Marketing Mistakes to Avoid as a Cannabis Business
It’s no secret that the cannabis industry is booming, with sales expected to reach $24.5 billion by 2025. The cannabis market is growing rapidly, with new businesses and products popping up all the time. As cannabis legalization gradually spreads across the United States, an ever-growing array of cannabis-based products are hitting the market. From edibles in a wide range of forms to topical lotions and tinctures, there’s a seemingly endless variety of new cannabis products to try. However, with this explosive growth comes a greater need for caution and due diligence when it comes to marketing your cannabis business. Many people don’t realize it, but the cannabis industry is no exception when it comes to marketing correctly, and there are many things that you should be doing, and things that you should avoid doing.
To help you avoid some of the common mistakes made in this rapidly evolving industry, here are a few tips to keep in mind when marketing your cannabis business.
Not Understanding the Needs of an Audience
The first mistake that you should avoid making as a cannabis business, especially a new one, is not understanding the needs of an audience. What does this mean? Well, to succeed in any industry, you have to be able to see what needs aren’t being fulfilled within the current market and offer that solution to an audience.
If you just start a cannabis business with the intent of selling many different general products, you might succeed. However, it is far better to know what an audience wants, and then be able to target a specific audience.
Being Absent from Social Media
The next mistake that you should avoid when trying to market your cannabis business is being absent from social media. Social media is one of the most consumed forms of entertainment and news in the world, and there are currently over 3.6 billion people who use social media. As a cannabis business, this means that being absent from social media is losing out on not only brand awareness but potential sales.
Having a social media account on a social media platform means that you can target an audience, engage with them, increase brand awareness, grow leads, and more.
Having a Generic Brand
One of the worst mistakes that you could make whilst marketing your cannabis business is to have a generic brand. What does this mean? This means that it would be possible to replace your cannabis business with any of the other thousands out there. You don’t want that to happen.
More importantly, you shouldn’t try to be different for the sake of being unique. One thing that consumers want is integrity and honesty; being different for the sake of being unique can come across as disingenuous, which means that you will end up losing customers rather than gaining them.
Not Using a Refined Website
The one place that customers will try to find you is your website; very few consumers go to a store first to find out about a company these days. This means that it is incredibly important to ensure that your website is refined, and has everything that you need.
What you should avoid is having a site that is very cluttered, difficult to navigate, slow, and worst of all, unorganized. Your site should load quickly, have organized tabs for your different products and services, and most of all, be easy on the eye and unintimidating.
Not Using Good Marketing Strategies
Perhaps one of the biggest marketing mistakes that you could make as a cannabis company is to use the best marketing strategies for you. What does this mean? This means that not every marketing strategy is suited for your business, and to succeed, you need to identify what works for you.
For example, if your cannabis business is targeting the elderly, and your product is skin creams like topicals that reduce pain, marketing on social media isn’t the best choice since you won’t reach your target audience.
Not Researching the Competition
Finally, a big mistake to avoid is not researching the competition. Why? Your competition is likely going through the same things as you are, and if they are successful, then by studying them you will be able to see what they are doing, and what they are not doing.
You will be able to see how they market on social media, what platforms they use, what their website looks like, which products of theirs are the most popular, and why, among many other things.
