Jaime Flores
Digital Marketing Specialist
With the growing popularity of CBD and legalization of marijuana, its no wonder why there’s so many new CBD and hemp startups popping up everywhere. Established marijuana dispensaries are also taking advantage by expanding into other competing neighborhoods.
However, opening a new business is one thing, knowing how to get the word out and bring in paying customers is another.
Here are powerful and most-effective CBD marketing strategies that will help you sell and successfully promote your CBD brand online.
How to Market CBD & Hemp Products to Increase Revenue
It’s estimated the CBD consumer market will hit $22 Billion by 2022. This is great news for all CBD business owners wanting to sell more CBD oil online via an e-commerce website or at their local store. In turn, more and more players are entering the market meaning trying to differentiate your CBD business from your competitors will be a challenging one.
Therefore, it becomes obvious that CBD businesses need to adopt a proper CBD marketing strategy if they are to rise to the top and stand apart from their competition.
Before you go off and get too excited, we need to understand how to market CBD oil and hemp-based products with and without advertising. We’ve put together a comprehensive CBD oil and hemp marketing guide to give you a better picture and arm you with the best ways to market your CBD brand like a pro in 2022 and beyond!
How Big is the CBD Market?
The CBD market is HUGE, and as we learned, it’s growing like a mad man thanks to legalization and the acceptance of consumers. Experts have forecasted that the CBD consumer market will soon outperform the entire legal cannabis industry.
Why has CBD suddenly become so popular?
Cannabidiol is being touted as a magical elixir, a cure-all now available in bath bombs, dog treats and even pharmaceuticals. With its supporters claiming that CBD treats many body problems such as: inflammation, pain, acne, anxiety, insomnia and depression, it certainly has caught the attention and curiosity of many to give it a try.
Could this all natural, non-psychotropic and widely available cousin of marijuana be a cure for the 21st century itself? It just might be a fix for our anxious times we’re living in.
Marketing a CBD Business
The Challenges with Marketing CBD
Given that the barrier to entry is significantly low for the industry, starting a CBD business makes it that much more attractive. Its no wonder why the number of CBD stores has flourished into the thousands recently, both online and in the brick-and-mortar segment.
The barebones truth, however, is that getting a CBD or Hemp brand off the ground can be challenging. Marketing your CBD oil brand can be even harder, especially considering the fact that many people are still not well-educated about the differences between CBD and marijuana and the governing laws and advertising policies add to the confusion.
Here are some of the challenges to keep in mind when advertising your CBD or hemp business:
Challenge 1: Lack of Education
CBD has been riddled with confusion right from the start. Gradually, a growing number of people now know what CBD is. What most people do not know is that CBD is a completely legal, safe and effective alternative to other medications.
The notion that CBD oil can be harmful because of its relation to marijuana and hemp, both of which can be used for recreational purposes, is enough to stop someone from trying it. So in order to gain new customers, explain how CBD is different from recreational marijuana.
Solution: Use Q&As and FAQs on your website, flyers, brochures and even Youtube videos can go a long way. Let them know how your product is different by showcasing your product and explaining its ingredients.
Challenge 2: Overcrowding Market
The CBD market is highly unregulated sector. In addition, the hurdles to entry are so low that literally anyone can jump on the CBD bandwagon.
The increasing popularity of CBD products and the unexpected growth of the industry means that the market is likely to face the same issues that once plagued the craft beer industry.
Craft beer producers have been struggling in the last few years after a multitude of local breweries started popping up across the country. If your a beer drinker, you’ll notice you have your main brands like Budweiser and Coors Light but also your local, smaller breweries. Sometimes these smaller breweries only sell in the state they operate in. Why? Perhaps theres’ too many beer choices or their marketing was not clearly defined.
As the market becomes oversaturated, only the most strategic CBD brands will weather the cut-throat competition. Those who have taken the time to brand their name using a well-defined CBD marketing strategy, and strategized product placement will be the ones who will grow and succeed in this incredibly competitive market.
Solution: Get a digital marketing plan in place. This includes a website, logo, social media presence, email campaigns. Just about everyone goes online to look for and research the best CBD oil, make sure you’re on that list.
Working with a digital marketing agency is the most effective way to accomplish this – its time saving and cost-effective as marketing agencies will help you avoid mistakes, optimize your marketing dollars for best ROI, and you’ll have a dedicated professional marketing team working alongside you.
Challenge 3: Targeting the Right Buyers
CBD consumers can come from all backgrounds, ethnicities and age groups, which is why its very important to look deeper into who your ideal customer is.
Which age group should you target? Who should be your ideal customer? What symptoms or conditions are your target audience trying to alleviate? What motivates each type of buyer when buying CBD oil? These are just a few simple questions the need to be answered before you start building your brand and your CBD marketing strategy.
Keep in mind that some of your rivals might not be CBD-oriented. Some of them could offer prescription meds and natural remedies. A few notable CBD companies worth mentioning are: FAB CBD, Premium Jane, and Joy Organics. Will you have what it takes to go after both types of competitors? Developing the right targeting strategy can be a challenge if you don’t have answers to the right questions from the beginning.
