There is a great deal of excitement centred around cannabis these days, relating not just to its legalization and use, but also to the tremendous business opportunities that it presents. Dispensaries and stores are popping up like weeds, as everyone jumps in to get their share of the pie.
With that much competition, a business in any industry would find itself in need of excellent marketing in order to stand out from the crowd, but with cannabis, there is the additional need of abiding by regulations and dealing with restrictions that other industries simply do not face. Making use of a marketing agency is that much more important when dealing with cannabis.
Even with cannabis becoming legal, there is some opposition to it, and enduring negative feelings against its use. As a result, those in the industry are forced to make use of a greater degree of marketing creativity.
Marketing cannabis with so many restrictions can seem an almost Herculean task, but we will be able to face those restrictions and deal with them using a healthy mix of experience and knowledge. For now, let’s take a look at 5 reasons why you should be making use of an experienced cannabis marketing agency to oversee and manage your digital marketing strategy.
What a Marketing Agency Can Offer You
Getting Everyone on the Same Page
Many new businesses will not have their own dedicated, in-house marketing teams. By working with an experienced marketing team, you will be able to draw upon years of experience while saving yourself time and effort in locating and training staff. Outsourcing your marketing will give you access to a greater pool of experienced individuals, in a more cost-effective manner.
Even if you do have a team in place already, however, they may be lacking the necessary background in dealing with cannabis, and this is an area where experience will make a significant difference. A team with experience in cannabis will be able to work directly with your team, ensuring that everyone is moving toward the same goal, and providing your team with valuable insight into dealing with the cannabis market and the restrictions it faces.
There are a number of ways that your combined team can work together to meet your goals, working together on strategy for cannabis marketing, keyword research to determine popular and trending topics, creating content for social media marketing, putting together paid media campaigns, and managing social media profiles and interactions.
Dealing with an experienced cannabis marketer will result in quicker and more efficient results by making use of the knowledge of those who are already familiar with the assorted challenges related to the cannabis market.
Understanding the Role of Experience in Cannabis Marketing
Experience with the industry means that a cannabis marketing agency will be ready to hit the ground running, able to deal with any cannabis-related products that you may be dealing with. They will be in a better position to truly understand your products and will have useful insight into your target audience. They will therefore be in an excellent position to put together an effective strategy for your cannabis marketing.
A marketing agency with enough creativity and know-how may, for example, be able to effectively advertise in places such as Facebook, where you might otherwise find advertising all but impossible, increasing your reach and exposure with associated increases in revenue.
As mentioned above, you may already have an in-house team, and they may have proven perfectly capable in the past. They may be very knowledgeable about your product and anxious to spread the word, but maybe they lack experience with SEO, social marketing, or any of the other types of advertising that you could be making use of.
Each of the different manners in which you could be reaching out to your audience has its own peculiarities, and they should really be handled by professionals who understand the ins and outs of that type of marketing. Added to that, the additional limitations imposed by having cannabis as a product make it quite difficult to find those who have the knowledge and experience necessary to effectively market cannabis.
When you engage a cannabis marketing agency, you know that you have found the right people for the job. One single agency can provide you with multiple experts on each of the different aspects of your marketing campaign, saving you the time, effort, and expense of trying to put together a team on your own. Further, you will only pay for the services you need, so that you needn’t pay for someone’s expertise in something that is not relevant to your needs.
Whatever your focus, and whatever marketing method you choose to employ, by hiring a professional cannabis marketing agency, you will have access to professionals that know what will work, what will not work, and what will provide the results that you are seeking.
Focus on Social Media
Social Skills
While the cannabis community is certainly not new, the way it is emerging in the online marketplace is. To be successful, a cannabis marketing agency will not only need to be knowledgeable about the constantly evolving world of SEO and digital marketing, but also the cannabis community.
The agency that you employ should be staying current with all of the latest developments related to cannabis, as well as any events transpiring in relation to the legal side of things. Of course, by being active and involved in the cannabis community, there will be ample opportunity to promote your business and reach an ever-wider audience.
The power of networking and building relationships should not be overlooked. By engaging others with a prominent position in the cannabis community, your business will naturally grow more familiar to others, establishing a connection with potential customers and building a greater sense of credibility that can serve you well. You will also become known to journalists who cover events related to the industry, as well as social media influencers who would be able to extend your reach even further by making you known to their followers.
What to Look for in a Marketing Agency
Getting the Full Package
To meet both present and future needs, you are best served by having a marketing agency that can handle all your projects. That means they should be able to take care of ad creation, generating leads, SEO and the optimization of your site, and much more.
The advantage of hiring an agency is in having a group of experts at your disposal. By making sure that the agency you engage has a range of experts that offer a diverse set of skills and strengths, you won’t ever have to look anywhere else for assistance.
Having one agency that can do it all also ensures continuity across campaigns, with a singular overarching strategy to unite everything.
A Suitable Level of Experience
As discussed above, experience is critical, especially when it comes to cannabis. You want an agency that understands regulation issues, the various restrictions to advertising and how to work around them, the target audience, and more. You want your marketing agency to be able to inform you about all the latest developments regarding cannabis marketing, not the reverse.
Open, Easy, and Effective Communication
A professional agency should remain in contact with you throughout your campaign. They should be able to give you regular metrics covering all aspects of your campaign, and they should also be quick to contact you whenever there is a potential issue that could impact your business. You should similarly be able to reach them at any time with your concerns, questions, and observations.
Aligned Goals
You should take a moment to be sure that you and your cannabis marketing agency are on the same page and working toward the same goals. This is a function of communication as well, but it is also important that you be clear about your expectations, your goals, and what you are going to do to meet them.
Some questions you may want to consider:
- Do you have your budget mapped out for each different channel?
- How much time can be devoted to a specific, targeted campaign?
- Are you looking for new customers through cannabis lead generation?
- Are you looking to build the reputation of your company as industry thought leaders?
By being properly in alignment with the marketing agency, you will be able to play to your strengths while working around your weaknesses.
