Caliva
Building a trusted brand through legalization
FOCUS
CRM & Loyalty, Experiential, Content
MY ROLE
Marketing Manager
CASE STUDY 04
CRM & LOYALTY, EXPERIENTIAL, CONTENT
THE CHALLENGE:
California was shifting from medical to adult-use cannabis. Caliva needed to earn trust with first-time customers in a complex, heavily regulated category while scaling retail and wholesale.
MY ROLE:
Built core marketing foundations during hypergrowth, partnering with retail, IT, operations, and leadership.
THE APPROACH:
Built the first segmentation. Purchase and sales data produced five personas that shaped marketing, product, and CRM.
Implemented CRM. Partnered with IT and retail teams to segment customers by product preference, enabling personalized lifecycle marketing.
Became the category educator. SEO-driven content produced with a team of freelance writers, plus webinars, compliance-focused eBooks, and sales enablement for wholesale partners.
Launched loyalty and a first-timer program. POS-integrated rewards with in-store merchandising and staff engagement to drive adoption, plus dedicated retail specialists for first-time customers.
Celebrated the moment. "Fweedom," a celebration of adult-use legalization, coordinating vendors, entertainment, promotions, retail operations, and media outreach.
THE RESULTS:
500+ attendees before doors opened at Fweedom, plus regional press coverage
Five personas adopted across marketing, product, and CRM
[Loyalty enrollment or first-time customer retention figure]
WHAT IT TAUGHT ME
This is where I learned to market through disruption. When a category is new, education is the brand.