The cannabis industry is always changing, and competition gets tighter daily. Ironically, the effort toward creating one point of difference fosters creativity. Due to regulations, cannabis companies have no voice across more traditional advertising channels, including TV, Google Ads, and Social Media Advertising. As a result, they have an ever-growing need for creative, data-driven cannabis marketing techniques that drive traffic, sales, and brand awareness.
Riding the tailwind of projected global sales topping $43 billion by 2025, the wave of U.S. states adopting medical and recreational legalization has taken the cannabis market to new highs in terms of industry reach and public/financial profile. However, for growers, brands, and dispensaries, navigating this landscape in the cannabis sector is a headache regarding marketing. Well, you’re in luck because this marketing guide has been created to make getting through the complexity simple and pinpointing only the most powerful strategies that will propel your cannabis business forward a breeze.
Against this backdrop, cannabis momentum bursts forth! Recent polling puts the percentage of Nebraska voters ready to put their approval on the ballot for the legalization of medical marijuana this coming November at an overwhelming 59%—surprising not, considering the progressive trend toward full-on legalization across many states. This new acceptance is grist for the mill as cannabis businesses try to make money from new markets with their product.
Companies willing to lead in this budding industry must develop marketing strategies corresponding to the changing legal and social landscape.
With that in mind, understanding the dynamics above goes a long way in effectively harvesting a potent digital-centric approach to marketing cannabis. Consumers increasingly search the web to find and engage with the cannabis brands they trust. The following cannabis marketing strategies and services targeted at your brand’s online success are dispensary, cultivation business, or ancillary services. Home these targeted tactics to build and raise brand awareness among your target audience.
One of the big powerhouses in marketing is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). And that’s not hard to fathom: SEO lets your brand feature in organic search results around most paid advertising like Google Ad limitations.
It starts with deep keyword research and opens up the real potential of SEO for your cannabis business. Key target research in cannabis that may tickle the interest of your audience might be a type of product or strain type. Location-based searches might look like “Best dispensaries in X city.” Onboarding of SEO follows to ensure every webpage ranks for a correct set of keywords, meta description, and structured data. Huge traffic-more than this large depends upon content marketing.
Top-of-the-line blogs, product guides, and educative articles will meet customers’ interests, build visibility in search results, and earn trust and credibility. The payoff will ideally be ongoing traffic and visibility that pays for itself, perhaps now but, in truth, later as your cannabis company benefits from it.
Everything is branding building a Strong Brand Identity for Your Michigan Cannabis Branding and Marketing in cannabis marketing. It differentiates your brand in the industry, instills confidence, and creates customer loyalty. Moving forward, you’ll want to ensure you have a cohesive and memorable identity for your new cannabis brand launch or rebranding of an existing one.
Strong cannabis branding starts with a solid visual identity, from memorable logos to a harmonious look that stands for something important to you. Only then, when crystal clear and the same in tone, does a clear and lucid voice and message of the brand emerge to ensure the tone resonates with the audience. Consider how your tone of voice echoes your USP-be, indicating that premium products are eco-friendly or wellness-focused. Well-positioned branded storytelling in the cannabis market will likely break through this noise and drive customer loyalty.
A good website is central to any marketing strategy. Your website is the digital storefront where your clients find your brand, discover your products, and buy.
The most important aspect of your site is its UX, which needs to be user-friendly, responsive, and fast. A seamless user experience will keep users on your site longer and multiply the conversion rate. The website’s visual design should represent your brand’s identity through clean, modern elements that leave marks in one’s mind.
If your products sell online, they will have seamless integrations with e-commerce. Your checkout must be secure and not so painful to prevent cart abandonment and keep people returning for more. It should also be built with SEO in mind so the search results are fine and traffic flows well.
It will not only create a high-functioning, professional website but also help enhance your web presence and serve as an important conversion tool for your cannabis business.
Of all our showcase clients, MKX shows off the power of great cannabis marketing. Check out their newly redesigned website, which features innovative products and quality.
Notwithstanding the limitations that various social media platforms have imposed concerning paid advertising by cannabis brands, social media marketing remains a sure platform for creating a strong, engaged community. Social destinations such as Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn will let you connect with your audience to help extend your brand through authentic and shareable content.
