There are new ways to strategize your marketing springing up each and every day in the cannabis industry. Some fads will come and go, but several strategies are still standing the test of time due to their effectiveness. If you’re looking to get started with a new cannabis marketing strategy, you should start by asking yourself a few questions about the new strategy you’re interested in trying. Look at your competitors. Which of their strategies are producing results? Are they tangible methods that will be viable for years to come? Are these strategies aligned with your company’s goals? What about metrics? Can the strategy help you attract customers?
Below, we’ve outlined some of the best strategies we use with our clients. When implemented in the right way, these strategies will help existing businesses grow, and new businesses build their online presence. Diving right in, strategy number one is all about content.
Content Creation is at the Center of Your Strategy
We’ve said it before and we will definitely say it again: Content is King.
Providing quality content is easily the best way to hold your position in the cannabis industry. It helps you interact with your customers, earn more traffic to your website, earn better leads, and boost SEO, but the best part is that content will help you build a name and reputation for yourself as a reputable company.
Your content has to be perfect, though. You can’t expect to write a piece of content based on someone else’s content (that was possibly based on someone else’s content) and hope people will find it useful or interesting. Your content has to be content that ONLY your company can provide. Don’t get discouraged by the big cannabis news sites putting out all the informational content. Yours can be just as fresh, different, and unique with a little strategizing.
When people find your website and see that your content is fresh and cutting-edge, they’ll be more likely to choose to work with you, recommend you to their friends, share your content, and sing your praises online.
The Magic of Video
There are a ton of good reasons to utilize videos in your marketing anyway, but here are some of our favorites:
- Brands that use videos are immediately more distinguishable from their competitors
- 59% of executives prefer watching videos to reading walls of text
- The use of videos (or even GIF images) in email bodies can bring on a 200%-300% increase in click-through rates
- About 80% of internet users can remember marketing content they absorbed via video that they viewed in the last 30 days.
- Videos let you express your brand in a more human way because you can convey body language, personality, and tone of voice, great for information as well as team member interviews.
- Videos are the best option for displaying products and their features.
- Videos are the best option for how-tos and product tutorials.
- Videos are easier to share than text and some images, and they tend to make their way around social media faster than the same content in a different format.
Even with the power of video, your cannabis brand or dispensary will still need a lot of additional web content to ensure that their websites are optimized and able to be found. Videos are excellent supplements though, and they’ll help make your website stronger.
Make Use of Mini-Sites
A minisite is a website that is separate from your brand’s main website. Essentially, a minisite allows you to provide information about specific products or services that you want to promote. It’s typically full of your best content, like infographics, videos, visuals, statistics, and other info not contained to your main website.
Most cannabis brands will utilize a minisite when they want to engage in aggressive direct marketing approaches for attracting and capturing leads. Think of these minisites kinda like landing pages where you only include the most relevant information for search engines and prospects.
As an example, let’s pretend that a fancy concentrate company has come up with a new way to extract THC and they’ve created this brand new type of dab. They could create a minisite just for the new concentrate so that all of the ads, blogs, social posts, and user content can all link back. Visitors will be able to learn everything they need from the minisite and potentially make a purchase. Rather than getting lost on the concentrate company’s website among the shatter, live resin, and wax they produce, interested prospects can check out the new method on its own minisite where it will be on its own.
A minisite is a great option if you’re doing any of the following:
- Running daily or weekly specials
- Running any sort of campaign with a direct focus
- Sharing new cannabis products or their features
- Launching a new app
- Running sweepstakes, contests, or rewards programs
- Trying to boost sales for a specific product or service
Your minisite will be able to capture user data and provide specific metrics for your specific product. It can be taken down after the initial period or when new products are released, or it can be left ongoing forever to capture data and leads. Either way you choose, you’ll notice a nice boost in SEO!
Ready to Find a Solution to Your Marketing Woes?
There are too many advantages to all the different marketing techniques to continue going the traditional bare minimum route. Feeling a little overwhelmed? The marketing experts at Team Maryjane are available now to help you get your cannabis marketing strategy outlined, under control, and out of the park.