Email And SMS Marketing Strategies for 4/20 This Year
The high holiday comes with a massive multiplier
Cannabis email and SMS marketing is one of the most underutilized avenues of growth for cannabis retailers. Despite the huge success other sectors see through email and SMS, cannabis companies rarely seem to take advantage, especially on days it matters the most.
With the lead up to 4/20, everything gets done to make the most out of the biggest day of the year for every cannabis business. The deals get planned. The inventory gets staged. But the emails? Written last minute, sent to the full unfiltered list, and mostly ignored.
The high holiday comes with a massive multiplier and this year Cova is helping cannabis retailers all over North America use email and SMS to boost sales. This comprehensive guide covers how to build and clean your subscriber list, which email platforms actually support cannabis businesses, how to build your campaigns in the weeks leading up to April 20th, and how to use SMS to capture the customers your emails don’t reach.
Key Takeaways
- Most mainstream ESPs (Mailchimp, Constant Contact, ActiveCampaign) prohibit cannabis content – choosing the wrong platform risks your campaigns being shut down without warning, along with your data.
- Because 4/20 falls on a Monday in 2026, front-loading promotions from Thursday the 17th onward is a stronger strategy than saving everything for the day itself – 2025 data from Canada shows Thursday having the highest single-day lift of the entire 4/20 weekend.
- SMS is the highest-reach channel available to dispensaries, with open rates consistently above 90%, but requires double opt-in, 10DLC registration, and age-verification flows to be carrier-compliant.
- An effective 4/20 campaign is not a single email – it’s a sequence running 2–3 weeks out with each email achieving a very specific purpose. Likewise, SMS needs to be even more targeted, fewer messages (2-4, starting later and ending earlier), and aligned with your email strategy.
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