Advertising, SEO

Cannabis is no longer the countercultural staple it used to be. With legalization sweeping the nation and statistics saying that nearly 1/5th of all Americans have used cannabis, this substance is becoming an essential part of our everyday lives. 

If you run a cannabis company, you might be wondering how to use cannabis marketing ideas to boost your business. The legal cannabis business is new, so there aren’t many tried and true marketing plans out there.

Keep reading, and we’ll give you the top cannabis marketing tips to succeed in the market today.

Get Everything Online

First things first, you need to make sure you’re making use of online marketing. 

Attention simply just doesn’t go out into the “real world” anymore. You can buy the biggest billboard in the world. People won’t notice it because their attention is all on their phones. 

Digital marketing can be as complicated as a pay-per-click plan or as simple as making posts on social media. No matter what your budget is, you can promote yourself through the world of online marketing.

Consider Using SEO

SEO, or search engine optimization, is a little marketing technique you’ve probably never heard about. But to make it big in the digital age, you’ll have to understand SEO tactics.

SEO is all about optimizing your page to appear high on search engine results. Plenty of businesses are buried just because people don’t want to scroll down a page. Less than one percent of all users make it to the second page of a search engine result. 

If you want to stand out, you have to be one of the top results. 

The key to SEO is “keywords.” These are the specific phrases that people use when searching for a particular good or service. Search engines look at specifics, not generals, so you’re far more likely to succeed if you can figure out exactly how your potential customers are searching for your products.

There are many tactics to improve SEO, but the most common is to produce blog content that repeatedly embeds specific keywords into the content to boost search engine results. However, don’t use too many; Google calls this process “keyword-stuffing” and will punish your ranking for this.

Seek out Display Advertising

It’s hard to get the reach and impressions you deserve when marketing cannabis on Facebook or Instagram isn’t possible due to community guidelines. Cannabis companies face marketing challenges and adversity online. But there are solutions specifically tailored to advertising Cannabis or THC products online. 

One of these solutions is Programmatic Display Advertising. This solution allows us to run ads for our cannabis clients to those with interests in all things THC! We can target those with search intent to prospect new customers or run retargeting ads to those who have already visited your site to encourage them to come back and check out, often times with a click-enticing offer.

Set up Email Automation

Your foundation for a well operating THC company selling online should be strong email marketing and email automation practices. Klaviyo is our favorite ecommerce email marketing platform and bonus points: they whitelisted cannabis to run on their platform (as long as you’re not making outlandish medical claims of course).
Through establishing proper flows like a welcome sequence, abandoned cart flow and customer winback sequences, as well as ongoing timely email campaigns you can expect 20-30% of your revenue to come from this channel. 

Brand You or Your Company

Running a company doesn’t mean running a brand. A brand has a specific identity; a company is made into an identity. 

Making yourself into a brand is key to spreading your business. You’re letting your customers advertise for you by branding your business correctly. 

Just take a look at the perfect example of branding apple. Their sleek designs align with their message of simplicity, progress, and efficiency. In their stores, employees wear t-shirts and are instructed to speak to customers casually. 

The result of this is that every apple product is immediately identifiable. It relates to a way of living. As soon as someone sees one of these products, they’re reminded of Apple. 

You can create a great brand by making advertisements that don’t just focus on the bottom line but are memorable, quotable, and feature unique visuals. You can even put these visuals on shirts, creating walking advertisements. 

Know Your Customers Well

Cannabis is so popular now that you can’t rely on one type of person to populate your business. 

Many cannabis businesses focus on a sort of “stoner” image. This can work if your customers are young, countercultural figures. However, it’s not the only game in town. 

More and more older people are using cannabis to aid symptoms of certain health conditions. This means a discomfort-relieving, family-friendly image is possible for new cannabis companies. 

You’re engaging in niche marketing when you find out exactly who your customers are and market to them. In the 21st century, this is a crucial tactic. People are tired of big, general advertisements aimed at everyone; they want someone to appeal to them. 

Take the time to get to know your regular customers by name. If you can identify them and provide them with specialized services, they’re more likely to recommend their friends. 

Don’t Make Claims Without Evidence

While cannabis is legal in many states, it’s not legal everywhere. It’s also a drug. We don’t mean this in a moral way; it’s a medical product, just like Nyquil or Advil; drugs have certain restrictions placed on them. 

You have to make sure that you don’t make any claims that cannabis can treat things that it hasn’t been proven to treat. Anecdotal evidence is not enough, and any story, book, or documentary about cannabis “curing cancer” should not be followed; you need to go by scientific studies. 

Generally, cannabis hasn’t been found to cure anything. However, it can treat the symptoms caused by plenty of problems. When it comes to conditions like arthritis or anxiety (where the symptoms cause medical issues), it’s highly effective.

Make sure you don’t claim that cannabis treats “pain”; you’ll enter some murky legal territory. Instead, suggest that it “alleviates discomfort.”

While claiming certain things like this will undoubtedly increase attention, it’s not worth it for the legal ramifications. 

Marketing for Your Cannabis Company

As you can see, marketing for the world of cannabis obeys many of the same principles as marketing for the rest of the business world. The big exception is that there are specific claims you can’t make for cannabis.

For more information on marketing, whether for a cannabis company or otherwise, contact us today.