The use of medical cannabis is legal in some states and outright legalized in others. With legalization comes a whole new form of marketing that has been gradually formalized over the last few years. If marketing isn’t your strong suit, consider hiring an agency like Spark Factory to handle it for you.
Cannabis marketing can be a tricky thing to navigate. For starters, even if your city or state has legalized marijuana, the feds haven’t. This means you need to make sure you’re following all of the rules and regulations that will ensure you don’t run afoul of the government.
Cannabis marketing is abundant these days. With its legalization in more states, many avenues open up for cannabis brands to reach their consumers. The cannabis industry is ripe for growth, but it’s also struggling with increased competition. This guide provides critical information when deciding on your cannabis marketing tactics.
Don’t Overlook Your Branding & Public Image.
For many cannabis entrepreneurs, branding and marketing are tiny and unimportant parts of growing a cannabis business.
But they should be. Branding and marketing are how cannabis companies can differentiate themselves from the competition and build a loyal customer base.
Branding and marketing also help you establish credibility with potential customers, which helps grow your reputation.
Finally, branding and marketing are how to establish your brand identity, which is a fundamental aspect of your business.
Don’t Fall Behind on Ever-Changing Regulations.
The marijuana business is highly regulated. The laws are constantly changing. And at some point, some of those regulations are going to catch up with you.
Why? When the government first made marijuana illegal, it did so out of religious and political motives. Marijuana was evangelically condemned as an evil and immoral drug, so it was used as an excuse to prohibit anything vaguely distasteful.
Many people—including many respectable social scientists—think that marijuana is less harmful than alcohol or tobacco. But the government has never argued that point. To them, marijuana is a drug because it gets you high, and drugs are not supposed to be legal.
But over time, that definition has changed. The prohibition of alcohol is 90 years old, and marijuana is 40 years old. Alcohol is still illegal, but marijuana is starting to be seen as evil and immoral, too, but not nearly so much.
In 1996, President Clinton said that marijuana was less harmful than alcohol, and California legalized medical marijuana. Since then, different states have legalized marijuana for recreational purposes. Every step of the way, though, the federal government still says marijuana is illegal. Things are constantly changing. Some regulations allow some kinds of businesses, then ban other things. Some businesses are legal in some places but not in others, and you have to know which laws apply where you are.
Don’t Lie Or Exaggerate
Cannabis marketing has a bad reputation. In addition to the usual caveats about free speech, the cannabis community has other concerns about marketing. For one thing, some people think that talking about “marijuana” is lying. Most discussions about marijuana exaggerate its dangers, and most marketing exaggerates its virtues. But exaggerating can be dangerous. If you exaggerate, people will believe you, but that will make it easier for them to ignore your actual message. And if they ignore your real message, then they won’t benefit from it.
Don’t Blend in With the Crowd.
If you sell marijuana, don’t try to socialize with the customers. If you don’t stand out, people won’t remember you.
The principle is that if you are too visible, they will become comfortable with you. And once you stop being visible, they will forget you.
The principle works the other way, too. If you blend in, people won’t remember you. If you stand out, they will forget you are there.
Blend in, stand out: that’s marketing.
The principle is even more critical with marijuana. After all, marijuana is so unusual, and marijuana users are so unusual that anybody who wants to use it is unusual, too.
If you are selling weed and you don’t stand out, people won’t remember you. They’ll forget you when they go somewhere else, and they may forget you even then.
But if you do stand out, they will remember you. And if they remember you, they will buy from you.
Conclusion
Cannabis marketing is like other forms of marketing. You have to be actively promoting your Cannabis business regardless of whether there are Cannabis customers or not. To market your cannabis business, you’ll have to be exceptionally skilled at marketing. However, you’ll still get results by being good at what you do.