One of the most effective ways is to encourage UGC. Asking your customers to share their experiences with your products builds engagement; it’s social proof for gaining new customers. Letting their stories, photos, and reviews go live on your social pages lends a certain amount of trust to your brand’s community. Influencer marketing within the cannabis industry is a few more organic ways to reach more audiences.
Influencers—those whose messaging aligns with your brand’s—could show your product to many more people in a much more organic-feeling way. You teach them, too. When you educate your audience about cannabis, whether how to consume it or industry trends, you build and maintain your brand as a thought leader, furthering the connection between them and your brand. And if all goes according to plan, social media marketing has helped you break through some advertising restrictions in building brand awareness and driving loyalty.
With 3D product animation, creative, innovative ways of selling cannabis in a very conservative industry with few ads on traditional channels become possible. You can show your products in excellent visual detail in an immersive way that lets your customers better see your features and benefits.
3D animations are far more engaging than graphics and allow you to present your cannabis product in a much more dynamic light, with the ability to engage a potential customer for a far more extended period. They can be applied to product features, such as cultivation and dosage and the after-effects of a particular strain, in an educative yet fun manner. Once these animations are customized to your branding and marketing goals, you’ll have one smooth visual experience across your digital channels.
The 3D product animation in cinematography will give it an edge over competitors in the marketplace, offering your customers a more colorful and modern experience.
Email and SMS marketing are still believed to be the most active channels for customer engagement and securing long-term relationships. Both proved to be very straightforward methods of reaching your audience with personalized messages, product updates, and exclusive offers.
That would be segmented based on customers’ purchase history or similar interests. Thus, your targeting would be to the point, as would your content. You could share customer-engaging educational content, like cannabis tips, product guides, and other industry news. Promotion, loyalty rewards, and early access to new product launches are steps you can take to convert and keep the audience’s interest in your brand.
SMS marketing is good at creating urgency and driving action right now. You can text flash sales, limited-time offers, or product drop reminders. Still, personalized messages will give your target the feeling of being unique and closer to your brand. SMS and email marketing are cost-effective techniques with high return options since they increase customer interaction and conversion rates.
It means credibility and authority built hard over time in the cannabis industry. Digital PR and influencer marketing go a long way in furthering cannabis brands’ reach and credibility. Top-tier publication placements, in addition to partnerships with cannabis influencers, provide more channels through which your brand can become visible and trusted in the industry.
It’s more about getting quality backlinks from authoritative cannabis blogs and websites, which usually set your brand up for better SEO visibility and more trust. Now, you will reach new audiences and amplify your brand message with knowledgeable and highly regarded cannabis influencers.
Digital PR and partnerships with influencers are other powerful means of enhancing your brand’s reputation and bringing targeted traffic to your website.
Great marketing has always been built on deep, highly valuable, and data-driven insights. Accompanying analytics will let you realize just how well your campaigns are working, further fine-tuning your approach to ensure your effort is paying off.
AB testing is one good way to fine-tune your marketing activities. One could run an experiment on messaging, design, or format and be quite certain about the audience preference. Further, the study of customer behavior on websites and social media provides a lot of insight into what kind of content works to engage audiences and generate conversions.
This allows one to track metrics continuously and change the strategy where necessary, thus making informed decisions about improving marketing and growth.
Content marketing becomes very important for cannabis brands since they cannot advertise their products due to legal obstacles. Such brands will go deep with the audience, be visible online, and build trust by educating them, keeping them entertained, and showing compliance.
Core Storytelling involves using amazing stories to share your unique journey of values and mission. This humanizes your brand and builds deeper emotional connections.
Educational Content: Create guides, blogs, and FAQs that delve into the details of cannabis products and their various benefits. This will make your brand an authority for customers to rely on when they want to learn more about cannabis use.
Thought Leadership: Establish your brand as an industry leader by publishing opinions and expert analyses. This will build trust and help with SEO and better engagement and links.
Product-focused content deals with explaining what sets your product apart. Further, long descriptions, reviews, and even behind-the-scenes content educate but put quality and care into the offering to drive conversions.
