patients, and customers, then distribute those stories through native advertising channels.

“What we’ve found is that using and leaning into native advertising and storytelling is a way that’s essentially impenetrable to any sort of directions that come to play,” Weber said.

Because the approach focuses on education and personal experiences instead of promotional claims, it remains effective even when state marketing regulations change.

Winning The Customer Twice Is Cheaper Than Finding A New One

While attracting new customers remains important, panelists agreed that long-term growth depends on giving existing customers reasons to return.

“We all know that new customer acquisition is more expensive than existing customer retention,” Heinichen said.

That means every interaction matters.

Inventory consistency, knowledgeable staff, personalized communication, and reliable product recommendations all contribute to keeping customers engaged long after their first purchase.

For retailers operating in increasingly competitive markets, improving retention may deliver a higher return on investment than constantly chasing new consumers.

Branding Gets More Complicated Across State Lines

Building a recognizable cannabis brand becomes significantly harder for multi-state operators because every state has different marketing and packaging requirements.

Heinichen explained that logos, colors, imagery, and even cannabis symbols may be permitted in one jurisdiction but prohibited in another.

She pointed to brands like Betty’s Eddies, whose packaging varies across states simply to comply with local regulations.

“We are operating a bunch of individual countries,” Heinichen said, describing the challenge of maintaining a consistent national brand while adapting to different compliance rules.

The result is a constant balancing act between preserving brand identity and remaining compliant.

Compliance Carries A Cost

Those regulatory differences affect more than marketing.

They also create operational challenges that don’t exist in many traditional consumer industries.

Heinichen noted that multi-state operators would prefer to order packaging at scale, but different state requirements often force companies to produce multiple versions of the same product.

That increases costs while limiting the economies of scale available to other consumer packaged goods companies.

“You might actually hurt your original brand intent if you try to dumb it down to apply to all states,” she said.

For operators, branding decisions increasingly become financial decisions as well.

Customer Data Should Decide When To Speak—Not Marketing Calendars

White encouraged retailers to think beyond how often they can communicate and instead focus on how often customers actually want to hear from them.

Rather than relying on fixed marketing schedules, Ivy Hall uses customer feedback and behavioral data to determine the right level of engagement.

“Are we in the passenger seat of this customer’s life?” White asked. “Is it something that our customer wants to hear from us this often, or once a week, or once a month?”

The goal, she said, is to make every message feel relevant instead of becoming just another notification that gets ignored or deleted.

Consistency Will Decide Who Wins

When asked what will matter most over the next several years, Heinichen didn’t point to branding, AI, or advertising technology.

She pointed to consistency.

Today’s consumers expect products to be available when they want them.

If one dispensary doesn’t have what they’re looking for, they’ll simply visit another.

“The people who are going to win,” Heinichen said, “are those who provide consistency.”

That means consistent inventory, recommendations, customer service, and consistent experiences from one visit to the next.

As cannabis markets mature and competition intensifies, those fundamentals may prove far more durable than any marketing campaign.

The panel suggested that cannabis marketing is becoming more personal.

The companies that earn customer trust, empower their budtenders, respect consumer preferences, and consistently deliver positive experiences are likely to build the strongest brands, even if regulations never allow them to advertise like everyone else.

As cannabis retail becomes more competitive and marketing regulations continue to evolve, understanding what actually drives customer loyalty is becoming a strategic advantage. IgniteIt’s Cannabis Capital Conference returns to Denver, Colorado, on September 18, bringing together leading retailers, marketers, operators, brands, and investors to share the strategies shaping the next generation of cannabis commerce. For executives looking to strengthen customer retention, build stronger brands, and grow responsibly, it will be an opportunity to learn directly from the industry’s top operators.