Solution: Look into your competition when creating the right targeting strategy. See who they are targeting by looking at their ads, do they appeal to your age group? There are a number of way you can find out who your ideal customer is. For example, try running polls on social media, create different content on your website and social media channels and see which age group interacts the most, offer samples of your product at your store.
Establishing a CBD Company the Right Way
Building a brand is hard. No Doubt About It. Building a CBD brand in a market that is still new, engulfed with consumer confusion and overly hyped expectations – Even more difficult.
Below we’re going to share the things you’ll need and the steps we take with each and every one of our clients. Feel free to print and use this as a guide to help you in your CBD journey.
Solution:
CBD Marketing Strategy Step 1: Determine Your Setting and Brand Fit
Creating a rock-solid CBD brand begins by showing your target audience that you are unique and offer something different that is absolutely worthy of their money.
Know Your Target Customer. What are their likes and dislikes? What do they want to gain from CBD products? Are they looking for health benefits, recreational use or both? Where do they live, and are there any laws that could get in the way?
CBD Marketing Strategy Step 2: Create A Distinctive Identity
Seems like CBD products are everywhere and most serve the same purpose. What is the most memorable thing about your brand and your products? What is your elevator pitch? Answering these questions will help you come up with a unique brand consumers will love and recognize.
After researching your audience and competitors its time to create your CBD logo. There are many ways and providers you can go with when having a logo designed. Hiring a professional logo designer is always highly encouraged since this will be your company’s image that will follow you for many years.
Additionally, if you plan on becoming a big CBD player, you will want to make sure your logo can be trademarked and does not infringe copyrights on another company. Many logo design company’s don’t bother doing the proper research when designing a new logo so its always to go with a reputable marketing agency that can help you avoid potential lawsuits.
CBD Marketing Strategy Step 3: Get A CBD Website Designed & Developed
In today’s highly competitive world, having a well-made business website is now more critical than ever. A website works as the hub for all of your marketing. From emails, phone calls, social media, and even business cards, eventually your customers will go on the web to look for you to contact, buy or just to see if you are a legitimate business.
Having your very own, expertly-crafted website is great because you control all the marketing space those web pages have to offer.
Make sure you spend the time to research and find the right CBD website agency because this will save you time and money. Do not cut corners and hire cheap workers overseas as you will most likely get a cheap looking website. Your company’s reputation is at stake – the saying is true: You get what you pay for.
Take a look at: Are Websites Worth The Investment?
CBD Marketing Strategy Step 4: Build Your Online Presence
After completing your market research, logo and website, it’s now time to start getting the word out and start selling! From our experience, gaining the attention of search engines has proven to be the most effective way to get started considering CBD advertising laws and overly aggressive social media policies.
Investing in SEO to show up naturally in Google searches can be the most profitable. However, CBD SEO is highly competitive! You need an experienced CBD SEO expert like iSeed Digital to guide you through and give you the best results in the shortest amount of time.
Related: How Do I Improve My SEO?
Additionally, building your social media presence is also very important. Create your social media business profiles in popular platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Creating content and building a following is one way, or, paying the platform to show your ad to a certain audience works faster.
Create an advertisement that you want shown to your audience and select the exact target audience, location and amount of money you want to spend. Not only is this a great way to reach the audience you want, it also provides insights into the demographic of your target audience so you can see how they react.
A Word of Caution. Social media advertising policies have strict rules against CBD oil or ingestible hemp ads. Instagram has been known to shut down or ban accounts who violate their advertising policy.
However, Facebook recently announced they are allowing certain CBD ads but we believe this is still in beta mode. CBD ads are still a possibility, but again, you’ll need guidance from a CBD marketing agency to help you avoid mistakes or damaging effects.
CBD Marketing Strategy Step 5: Create Relevant & Complimentary Content
According to Nielsen.com, adults spend about 50% of their day interacting with content. While that’s a good thing for CBD companies but you’ll need to provide engaging and likable content. You’ll need content in various forms such as articles, blogs, newsletters, videos and even webinars.
This will provide a good mix so your audience and customers wont get bored and keep you in mind for all their CBD needs.
Unfortunately, today’s online user has an attention span of about 8 seconds. That’s all you get.
You need to keep rotating the content as well as adding new stuff that will keep your brand fresh and updated. Keep your content not only exciting and fun but also valuable to the reader. Who knows, it might just go viral!
CBD Marketing Strategy Step 6: Revisit Your CBD Marketing Strategy & Improve
A marketing strategy for any business is an ongoing process. Monitoring and keeping track of its performance is a must and should be considered a priority – after all its your marketing dollars. Metrics that you should be monitoring are:
Summary
We see the CBD industry to grow rapidly and fierce in the near future.
It is expected to become a $23 billion dollar market by 2025 and more and more players will continue to want their piece of the pie.
How will you build and market your CBD or Hemp brand that will outperform and withstand the heat?
Taking the right steps and along with the right strategy will help ensure your CBD or Hemp brand becomes a major player as right now the industry is still evolving and will be a few years before it matures.
Connecting with the target audience, owning that awesome & memorable logo, having a well designed website, crafting a well researched and implemented marketing strategy are all critical steps needed to propel a brand to the top of the pile.
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