Visual Content and Video: Engage users; improve learning through pictures, including infographics and how-to videos that show the use and benefits of a product much more clearly. All combined, a cannabis brand would have a solid content marketing strategy through which it might pop up on the radar and, hopefully, stay there with any luck.
Most cannabis brands don’t even try to advertise on social media because they believe that doing so violates the guidelines. While that might be true, Instagram, along with others like Facebook, strictly bans direct cannabis product promotions. There is a fine line through which one can get around the restrictions to grow a brand.
Could you set up a workaround with an ad page on Instagram that helps you outsmart algorithms on social media advertising? The ad page is strictly your brand’s ads, and you can post actual content promoting your business without the algorithms flagging you for not playing by the rules. Here’s how this works:
Educate Your Audience: Instead of directly showcasing the products, use your Instagram ad page to educate the audience about cannabis. Those can be long posts describing the benefits of a particular strain, a sneak peek into cannabis culture, and tips for responsible consumption.
Lifestyle and Community: This reveals the lifestyle aspect of your brand—the events, collaborations, and community it engages in. Could you share with them content that connects to the target audience and creates a community without showcasing the particular products?
Be Careful with Content: When creating the ad, it’s better not to use imagery of the cannabis product or to sell directly but to add some value to the images regarding the brand or mission. You can style graphical information, infographics, or customer testimonials.
Use Story Highlights: You may create different story highlights on your page, adding various elements to your brand. You might categorize them as educating, showing events within the community, or even showing behind-the-scenes views of your brand. This will enable clients to get information from you without contravening advertisement policies.
Engage Followers: Connect with your audience through the comment section, engage in user-generated content, and join in the conversation about cannabis; this will make the brand more loyal and grow bigger.
Above all, appropriate content is delivered in a dainty balance, and it has a proper, dedicated page for an Instagram ad on cannabis that will surely sell your services to those looking for them. That is how you intelligently reach, involve, and grow the audience in the cannabis community.
An integrated, data-driven approach to marketing is needed- one that works in this highly competitive cannabis marketplace. Integrate SEO, branding, content marketing, social media, email marketing, and 3D product animation to flow seamlessly into one solid digital experience for your brand where meaningful connections will be made with your audience.
Elevate your cannabis game with our customized cannabis marketing package. Nexx Digital Marketing offers one-of-a-kind services in branding, social media marketing, email marketing, 3D product animation, and website development. Contact us today and watch it get High!
A broad range, indeed, but externally, cannabis marketing’s key groups include medical patients and recreational users. The largest consumers fall in the age category of 21-28 years, while one of the fastest-growing groups includes seniors, 55+, often seeking pain management or wellness. Creating targeted messaging- whether health-conscious seniors or young adults interested in micro-dosing- will get you in front of your target audience.
This is a pretty general question, but marketing budgets for cannabis companies can range from 3 to 9% of annual sales. Of course, this percentage could vary dramatically based on company size, target market, and marketing channels. Smaller, well-planned campaigns can yield impressive results with intelligent strategy and targeted content that maximizes impact.
A well-placed cannabis brand strategy defines your company’s identity, which involves your mission, values, and unique selling proposition. It’s all about how you will resonate with your target audience through a consistent voice and engaging messaging across all touchpoints, from packaging to social media. With a well-thought-out strategy, your brand always has the potential to be recognizable and memorable.
Indeed, the cannabis industry continues to grow and is projected to reach $43 billion in global sales over the next four years. Success is not guaranteed in a world of increased competition, shifting regulations, and evolving consumer expectations; the only differentiators will be speed, relationships with active consumers, and innovation.
Set yourself apart from the crowds by building community and creating customized experiences. Curate unique product offerings, educational events, and one-on-one consultations. Amplify this with SEO-driven content marketing and active social media community engagement for enhanced visibility. Winning will be done by relationship-building through engaging and friendly interaction that lends to trust.
Are you prepared to grow your cannabis company? Start your online journey with NEXX and find out how our cannabis marketing know-how can improve your brand’s visibility and boost progress. Get in touch with us right now to find out more about how we can help you succeed online and grow your company.