The current wave of legalization has changed the destiny of the cannabis industry.
Gradually, the scepticism around its use is diminishing as scientists are uncovering the herb’s medicinal value. In a matter of years, cannabis has managed to create a bang in the business world. Some countries have also opened their doors to free medicinal and recreational use of marijuana.
An immense amount of potential backed by growing demands has upturned the cannabis market. Nonetheless, businesses are investing their resources to make the best of the opportunity. The industry is still at its nascent stage, so there is an equal number of threats and challenges.
Marketing, for instance, is never an easy walk for cannabis businesses. Apart from keeping up with federal guidelines and norms, a marketer also faces reprimands in the digital arena.
As a cannabis business, you cannot run adverts on google; neither are you free to plan social media platform campaigns. So, the main traffic-driving windows seem practically shut.
However, that must not deter you from planning a digital marketing campaign for your cannabis business. A good marketer takes time to observe market trends and learn from their competitor’s strategy.
Several loopholes and alternative approaches can work in your favour. With these five foolproof strategies, you can directly target traffic and generate sales on your website.
1. Get Your Website Rolling
Often the most underrated aspect of your cannabis business is the structural viability of your website. Setting up a business website nowadays is quite manageable.
All you have to do is purchase a domain name, get web hosting, and set up a selling portal with a few online tutorials. Then comes the challenging part, optimizing your website to catch customers’ attention who wish to buy weed online.
There is a big list of dos and don’ts, and logical nit-grits that can make you climb the ranking ladder. If you do not intend to optimize, remember your competitors are ferociously working towards it.
So, in the long run, you will not be able to sustain yourself. To stay afloat in the market, you will have to deploy optimizing techniques sooner or later.
Start by working on the structure of your website. A clean and crisp coding can instantly make google pick your website. Whatever you put up on your site, make sure that it does not stretch its loading time.
Make sure that your product images are of optimal size. The ease of flow and navigation plays a crucial role in increasing search engine friendliness. For the same reason, even top-notch companies have decent and straightforward layouts.
2. Write a Blog
Supplementing your commercial site with a blog is advantageous in many ways. Creating customer value by putting up correct product information can help you earn their loyalty. Also, there is not much awareness regarding cannabis’ medicinal uses, so a blog can indirectly pursue more buyers.
In the present digital age, information can play as your armour. An informational or viral piece of content can travel places and direct more visitors to your website. It is entirely up to you to collect visitors’ data and use it for marketing your products at a later stage. Plugins like chimp mail can help you gather such information with a click.
Also, optimizing your site becomes more achievable through a blog. More text on your site means more opportunities for on-page marketing. Find out the most searched keywords in the cannabis industry and place them in your tags, meta tags, text, and alt text to maximize your search potential.
You can use your blog to introduce your product range to your customers organically. Naturally, the readers have an affinity and interest in cannabis. Your inbound link can act as a perfect sale pitch to potential buyers.
3. Trespass The Social Media Limitation
The marketing limitation on the most loved platforms like Facebook and Google can prevent you from planning a campaign. Moreso, they have a stringent policy for companies propagating the use and sale of pharmaceutical drugs.
So, there is a bleak possibility of cannabis business pages or profiles sustaining on such platforms. In case of a slight violation of the community guidelines, they would delete a business page without a prior intimation.
Yet, no marketer would let go of the opportunities these platforms offer. Statistics reveal that social media has a massive impact on customer buying behaviour. So no efforts to churn their potential would be a miss. Perhaps, a creative approach to presenting your ideas and product can help you surpass the limitations.
Instead of pushing products to the customer, it is rather fruitful to try pull marketing. Encourage your loyal customers, influencers, and celebrities to create some base content related to your products.
Tutorials, video content, and reels offer much scope for sellers to create a brand image. ‘Information and not promotion’ can be your mantra when creating a piece for social media. Go for a specific hashtag and let your content drive organic traffic to your site.
4. Affiliate Marketing Is For You
At one glance, digital marketing seems like some rocket science that requires formulation and strategies. But, once you uncover it, it is a laborious job demanding consistency than formulation.
In simple terms, it is more like a popularity gimmick where one step leads to another. The more you get other websites like marijuana doctors, dispensaries, etc., to talk about your business, the better it is for you.
Cannabis businesses can bank on the opportunity to link-build their website. Through backlinking, you can get relatable blogs to place your shop link on their website strategically. It can direct a lot of traffic to your business page. Most blog sites would do this for a fee or a percentage of every sale they generate.
To cut the process short, you can also get professional help to create a stream of outbound links. An aggressive approach toward link building can fire up your digital marketing game and earn you the desired competitive edge.
5. Get Buyers To Discover Your Business
There are more ways to make your business discoverable than media platforms. Interestingly, the herb’s popularity has piqued many enthusiasts’ interest to start discussion forums and communities around cannabis. Such communities can serve as a unique platform for you to market your product.
Additionally, you will have direct access to informed and target audiences. Participating constructively in various discussions can intrigue members to find out more about your business.
Although there can be an overwhelming number of forums to join in, you may strategize your plan to target your niche. Like other marketing methods, this may take a while to hook on, but marketing is about consistent steps that lead to sustainable growth.
List your business, wherever there seems a scope. Get to know more about cannabis online directories. Many of them would offer a free listing for budding enterprises. They not only help get you more business but also increases your credibility among buyers.
Over the past few months, google business has become more cannabis-friendly. Now you can list your marijuana dispensary under a well-instated category on it.
Every time your customer leaves feedback on your product or services, it leaves a positive trail to your ranking as well. Google picks you up as a trusted seller and propels you more on each search.
The Bottom Line: Cannabis business and digital marketing for more sales
To successfully market cannabis, you may want to exploit forces that lead you towards differentiating your product line from other competitors.
Since most cannabis products appear similar to buyers, creating a brand perception is critical. All marketing efforts can go in vain if customers do not sense credibility in your brand.
Online sales comprehensively depend upon value proposition and customer trust. Apart from deploying marketing strategies, ensure that you present the right information and quality products to your customers.
Reference Links
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