Cannabis Marketing – How to do It Properly

What is CBD?

CBD is short for cannabidiol which is a compound that is extracted from hemp plants. CBD must contain less than 0.3% THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol) to be sold legally. THC is the compound responsible for the intoxicating effect that marijuana is known to cause.

The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) is still researching the effects of using CBD. Due to this, there are still plenty of restrictions, particularly when marketing CBD products. We will look at some of these restrictions and discuss techniques that can be used to overcome these and build your brand through cannabis marketing strategies.

What are the Marketing Restrictions for CBD?

Canna-businesses face many challenges when it comes to marketing their CBD. We will discuss some of the main challenges for cannabis marketing today.

Lack of Education

CBD products may be rejected by an unaware audience. People may not know the benefits that CBD has to offer or may question its legitimacy since the use of cannabis in the past was associated with delinquent behavior. Some people don’t believe in “natural” medications. As a canna-business owner, it is important to educate people about the benefits of CBD.

An Oversaturated Market

When a gap in the market as big as this one opens up, it will be plagued by entrepreneurs. The cannabis market has grown exponentially and many businesses have jumped on the bandwagon. This means that the cannabis market is crowded so it is important to analyze your competition and try to stay on top of marketing techniques.

Brand Confusion

There are so many forms of CBD, from tinctures to products for pets. This makes it difficult for canna-businesses to find their niche. Essentially, they need to figure out which part of the CBD market to focus on when it comes to cannabis marketing purposes. Customers need to have confidence in your brand so you need to have confidence in it.

Confusing Laws

The laws surrounding the sale of CBD are tricky because they are different in different states and countries. This means that marketing cannabis is complicated because these laws also govern marketing laws. Where one country may allow edible, for example, another country may not.

How to Market your Cannabis Brand Effectively

It is difficult to start building a brand, but once you have an idea of what you want your business to look like, it becomes easier. We will discuss some of the cannabis marketing tips here to help you brand your canna-business well.

Create your Brand

You need to decide what your niche market will be – meaning which cannabis products you will focus on. Once you establish that you need to discover what makes your brand unique so that it stands out compared to your competition. Here are some tips to create a solid brand.

• Know who your target audience is
• Suss out your competitors and analyze what they are doing
• Focus on your mission statement for your canna-business
• Make sure your employees implement your brand
• Focus on educating your target market about CBD

Focus on Building an Online Presence

Social media is one of the main tools used by online businesses to market their products and services. As we mentioned earlier, cannabis marketing on social media is tricky because most platforms don’t allow it. There are ways around this, however. In today’s society, having an online presence for your business to succeed is a must. Here are two main ways that you can build your online presence.

1. Influencer marketing: You can either pay or offer incentives to online personalities with many followers to market your brand on their social media. You need to choose people who are somehow related to your cannabis brand.
2. Affiliate marketing: This is where you use people with established canna-businesses. You pay them to advertise your brand through affiliate links. It works by incentivizing affiliate marketers each time you get a customer from their efforts.

CBD Email Marketing

Email marketing is still an effective method to include in your cannabis marketing plan. Cannabis email marketing is when you send an email about anything that is not related to direct responses or customer queries. Here are some tips for effective email marketing.

1. Mobile optimization: Emails need to be mobile friendly because most users now open their emails on their mobile devices.
2. Use social media: include click-through-ads on your social media platforms.
3. Use automation: Use platforms like EngageBay and Act-On to convert leads into customers and highlight existing customers.
4. Personalization: This will improve customer engagement when you create emails that are relevant to your brand and your customer.
5. Include CTAs: Using call-to-action can increase customer engagement. Try to include at least one in each email. These are buttons or links that encourage users to look at or buy goods or services from your canna-business.

Focus on your Content

Your content is what communicates your brand to your target audience so it is an important part of cannabis marketing. When all your efforts to bring people to your website materialize, your content needs to grip their attention. There are some things you can focus on. We will discuss these here:

• Keep it real: Content that is authentic and stands out is what’s going to catch their attention over your competitors.
• Use the right language: Users want easy to read language that is related to your brand.
• Keep it simple: Focus on writing short and simple sentences and make sure it is easy to understand.
• Mix it up: Play with words instead of writing the same old stuff.
• Multimedia is key: Use different content from videos to graphs. People are more likely to read an article with some sort of visual stimulation.

The Bottom Line

It is obvious that cannabis marketing is different from the marketing strategies that other businesses use. It is exciting, however, that canna-businesses do have many options that have been tried and tested by others and have worked. We hope this article has given you some ideas on how to market your cannabis website or business. Remember that you can reach out to a CBD marketing company if you find that you are struggling or if you have just started and want some guidance on implementing some of these strategies.