Founder and CEO of MATTIO Communications.
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Before statewide shutdowns and social distancing upended everyday life, cannabis companies traditionally relied on in-person events to connect with new customers and clients. Due to stringent marketing and communications regulations, businesses often leaned on brand activations and conferences to unveil new product lines and engage with new audiences. With in-person events and meetings on pause for the foreseeable future, many companies throughout the industry are actively seeking out more effective ways to connect with customers and maximize their marketing budgets.
Over the past few months, a number of my clients have asked me how they should reallocate their limited time and resources to adapt to this uncertain marketing landscape. While I cannot say for certain if and when we will ever return to business as usual, there are a number of digital solutions in the space that can be better utilized by brands, ancillary companies and operators alike. As companies develop their marketing strategies and budgets for next year, here are three services they should consider in order to stay competitive in this constantly evolving environment.
Fortify Your Online Presence Through SEO
One of the fundamentals of effective marketing is having strong search engine optimization (SEO). Marketing studies have shown that 94% of users click on a first-page result, and less than 6% move on to the second page, which means that turning up on the first page of a Google search is paramount to driving brand awareness and customer engagement.
This is especially important in legal cannabis, where new brands and services are constantly being introduced into the space. Making the consumer education and brand discovery experience as convenient as possible is critical in cannabis considering how many consumers are still unfamiliar with the properties and applications of the plant.
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Under current federal regulations, cannabis companies have limited opportunities to market their business through paid search or social platforms. Because of these restrictions, cannabis companies must develop a strong organic presence to establish themselves as online leaders in an increasingly saturated market. More importantly, SEO wars between competing companies can be highly cutthroat — search engine algorithms are constantly changing, and new content is published online daily. Many companies buy up competitors’ keywords and drive traffic to their own sites.
Considering the limited number of marketing avenues available to cannabis businesses, SEO needs to be an ongoing effort that is regularly refined and monitored. By investing time and resources into SEO, businesses can proactively grow their online presence and authority and gain an upper hand against new players that are also vying for a spot on search engine results pages.
Hypertarget Consumers With Programmatic Marketing
Although popular paid social platforms including Facebook, Google and Instagram are currently off-limits to cannabis businesses, many advertisers in the space are increasingly turning to other programmatic marketing platforms to publicize their products and services. Programmatic is beneficial for cannabis companies because it allows them to seamlessly bid for ad space with multiple publishers at once and hypertarget their messaging to specific consumer demographics.
Programmatic marketing can be a cost-effective investment for consumer brands that are seeking out more precise ways to reach their target audiences. The automated process not only saves time for advertisers, but also allows brands to segment their ads by age, income level, geographic location and even whether someone has visited a dispensary. This targeted approach guarantees that ads will only be delivered to people who have a high likelihood of engaging with cannabis brands and that they are in a city where the products are available for purchase.
Considering how it was forecast that 65% of digital marketing spending last year was dedicated to programmatic marketing, cannabis companies can take this opportunity to expand their presence in the digital marketing ecosystem.
Build Organic Growth Via Influencer Marketing
While brand building and consumer engagement can be particularly challenging on social media, there are still compliant ways to circumvent Big Tech’s ban on cannabis advertising. Influencer marketing has exploded in popularity among mainstream companies in the past five years, and a number of cannabis brands are diving headfirst into the process and experiencing remarkable returns.
In many ways, influencer marketing aligns seamlessly with cannabis consumer culture. Brand discovery and education are still predominantly driven by word-of-mouth marketing, and with so many products on the market, consumers often turn to trusted individuals who are knowledgeable about the industry for recommendations. Legal cannabis also contains a broad range of customer demographics from the “canna-curious” to the “canna-connoisseur,” meaning brands can easily tailor their campaigns to a particular influencer’s lifestyle or overall follower profile.
Similar to programmatic marketing, influencer marketing has a significantly higher ROI than traditional marketing campaigns such as billboards or print ads. Brands can spend a fraction of their budgets on influencer marketing and know their exact reach and sales conversion. Influencer marketing’s ability to create organic brand growth and consumer engagement also increases the likelihood of gaining repeat customers. Through influencer marketing, companies can amplify word-of-mouth marketing and leverage local tastemakers in areas where expanding market share would otherwise be nearly impossible.
As legal cannabis becomes increasingly accepted by mainstream audiences, companies should be open to adopting more digital and mainstream marketing strategies to establish the industry as a truly professionalized sector in the business community. While the lack of in-person events has created significant disruptions, many businesses are embracing these abrupt restrictions and finding effective inroads to reach new consumers. Staying nimble is as important as ever in this new retail landscape, and this year may ultimately emerge as a catalyst for industrywide modernization.
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Author: Rosie Mattio, Forbes Councils Member
