Cannabis Marketing Tips
Fueled by the legalization of cannabis across the globe, the market is quickly sprouting, bringing new entrepreneurs and seasoned business professionals to invest in the cannabis space. However, with fast growth and very little structure in how legal cannabis should be marketed, it feels like the industry is building the plane while flying it.
FIVE MARKETING TIPS FOR CANNABIS
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1. Social Media Rules Do Apply: Only recently, Facebook has relaxed its complete ban on marketing cannabis. Although it wasn't listed before, advertising cannabis product of any kind was a violation of Facebook Advertising Policies.
According to Digiday," Advertisers are allowed to run ads for topical hemp across Facebook. Advertisers can run ads that direct to landing pages that feature ingestible hemp and topical CBD. However, the ads cannot specifically feature those products. Facebook is still prohibiting ads for ingestible CBD, including ads that direct to landing pages with those products."
2. Branding: Think Beyond a Logo: A brand is more than a logo. It's something a customer feels when they click through to your website, spot your product in an aisle, or interact with your company during live events. Think of Consumer Packaged Good (CPG) brands and how they are more about selling a lifestyle as opposed to just selling the product.
Sunday Brunch Agency is focused on building brands, through our Discovery Workshop, that connects with audiences on an emotional level and drives purchasing decisions.
3. Go to Market Strategies: We design, develop and execute go-to-market strategies for success using three key disciplines: 1) define your geographical targets; 2) identify your distribution channels, and 3) align your brand messaging with the marketing channels we know are most successful for your product.
4. Pitch to the Right Pubs.: Focus on specific cannabis media outlets PLUS calculated mainstream media. However, as always with PR... ensure it's newsworthy with a captivating pitch angle. Every aspect of our outreach is personal, compelling, aligns with the news cycle, and works in complement with the overall marketing plan.
5. Email Marketing: Email marketing only works for marketing your cannabis business, when the email marketing software provider allows companies to send messages to their subscribers. Because cannabis is still illegal at the federal level, most email marketing providers, such as MailChimp, shut down cannabis-related businesses. Cannabis companies are needing to build their own email distribution systems to avoid getting blacklisted.