As a cannabis marketing agency we do a lot of marketing consulting. We often find ourselves offering advice to cannabis industry business owners and brands who all want to increase their dispensary’s sales, customers, and brand awareness. We’ve noticed that many of these clients are facing the same challenges. Most of the time, these cannabis brands and businesses have a firm desire to execute successful marketing campaigns and efforts but simply can’t find the time, skill, or the proper resources to self-promote themselves. Here are 5 reasons that we recommend hiring an agency overdoing your marketing yourself.
1. Hiring externally brings fresh perspectives and inspiration to your cannabis brand
When it comes to marketing, a huge advantage is having a fresh perspective. A marketing team can help breathe life into your current dispensary marketing efforts by helping you to identify new opportunities or make your current cannabis marketing campaigns stronger. Think about your social media presence for example. Many cannabis companies want to expand their social reach through Facebook and Instagram, and a marketing agency can enhance your brand to help you find a better approach. A good cannabis marketing agency will help you develop your brand’s voice and keep it fresh, exciting and consistent which keeps your audience engaged and perceiving your brand in a positive way.
One of the best examples that comes to mind is Old Spice. Wiedan + Kennedy, a marketing agency, helped Old Spice create a fresh identity for the old, established brand by pairing clever ads with social media. Marc Shillum, principal at Method, Inc. a consulting agency for brand designs said “Old Spice didn’t change its logo, it changed the experience,”
2. A cannabis marketing agency is quick, efficient and consistent
If you’re just getting started in the cannabis industry, you can expect to apply many different personas to get your dispensary or other cannabis brand off the ground. That usually means that sometimes you have to step out of your comfort zone in places like branding and digital marketing. If you don’t have much time during the day, it’s imperative that your approach doesn’t suffer from your inexperience or your lack of time. Hiring a cannabis marketing agency will help you avoid that issue altogether, and produce some really great work.
3. An agency is cheaper than in-house marketing
If you’re thinking about hiring and maintaining a team of your own in-house marketers, take cost into consideration. You will need to pay the salaries and offer benefits for several people, like a graphic designer, a content writer, a social media manager and a photographer at the very minimum. If you’re a small dispensary or you’re just getting started, this expense can simply be too much.
An agency, however, is very cost effective. Along with providing the knowledge, experience, and skill sets offered by a cannabis marketing agency, it’s still more affordable than hiring a full-time marketing team. As an example, after hiring a marketing manager, a graphic designer, a content writer, a social media manager, and a photographer, the total cost can reach up to $300K a year, and that doesn’t even include employee benefits! Sure, the work is getting done either way. Just look at the lifetime cost versus the value of your marketing efforts, and the answer is simple. A cannabis marketing agency is the way to go.
4. A cannabis marketing agency has more experience with a larger variety of marketing tactics
Many freelancers specialize in one or two major marketing skills, which is why it doesn’t really make sense to piece your team together from a handful of people with individual talents when you can hire an experienced cannabis marketing agency. One advantage is the professional experience you get with an agency. A good cannabis marketing agency will be able to offer you specific knowledge in a wide range of markets in the cannabis industry. A good agency can also offer experience with facing a larger range of challenges and scenarios that you or your individual marketers may have never encountered. You need knowledgeable staff with years of experience marketing the cannabis industry at your side if you want to see more immediate results.
5. An agency can offer broader skill sets
Many dispensaries tend to hire in-house employees to do a specific job but end up using them for marketing even though they are not qualified. It’s difficult to even find suitable employees with branding and marketing skills like graphic design or writing content for SEO that are willing to do the extra work. If you hire a cannabis marketing agency, you can rest assured that you will not only have the necessary tools you need to succeed at your disposal, but also a suite of services your team may not be equipped to manage at your fingertips.
For example, a cannabis marketing agency can help you with just about all things marketing, including rebranding your company, creating a social strategy to boost SEO, or developing better print campaigns. With an agency at your side, you can choose to utilize one service or all of them, whereas your in-house team can limit you on what’s possible to achieve.
Your One-Stop Marketing Shop for All Things Cannabis
One of our favorite quotes on the subject comes from the American business writer Jay Conrad Levinson, who said, “ Marketing is not an event, but a process: It has a beginning, a middle, but never an end, for it is a process. You improve it, perfect it, change it, even pause it. But you never stop it completely.”
If you’re still getting started and aren’t sure which way to take your company, the cannabis marketing professionals at Team MaryJane help our cannabis clients all over the country develop strong, effective content marketing strategies and optimize all aspects of their marketing, including fine-tuning content, providing input on social media campaigns, creating content, and even helping you build your brand from the ground up. As one of the top cannabis marketing agencies in Denver, we know we’ve got the tools to help you achieve all of your objectives. Get in touch with us today for a FREE no-risk consultation, or check out our Dispensary in a Box program, which is our most affordable (and most valuable!) full-service marketing package.