California, Colorado, Oregon.. state by state, the U.S. continues to regulate the cannabis space, giving farmers and manufacturers the chance to launch fully-formed, carefully marketed brands out into the public arena.
Cannabis has proven to be a flourishing industry for many entrepreneurs and, with the continued success of the growing marijuana trade, there are more opportunities than ever before to get involved and start a business. Hence, the opportunity for success in the cannabis industry has never been higher, but the same can be said for the amount of competition, too.
So, let’s imagine that you’re interested in launching a CBD brand, or a CBD line of products. How should you go about it? What will assure the difference between a successful CBD brand and a disruptive CBD brand in 2019? These are our thoughts.
Getting ready to open a business requires thorough planning and consideration, for both the products you plan to market and the legal provisions. To help you decide if you’re ready to take the next step, review the following points before you start a new cannabis business.
1. Get the Legal Product Right
Laws and regulations are an essential part of the business side of cannabis and before you consider starting your cannabis retail business, you should take a close look at the requirements of your state. State laws change across the country. It’s up to you how to become familiar with them and how they will affect your cannabis business.
Cannabis laws have proven to be complicated even to most experienced company owners. If the initial review of the legal data becomes too overwhelming, it may be wise to inquire with an experienced and knowledgeable lawyer.
For example, CBD products derived from cannabis are treated differently than CBD products derived from hemp. On December 20, 2018, the federal government passed the Hemp Farming Act of 2018, which means that hemp-derived CBD is no longer categorized as a Schedule I drug in the United States, instead being treated as an ordinary agricultural commodity. This means that hemp-derived CBD goods can be marketed and traded in the non-regulated market such as pharmacies and retail shops, whereas cannabis-derived CBD products remain part of the regulated market. As such, it can only be sold in state lines and via licensed cannabis dispensaries. That being said, you still need a valid license to grow and manufacture hemp, but the license and the procedure to get the license, are different.
2. Know Your Target Audience
The CBD industry is about to grow big, which means there are going to be a lot of CBD brands, a lot of ideas, and a lot of competition in the industry. One of the most efficient ways of achieving success for your brand or product is to clearly determine your audience.
Which gender are you targeting? What is the age group of your targeted audience? What is their budget to spend on CBD products? What is the location? Why might your product be helpful to them? What might be the reason they choose your CBD product over the products offered by your competitors?
Ask as many questions as you can about your target audience. It’s a good way of defining your product’s true selling features, and an even better way of estimating whether a product will generate business. Hence, analyzing the target audience helps to introspect your CBD brand.
3. Be Innovative And Use Your Market Potential
Innovation is going to stand for a lot in the CBD market in the coming years. You’ll have to make yourself stand apart from all the other cannabis businesses out there. And to achieve this, what you need is a creative cannabis business and marketing ideas! The product’s design, function or experience it gives can be innovated to be different from other cannabis business out there. Cannabis new innovations and the shifting landscape will continue to yield even more opportunities in 2019.
Things, like arranging a cannabis-friendly event, launching cannabis cosmetics and cannabis accessories, or including cannabis edibles recipes on your blog, can actually make a world of difference in the eyes of your potential consumers. The cannabis products of 2019 need to take things to the next level. It’s time to speed up your creative mind.
4. Invest In Branding And Advertising
After thorough research now you have a brilliant cannabis business idea. You’ve come up with a product or service that can be useful to a bunch of people and potentially make you a lot of money. The logical next step should be creating a marketing strategy to promote your product.
There must be obvious concerns in your mind right now – How you can advertise your cannabis brand to the people? On which platforms you can advertise? Is cannabis advertising legal? And if yes, how hard can that be?
Based on our experience, it can be a little bit easy if done right. One of the important parts of owning a cannabis-based business is passing through legal hoops while trying to promote your product or services. With any advertising strategy, you have to play by each advertiser’s set of rules. Like Google and Facebook are the largest platforms to advertise any product or service. But as they are aligned with federal law, which states that cannabis is illegal and cannot be advertised.
But the good news is that Spokes Digital is one of the best cannabis marketing companies that knows just how to help your company pass the loophole of cannabis advertising. Despite all of the restrictions and limitations, we’ve found a few ways to get campaigns running for our cannabis clients while still playing by the rules. Spokes Digital helps with the advertising of cannabis products and services on large platforms which helps with the brands to get promoted to a large audience present online. With specific business goals, Spokes Digital helps in creating an ideal and well-known cannabis brand.
5. Find Ways To Reach Out And Gain Consumer Experience
So, you’re staying on top of the legal stuff, you’ve developed a product or product line that offers the consumer an innovative solution, you’ve done your benchmarks, and you’ve invested both time and money on branding and marketing essentials, but now you need to find ways of generating direct contact with your target audience.
As you start advertising your product, now you need to find ways of generating direct contact with your target audience. Surveys, competitor analysis, discounts, and giveaways, via social media and other platforms, will be effective. You can also use online communications as a way of encouraging your followers to try out your product in exchange for a review. It’s also important to attend local and national industry cannabis events for face-to-face contact with the consumer. Use those opportunities to learn more about what the common buyer is looking for.
Implementing these strategies will help you improve your cannabis business brand recognition that will help you generate sustainable growth and revenue. Still, if you need more helpful insights and marketing suggestions schedule a complimentary audit with one of our team members and see what Spokes Digital can do for your business.
