Cannabis for Creatives on 4/20 : A Seasonal Book Campaign and Author AMA

OVERVIEW: Cannabis has long been used and revered for its many benefits, from its widely acknowledged medical applications to its commonly and socially accepted ability to help users relax. With its widening availability and legalization in many states and countries, artists are increasingly looking to cannabis to aid in their creativity and generation of work—whether that’s to expand the imagination, connect disparate ideas, or take artistic risks. In Cannabis for Creatives, one of Rocky Nook’s 2022 books on general creativity, photographer, author, and cannabis advocate, Jordana Wright covers the basics of cannabis use, its history, and its effects on the brain as well as how science measures creativity.

WHO: The intended audience of this campaign were customers interested in learning about cannabis’s related effects on creativity and on artistic forms of expression, such as photography, painting, drawing, etc. Audience also includes those who are cannabis users, and those who are cannabis curious.

WHAT: The primary components of this campaign were the author AMA, the author’s book giveaway, and the thematic 42% discount. The intended objectives of this campaign were to promote the book’s publication, drive book sales, raise awareness around the connections between cannabis use and creativity, and engage audience participation to strengthen the customer relationship through providing value.

WHY/HOW: Because Rocky Nook’s email subscriber list tends to skew older in age and occupy more traditional professions in the job market, I targeted this campaign to run predominantly across social platforms where followers tend to be younger and more affected by influence and creative engagements. Rocky Nook’s follower count on Instagram (~2,765 follows) is a much smaller populous than their primary newsletter list (30K). Taking this into account, I designed the campaign to comprise one email to the newsletter list, offering a two-day sale of 42% off. I strategized the rest of the campaign to run via Rocky Nook’s Instagram Story. The social campaign featured the author via an interactive AMA, the 2-day sale, and a giveaway of the author’s recently released book. Rocky Nook has not yet given permissions for an external Instagram takeover, so all audience questions were sourced 7-14 days leading up to 4/20, and were pre-recorded by the author with intent to launch on the day of 4/20.

RESULTS: The two-day run-time of this campaign’s results were an average Email Open Rate of 36% (11,233 opens), and a CTR of 1.1% (341 unique clicks). The unique coupon, RN42, was used 43 times at Rocky Nook’s online store for a total of $1,267 in gross sales. The Instagram story had on average 32-39 viewers throughout its 60 segments which aired on 4/20.