Holiday Marketing for Retailers

The holidays are a great time shop. With season-end sales, Black Friday, and basically every retailer finding a reason to give you a tempting deal, there can be a lot of noise. If you’re a store looking to put your products at the top of your customer’s mind. This is for you.

Putting your offers ahead of the game.

Sales isn’t the hard part, marketing is. With everybody looking to make their product the go-to, it can be incredibly competitive to gain quality interest. The performance of your campaigns come down to a few factors, and the real trick lies in hitting each with maximum effort. They include: copy (caption), content (photo/video), call to action, and ultimately the audience demographic.

Finding the words to interest your customers.

Solid copywriting is crucial as it allows you to address a few key talking points of your product or service. These can be a common problem found in your customer base, specific benefits, or how your product/service can cure a pain point. With it being the season of sales and deals, words like: Free, New, Limited, etc. are especially convincing as everyone has a long list, but always look to save as much money as they can.

Storytelling through emotion.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and a video is worth a million. It’s true. Content is a great way to cultivate legitimate interest from your audience. Including just the product/service isn’t the key though. Rather, people using said product/service and creating an emotional bond between your campaign and the potential customer. This can be in either form, but a video does tend to draw a higher conversion rate as it keeps people on your page longer.

Spark their impulse.

With your first two objectives nailed down, we move into your call-to-action. This is short and sweet. The word “now” gets used quite a bit here, and for good reason; it works. Immediacy, scarcity, and desire are three key areas that can be used in a strong call to action. People as a whole are drawn to things that are in low quantity, as it gives them a sense of exclusivity. So a simple example could be a limited time offer of 30% off wool jackets or a designer perfume, couple this with a time-sensitive coupon code and you’re golden. It’s all about incentive.

Put the right eyes on target.

To drive your campaign home and ultimately improve its chances of success, your audience targeting has to be on-point. This comes down to how well you know your audience or how well you can analyze them. Certain behaviors such as frequent online shopping or their tendency to favor “discount” type stores like Marshalls, TJ Maxx, Nordstrom Rack, and more can help you identify their motivations to buy.

How Social Media Benefits Your Cannabis Business

From grow operations and lab testing facilities to delivery services and marijuana dispensaries, new businesses and brands are seeking to leverage the benefits of digital marketing.

One of the biggest hurdles facing the blooming cannabis industry is, of course, the federal scheduling of marijuana. Because of the nature of their product, marijuana businesses are under intense scrutiny when it comes to how they market themselves. And, although the future of cannabis is still being shaped on a national level, smart cannabis companies can immediately employ a variety of digital marketing strategies to build their brand and their reach.

How does this help my business?

The dynamism of digital marketing makes it ideal for cannabusinesses both large and small in more ways than one. Not only are more people online than ever, but digital marketing allows cannabrands to measure the success of their strategies through performance metrics like impressions, clicks, conversion rates, and even brand loyalty. 

The ability to actively measure the successes of your marketing plan for medical marijuana and adult use cannabis enables a company to leverage key metrics into a responsive and dynamic marketing strategy. Some examples of digital marketing include websites, blogs, and search engine optimization of both, in addition to online advertising, email marketing, and social media outreach.

Key Components of a Digital Marketing Plan

Content Creation is king.

While an optimized web design is crucial to your online success, high-quality and informative content is one of the most important characteristics of any online promotional strategy. Digital content marketing is an effective tool cannabis companies can use to build a stronger brand while increasing traffic and engagement.

High quality content with the intent to build credibility is extremely important, especially in a very young market. Building an online presence based on credibility and confidence is a crucial aspect of being a respected brand.

Hire Cannabranders to help you navigate pay-per-click and social media

When it comes to balancing the demands of business with some of the realities of the cannabis industry, federal restrictions on marijuana mean that traditional advertising outlets aren’t an option.

Currently, cannabusinesses and bands have experienced restrictions imposed by Google and social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Many platforms will deny ads that contain words like marijuana, cannabis, pot, weed, hash, and ganja, so getting the right keywords for cannabis campaigns can be difficult without professionals. 

Leverage social media for organic growth instead of promotions

If you spend time on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or even Pinterest, you know there is no shortage of marijuana inspired content. There’s content for every nuance of evolving cannabis culture; the key is knowing how to leverage your content to extend your brand’s organic reach.

As a company in the business of cannabis, the challenge for marijuana companies is not in posting content, but in promoting it. As of the summer of 2017, practically all major social media channels have denied marijuana-related ads. Some will even take down entire pages even though no illegal activity has taken place. Despite the hurdles in navigating these platforms, social media platforms are still a way to reach your audience organically; you just have to stay savvy about your content.

Connect with your audience through their inbox

Although it may be tempting to ride the wave of social media, email marketing remains one of the most robust marketing solutions for brands looking to connect with their audiences. According to research published by the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing’s return on investment is a sky-high 4,300%. 

Not only is email marketing less restrictive, but marijuana companies can also use it to deliver value to their audience via their inbox. Whether it’s a product promotion or an industry update, email marketing is a fantastic digital marketing tool cannabis brands can use without breaking the law. 

Start Seeing the Benefits of Digital Marketing Today

While the end of marijuana prohibition will inevitably see a transformation of how cannabranders can reach their audiences, when it comes to dispensary marketing or developing a marketing plan for medical marijuana brands, dynamism is key to any strategy. 

In an industry where the best strategy today may not be the best strategy for tomorrow, make sure that you’re working with a content marketing consultant that can help your marijuana business take on the challenges of tomorrow.