Budgets are tight and margins are tighter- we are sympathetic to the uphill battle of operating a cannabis business today. There’s no room in the budget for extra expenses, and that forces you to be creative with how you market your business.
Here we have some battle-tested ways to leverage your local resources to promote your cannabis operation without cutting into your budget.
Social Butterflies
While social can certainly be the bane of your existence, it is also necessary. Thankfully, having an account is free (please don’t pay to be verified for so many reasons) so creating content and promoting yourself on social doesn’t cut into your budget aside from labor. We certainly have some safeguards for social media (all detailed HERE in our social media for cannabis operators guide) but overall, start with showing off your products. Be mindful of shadow banned hashtags, but this marketing channel can’t be skipped.
Reach Out to the Media
Some opportunities may be right in front of you. Some may be in a slightly outdated media outlet as well, but hey it’s still free marketing! Think about your operation. Are you minority-owned? Veteran-operated? Do you give back to your community? Consider what your brand differentials are and start pounding the pavement selling your story. Create an outreach template that you can use to email different local newspapers, magazines, or even TV station affiliates and let them know you’re special. Local media likes to showcase community-based organizations, and you reaching out helps them create a story without working too hard. It may be a numbers game, but it can drive SEO to your website and get people interested in checking you out. And if a local outlet tries to charge you to run a story (and not an ad)- it’s a trap.
For Your Consideration
This section may be a bit controversial, but winning awards does support positive brand affinity and SEO. No matter how you feel about award shows philosophically, awards do drive people through the doors. Predominantly, submitting to awards can be free for non-product-based awards. For certain judgement situations like the Cannabis Cup or 710 awards where product is sampled, you will have to eat the cost of the product in question. For awards on ‘best dispensary’ or ‘best budtender’, or more general non-product categories, you may not have to pay or expense any line items to submit to be considered. Organizations like High Times and the Cannabis and Music Festival will do both an award show and event in different regions. Look into how your area celebrates cannabis and see where you can focus on winning.
To activate more than just your leadership team, find budtender awards or brand ambassador awards you can submit your boots on the ground staff to. If your head budtender is nominated for ‘best budtender of the year’, it may be easier to mobilize your staff to vote and support their co-worker and drive your dispensary up the list of winners.
Build the Merch Booth (Online!)
If you live in an area where you are allowed to one, sell non-medicated branded merchandise and two, have the capability to sell those products online, you’ve got an entire additional stream of potential income you can set up. It may be complicated to have a team member in charge of packaging and shipping products however, so to consolidate time and labor while opening an additional stream of income, look at print on demand companies. Some brands use shops like Red Bubble that print the products (shirts, for example) on demand for each order. This eliminates the need for your operation to overorder product to sell or have too many accessories on hand in your limited storage space.
While the shop sales may not be enough to live off, they will support your SEO. Reporting for print on demand shops is typically well organized for your finance and operations team to track and it positions your brand positively. As long as your merch and merch store continue to be in compliance, you’re in the money.
Make a Mixtape
This may be a two-prong approach, but it can bring in positive brand affinity. Think about the music playing in your shop or perhaps music that inspires the infused products you create. Create a brand-specific Spotify account and allow your playlists to be discovered or shared. While this is a very light drop in marketing in the overall scheme of things, having additional online touchpoints does support your organization’s overall SEO. Creating a Spotify that your staff can add songs to or update during seasonal times also builds positive brand affinity and humanizes your organization. It’s not a lot at first, but the small things do add up.
MJ Platform is particularly sensitive to how challenging it can be to operate a cannabis brand today. That’s why in 2010 we built our software to only serve the cannabis industry’s unique needs. MJ Platform’s open API software system has over 100 integrated programs and products our users can leverage to amplify their business and we have seen our clients grow in states across the nation.
To learn more about how our original Seed-to-Sale software can help you grow while being mindful of your budget, click here.
