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Cannabis marketing is a hot topic right now, and it’s only going to grow in importance over the next few years.
Dispensaries are scrambling for cannabis marketing ideas that will help them stand out from their competitors – but how do you know which strategies will pay off in 2021?
We’ve put together 10 of the most effective techniques so you can get ahead of the competition.
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing is the process of using digital technologies to reach your customers and deliver a personalized message that will resonate with them.
Dispensaries are using digital marketing to improve their SEO, social media presence, and more, with the intent of gaining visibility online and building their brands.
Why Dispensary Marketing is Important
Marketing your dispensary online will help you grow in a competitive marketplace. Dispensaries that invest time into the right cannabis marketing strategies can attract new customers while also improving customer satisfaction with their experience.
Putting together a strong marketing plan for dispensary marketing, especially in 2021, is crucial.
With more and more customers now making purchases online, not having a solid marketing strategy in place can result in missed revenue opportunities.
1.) A Dynamite Web Presence
One of the top dispensary marketing strategies is creating a stellar website.
Your website is your greatest salesperson. It can sell a thousand people at once and can sell 24/7, 365 days a year, so investing the time, money, and effort into a thoroughly user-friendly, desktop & mobile responsive website can increase online sales drastically.
This should be more than just an online version of what’s in your physical shop’s windows; it needs to have all the relevant information about products, hours, and contact info for customers.
You can also add exciting articles or blog posts that will engage people who visit the site.
Your professional web design shouldn’t end at your homepage – you need high-quality product images and high-quality product pages. When people are purchasing products online, the quality of your image is an essential piece they have to determine if your product is high quality.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what YOU think of your website; it’s what the customers think of the website!
2.) Strong On-Site & Off-Site SEO
One thing you can’t necessarily control is a customer purchasing from you. However, the one thing you can fully control is showing up and being visible online when the customer searches for your products.
You can do this by creating a good dispensary marketing on-page & off-page SEO strategy to ensure your business is at the top of any Google search.
It’s not enough to have your website up and running – you need it optimized so that when someone types in specific terms into Google related to your products or business, you will show up on the first page.
A well-built site with strategically placed keywords will help get more traffic from organic searches (results without paying for advertising), which creates more organic site traffic and more online overall sales.
The most important thing to keep in mind when it comes to dispensary marketing SEO is that it does take time to start ranking for those top-ranking keywords. However, once you rank on page one for those keywords, it will pay back BIG time.
Answer Customer Questions Through Blogging
Today, your customers are looking for answers to their cannabis questions online. You can answer those customer questions through blogging on your website and having these blogs linked within all of the other social channels you use as well.
If people have a question about something related to your dispensary, they’ll know exactly where to go!
3.) Social Media
Social marketing is not necessarily a new form of digital dispensary marketing, but when it comes to dispensary marketing, it’s still a pretty fresh new market to target.
Somewhat like SEO, you need to have a strategy in place for being visible on social media and having content that people want to share with their friends.
Your goal should be an engaged following who will talk about your cannabis business from time to time online, so when they post pictures or videos talking about what they’re smoking today, there’s a good chance it’ll include one of your products!
If you don’t know where to start, try posting photos regularly (daily if possible) with some related captions; mention anything about cannabis, whether it’s local news stories involving marijuana reform legislation, recent state-level legalization updates, current events happening at dispensaries around the country, etc.
Facebook is a great social media platform for dispensary marketing, CBD marketing, etc., but a few others people tend to overlook are YouTube, Snapchat & Instagram.
4.) Social Influencers/Affiliates
One way to grow your social media following is by partnering up with an influencer or affiliate.
Social media influencers and affiliates have a large following on their respective platforms (Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, etc.) to market/promote specific brands for complimentary products or commission.
This can be done in many ways: promoting product reviews on Instagram stories; posting sponsored content about the brand as well as linking back to the company website when they post a picture of themselves using it; posting links from time to time under posts that mention cannabis products, so people see them more easily without having to search too hard.
