From social media to digital ads to your blog, there’s no shortage of ways to touch base with customers throughout the day. One of the most valuable of these methods is email marketing, reaching customers in their inboxes with news, information, and great deals. But just like any type of cannabis marketing, email marketing for cannabis brands takes a bit more discretion and planning. Here are our tips, best practice suggestions, and some content ideas for your cannabis company’s email marketing strategy. 

Which email marketing platforms are cannabis friendly?

Before embarking on email marketing for your cannabis company, you need to get a sense of which platforms are willing to distribute your content. Unfortunately, not every platform is willing to welcome the plant with open arms. There are varying degrees of acceptance too, with some platforms allowing only CBD, while others will work with ancillary companies and others yet will work with any cannabis company. Here’s what you need to know about your options.

Cannabis-centric customer data platforms

Many plant-touching companies like dispensaries and delivery services opt to run their marketing, loyalty, and analytics with platforms that specifically cater to the cannabis industry. Not only do these companies specialize in the nuances of the growing cannabis industry, but since they’re built specifically for the industry, you can lean on their reliability. You won’t wake up one morning to find your account suspended or mysteriously deleted — and all your hard work along with it.

Some platforms to consider include:

• Alpine IQ, which offers tools to manage loyalty systems, mobile apps, marketing messaging automation, and more
• Springbig, a customer loyalty program with its own SMS and email marketing tools
• Happy Cabbage Analytics, a retail optimization platform geared toward dispensaries and delivery operations

Not sure which is right for you? Evaluate each vendor based on their:

• Flexible pricing tiers that can scale with your company as you grow
• Available tools for segmenting your customer base
• Integrations with your website for building your subscriber list
• Ability to integrate with your tech stack for seamless operations
• Additional features that enhance and improve customer engagement, such as data collection 

Customer relationship manager (CRM) software platforms

Some CRMs that dominate the market and have email marketing tools built in, like Hubspot, are now servicing the cannabis industry in all its forms. These platforms allow use of both their email marketing tools and their sales management software in the cannabis industry. The answer will vary from company to company, so if there’s a CRM software you have your eye on, it’s worth reaching out to customer service and asking some questions before committing.

Mainstream email marketing platforms

The content policy of various mainstream email marketing platforms varies widely from provider to provider. Each one maintains its own standards and terms of service (TOS).

Understandably, marketers may want to turn to platforms like Mailchimp, Klaviyo, and Constant Contact due to their ubiquity, popularity, and familiarity. But they’re not always the best solution for all cannabis companies or CBD brands. You have to do a little homework before committing to one of these platforms.

For example, Mailchimp’s terms of service doesn’t explicitly ban cannabis (THC) or CBD products in its acceptable use policy. However, it could easily be interpreted that cannabis is an “illegal good” under the U.S. Controlled Substances Act (CSA) and therefore not allowed on their platforms. CBD, while no longer federally illegal, may fall under herbal supplements that call for greater scrutiny from the platform. This would likely apply to “plant touching” companies and not necessarily ancillary companies. Anecdotal experience falls in line with this as well, with some dispensaries facing suspension or bans from Mailchimp, but ancillary companies not having the same struggles.

If your chosen platform allows cannabis — great! Forge ahead. If they don’t or their responses are wishy-washy, it may not be worth the risk. And even if your chosen provider has given the green light, it’s always worth brushing up on terms and conditions. Policy changes can happen at any time, so make it a point to read up on the fine print. And keep an extra close eye on these policies in the event of a sale or acquisition in the event that the new owners implement changes.

The long and short of it is — read the terms and conditions of any mainstream email marketing platform you want to use. If you’re unsure about a company’s stance from their documentation, reach out to customer service. If the answer is anything but an enthusiastic “yes,” it’s worth rethinking use of those platforms, especially if you’re with a plant-touching company like a dispensary.

The power of email marketing — and why it’s worth your time

Email marketing has a high return on investment (ROI)

While the precise amount varies between industries, it’s estimated that every dollar spent on email marketing can get anywhere between $36 and around $45 for the company. Not only is this a higher ROI than other marketing strategies, but email marketing is a lower-cost program to implement, manage, and tweak along the way.

Your email list is yours

It’s hard work growing an email list, but the power of having these data in your hands is unparalleled. With customers’ email addresses, you can address them directly without any intermediary standing in your way. If your social media accounts get deleted tomorrow, you lose all your hard work and all those eyeballs. Not so for email marketing — once you collect an email (unless someone unsubscribes, of course), it can’t be taken away from you.

Customers want your emails

Sure, nobody wants to sort through 500 spam emails in a day. But when a customer opts in, it’s a green light that they want to hear from you. While you should certainly be measured with this method of marketing — nobody wants 10 emails a day from anyone, let alone a company — you can plan campaigns knowing that your audience is attentive and interested in what you have to share.

Best practices for creating good email marketing content that performs

• Strike a balance between clickbait and boring. There’s a lot of room for creativity here. Your subject line needs to strike a balance between enticing readers to open — and driving up that key open rate — and hitting the snooze button. Too much in either direction, and your email is headed for spam or trash.
• Always include a call to action. Do you want visitors to fill out a form, sign up for a program, or look at your menu? Include a call to action that encourages readers to go one step further. And don’t forget to set UTM parameters around the URL in your call to action, so you can better track where clicks are coming from. 
• Track your open rates. Keep an eye on which emails get the most clicks. Whether sales emails get a surge in open rates or people clamor to read your latest blog, open rates are an indicator of what your customers actually want to see in their inboxes.
• Don’t forget about A/B testing. To help improve open rates and click-through rates, you can use a sample customer group to test which version of your email gets the best feedback. If you don’t have access to A/B testing, it’s a good idea to run your prospective subject line and content ideas past other people on your team to get their feedback. 

