Not Pot is all-in on their SMS strategy, but seem to be missing a trick

Not Pot is a maker of flavoured CBD gummies designed for relaxation and an immunity boost. Not Pot are also famed for their tongue-in-cheek tone of voice and marketing strategies, selling things like a branded potato (an actual potato) and pickle flavoured gummies.

Not Pot have been on our radar for a while now since publicly announcing they were ceasing all email comms in favour of SMS back in January 2020.

Following this change-up, all email sign-up forms on Not Pot's website were replaced with subtle SMS fields and pop-ups. Whether this was immediately when stepping on the site, or an entire banner at the bottom of each page

What we think: It's great that Not Pot is transparent about what customers can expect from their text messages (although they could have added a video or screenshots breaking down and explaining more of what each customer would experience on their SMS service like Judy or Empathy Wines).

They've also made it extremely easy to sign-up in each form - but as a result of removing certain sign-up fields will have a lack of customer information like first and last name that can go a long way to creating a more personalised experience. Remember that time when Verb got really personal?

Although it's great to see a brand with such an irrelevant tone of voice go all-in on SMS, we don't think a pure SMS strategy should replace email completely. We've seen that the best strategies play each channel to their strengths and create a richer and more valuable customer experience as a result.

The texts

Although Not Pot were upfront about what their SMS channel would be used for (Marketing) and offers are a key way to increase ROI, we would have hoped for slightly more elements to the strategy.

One of the main points here is that they're isn't any 2-way conversation at all - meaning the bombardment of the same or similar message structure week after week can get tedious for customers. (We tried to reply back to them but received automated responses as below that didn't really reflect anything to do with our message):

What we think: Although in-theory Not Pot using SMS for all customer comms is a really exciting proposition, we felt the experience was a little disappointing. They have such an exciting brand and tone of voice that we would have hoped to have filtered more into their SMS strategy.

Again, we don't encourage a completely one sided strategy of either SMS or email - but rather each to their specific advantages. A few of our ideas that we think a brand as Not Pot could execute on:

• Educational Content: Not Pot are selling CBD - targeting customers that are struggling with anxiety or stress (or generally looking for an immunity boost). There is a really rich story to tell here (through SMS) around staying calm, better sleep, more mindfulness and how Not Pot products play directly into that.

• New Product Development: One of Not Pot's key strengths is their amazing (and unique) line-up of flavours. They could use their SMS audience to crowd-source new flavours or limited editions that they wanted to gauge the reaction to. Not Pot could generally gamify the entire experience by putting the customer right at the heart of the decision making and build long-term loyalty.

• Deeper connection and 1:1 Conversation: As we mentioned earlier, we feel one of Not Pot's real strengths is their tone of voice and connection to customers - so building an authentic 1:1 conversation with their customers via SMS.

Overall, it's not about what Not Pot has done wrong but rather what they have not done, opportunities are being missed. However, Not Pot have the foundations of an incredible brand, product and community to continue building their SMS strategy into the future.

PS: Not Pot added an "Out of Stock" SMS notification field on some of their products that aren't currently available - like the aforementioned 🥔. We're waiting...

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