When looking for social media influencers, one thing is to find people who focus specifically on the cannabis industry and have built up a large following based on cannabis.
5.) Customer Loyalty/Reward Programs
Social media can also be a great place to post about customer loyalty and rewards programs.
This is an excellent digital marketing idea for any business in the cannabis industry because one way you always want your customers returning is by making them feel like they’re getting rewarded.
Offering discounts on repeat purchases or sending out coupons every so often (especially around holidays) will help make those loyal customers happy that are coming back regularly – which results in more sales!
If you have a dispensary with multiple locations, this might not apply, but if you don’t, these programs still work well as long as people know where all your stores are located so they can come to visit when they get their reward card filled up.
The goal should be to create that sense of reward for customers loyal to your brand and company to keep them coming back.
6.) Create & Optimize A Google My Business Account
Creating and optimizing a Google My Business account nowadays is an absolute must-have in the cannabis industry.
One of the reasons this helps so much with search engine optimization (which we discussed earlier) is that by verifying your business’s physical address, hours of operation, providing accurate contact information as well as having reviews from customers, you’ll create a better overall online presence on these popular search engines like Google Maps and Yelp!
This also increases customer trust, which in turn means they’re more inclined to make purchases since it feels like there are fewer risks involved when using a verified site rather than one that hasn’t been reviewed yet or where everything seems too good to be true.
7.) Get More Online Positive Reviews
Think about this; when was the last time you bought a product or service online without reading or looking at reviews?
This is an excellent way to build up your online presence because people are more likely when seeing all these other positive reviews (which you’ll have from asking) rather than just scrolling through someone’s profile and not knowing if what they’re saying matches with or without reading their review.
They may also be willing to provide links back to your website, share it on social media, etc., which will help increase traffic and sales!
The next time someone walks out of the door, make sure you give them one last reminder about how we appreciate feedback so much and would love any opportunity to leave another review to take advantage of our customer loyalty rewards.
8.) Word Of Mouth Referral Campaigns
Another way of building up that customer loyalty is by initiating word-of-mouth referral campaigns.
This takes time to build as it’s not something you can do overnight, and most people won’t be willing to put in the effort without feeling like they’re being rewarded or getting something back for what they’re doing.
Referral programs are a great idea because this builds trust between the brand and their customers, helping them feel more confident about purchasing from these types of companies with lower risks, leading to better sales!
When trying out your first few referral campaigns, a good thing to remember is if someone has referred multiple times, then don’t forget to make sure there’s some reward waiting on both parties, so it feels fair & worthwhile!
9.) Invest In Video Marketing
Video marketing is a great way to build up customer loyalty and create that sense of reward for those loyal customers.
This type of content can be shared on social media, channels like YouTube, or even through email, which gives people more opportunities than just seeing your company as the one who created what they received because it’s been given away by someone else!
The best thing about this strategy is if you’re not comfortable with video yourself, there are always freelancers available online that could help create videos for you in exchange for some free samples from time to time.
10.) SMS Promotions
One of the last things to mention is SMS promotions. This can be done in several ways, but most often by promoting your company’s products or services through sending texts and setting up time periods for these messages to come out and who they should target (primarily customers).
This way, you’ll build that sense of trust with those loyal customers because it feels like they’re getting exclusive deals that are not available to everyone else while also helping them remember what your business had offered before, even if it was just once!
SMS promotions also have a higher response rate because people open their phones multiple times a day, so you know they see your promotion.
Looking For Additional Dispensary Marketing Help?
If you have made it this far and read through all 10 Cannabis Marketing Strategies listed above, we truly hope we have given you some solid ideas to increase your overall marketing for 2021.
However, if you read through these 10 Strategies and feel a bit overwhelmed, don’t worry; we are here to help!
We offer professional, experienced, managed services based explicitly around cannabis and CBD-based companies.
We also offer complete website design, strong SEO content creation, branding/logo design, and many other cannabis-related services.
If you’re interested in exploring any of these options, please visit us online and speak with one of our specialists today!
