Recent years have brought about a marijuana revolution, lifting the classic stigma surrounding those who use it and making it more acceptable for just about anyone to use, whether it’s for medical reasons or recreation. The shift has made it possible for businesses like Verma Farms, Emjay, and many others to flourish while helping and changing the lives of those who use their products and services. Despite the social changes surrounding cannabis, though, if you run a marijuana-related business, it can still be hard to market effectively online. This may be due, in part, to restrictions placed by certain platforms or due to the fact that you may not be sure which way is the best way to go about it.
If you run a CBD company, marijuana dispensary, or any other business related to cannabis and just aren’t marketing as effectively online as you would like to be, the tips below may help.
Consider Your Target Audience
Your target audience will greatly affect how you market your product(s) and business. If your marketing sounds like it’s geared more toward the stereotypical pot user, but you’re really trying to attract the average businessperson or the classic suburban parents, then it will be far less effective than it could be. Instead of talking about the high you can get from the TCH in marijuana, you should be talking about the CBD benefits. Instead of using slang and flashy images, you should be using the vocabulary of a businessperson with clean, professional photos.
The goal is to appeal to your target audience on an emotional level. To do that, your marketing efforts should be something they know, understand, and can relate to.
Use Negative Keywords
When it comes to marketing, a lot of businesses focus on keywords and doing their best to rank for those. Keywords and phrases such as “CBD for pain relief,” “best CBD for pain relief,” “CO2 extracted,” “best CBD oil,” “pure cannabis concentrates,” and so on are all good to use in your marketing if you want to rank for them. But businesses should also focus on ensuring they don’t rank for certain keywords and phrases and don’t show up in certain searches. Why does that matter?
Negative keywords can be just as useful as keywords in helping you reach your target audience and get more promising clicks and leads. If you are showing up in searches done by people who aren’t interested in your product line, you’ll end up wasting time and money on those clicks and those visits that don’t result in any sort of positive action, let alone a purchase.
Partner Up with Influencers
Influencers can have a huge impact on marketing since their followers trust them and their recommendations and since they can help you reach a wider audience than you might otherwise be able to on your own. Partnering with influencers in the marijuana space can help you increase the effectiveness of your marketing significantly since you’ll be able to build up trust and rapport with their followers and, in turn, can gain many new followers and customers yourself.
Learn All of the Rules and Restrictions of the Platforms You’ll Use
Another challenge that can affect your online marketing are the rules and restrictions that certain platforms place when it comes to advertising marijuana and related products. For example, Google and Facebook have had some pretty heavy restrictions in place, making it virtually impossible to effectively advertise on the platforms. And, although their policies have changed, it can still be difficult to use them effectively. Going into an advertising campaign knowing all of the rules and restrictions of the platforms you intend to use beforehand will help you to craft campaigns around those restrictions, saving time and money. You won’t have to go back and spend painstaking hours making changes to meet the criteria set by the platform.
Don’t Just Promote
Advertising is all about promoting your business, but marketing is about more than that. When you market, you shouldn’t only be posting about your latest sale or your products hoping to get purchases. You should be educating your clientele, interacting with them and getting to know them, answering questions, providing suggestions, and more. If all you do is promote what you’re selling, you’ll wear your customers and potential customers out, and could end up losing otherwise loyal clients.
What marketing practices have you found to be most effective for your cannabis company? How is your brand combating negative stereotypes? Share your insights in the comments.