5 content ideas for your next email marketing campaign

1. Highlight the latest news about your business. Was your dispensary recently in the local news, or was the owner of the company interviewed on a podcast? Uplift the latest and greatest your company has to offer, no matter which medium it takes.

2. Showcase a product review. Fold a cannabis product review into your latest email marketing campaign. These reviews are not only great for SEO and social media, but help leverage brand recognition to bring a customer one step deeper into your marketing funnel. With the right review in their inbox, it may be just the ticket to bring them into the store.

3. Offer an enticing deal. Certainly, a good deal will turn heads. Consider creating specials just for email subscribers as an incentive for them to both sign up for your list and to keep opening your emails.

4. Promote a blog post. Call attention to the great information on your blog by adding a summary of its main points and a graphic to your email. Add a call to action to lead the reader to finish the blog on your site, increasing your web traffic along the way.

5. Add your latest video. Interactive content helps break up blocks of text and helps catch the eye of different types of learners. It’s also a great way to leverage omnichannel marketing by promoting video content hosted on YouTube or TikTok to a new audience. 

Additional ways to leverage email marketing

Use drip campaigns to simplify email marketing

Drip campaigns are automated emails that are sent to someone who takes action on your website. For example, if someone signs up to download a white paper on your website, a drip campaign can send them an email with the attachment, an email with a summary of the white paper with some eye-catching graphics, and a survey to solicit feedback on the white paper. Those campaigns can be set up relatively quickly and easily with the right email marketing platform and website integrations, and it takes all the follow-up work off your shoulders.

Get personal to encourage open rates

Personalization tools, such as addressing subscribers by name in the body of an email, have a significant impact on email open rates. Types of personalization include tailoring the content of an email to a specific audience, leveraging a customer’s data to show them how many loyalty points they have, or as simple as adding the subscriber’s first name to the subject line or the body of the email. 

Consider abandoned cart emails to bring back customers

Just because dispensaries in the U.S. can’t ship products to a customer’s house doesn’t mean what they’re doing doesn’t fall under ecommerce activity. And just like any other big-box store you might shop online, customers might put some items in their cart, get distracted, and forget to check out. 

Recapture them with abandoned cart tools that send a notice to the customer’s inbox with a reminder to complete checkout. These are called win-back campaigns, and they’re easy to implement with the right software. You can even include a special incentive for completing the purchase, like extra loyalty points or a coupon — whatever is allowed by law in your state. Abandoned cart emails have a high open rate, as much as 43% by some estimates, and a high level of conversion, too. This means more revenue for your business.

Cannabis brands: contact your customers with email marketing 

Take this important task off your hands. With CannaContent, you work with a team of award-winning experts who have years of experience building email campaigns that get results. We spin up great copy and have the technical know-how to implement your program, all while taking the rest of your marketing strategy into account. Our holistic approach makes the difference, ensuring no element of your marketing operates in a silo. We love what we do — contact CannaContent to learn about how we can put our skills to work for your company.

Customer reviews and word-of-mouth advertising can make or break a business. Fortunately, you don’t have to be a passive participant when it comes to customer reviews just because you’re a cannabis business owner. There are plenty of things you can do to gather more positive reviews, demonstrate your commitment to your customers, and show the world that your business provides a top-notch experience. Improve your customer review game with our guide.

Where are customer reviews usually posted?

Customer reviews generally live on a third-party platform or on a reseller’s website. Here are some common places you can expect to find customer reviews — places where you might want to set up a profile for your business.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. If you’re not sure where else to look for customer reviews about businesses like yours, ask some of your customers where they go for reliable information. You may find a new platform that suits your business perfectly.

Customer testimonials and how they differ from customer reviews

A customer testimonial is a positive story that’s deliberately requested for marketing purposes. When a customer testimonial is offered, it’s with the knowledge that the business plans to promote the story to grow their business. Customer testimonials are usually posted on a business’s website, rather than a third-party site.

Customer reviews are generally offered spontaneously and can be either positive or negative, reflecting a customer’s personal experience with a particular product or service a company offers. Incentivizing customers to leave reviews on your Google Business Profile or on sites like Leafly or Weedmaps doesn’t make them a testimonial. 

How to ask for customer reviews

Some customers are motivated to leave a review on their own, but most will simply complete their transaction and go about their day, even if they were totally satisfied. Around 37 percent of customers leave reviews after a positive interaction with your company, while a much smaller percentage — around 6 percent — are motivated to leave a review after a bad experience. 

If you’re stumped as to how to get customer reviews from more of your customers, consider the following tips to make it easier.

• Simply ask: Most of your customers would be happy to leave a positive review of your business. All you have to do is ask! If you see a frequent customer or think a customer is particularly satisfied, ask them if they wouldn’t mind leaving a review. Explain how this helps your business refine its service and make it even better, as well as how important it is to your business to demonstrate its dedication to quality service. In many cases, customers will understand — and may even want to help out.

• Make it easy: Simplifying the process increases the likelihood that a customer follows through. Consider displaying QR codes that link directly to your Google Business Profile or another review site of your choice to help customers quickly navigate to where they need to go to leave a review.

• Offer an incentive: If you really want to increase the amount of customer reviews your business receives, offer an incentive and let people know about it at the point of sale. Consider providing a small discount or a freebie to customers who can show that they left a review. Even modest incentives can encourage more people to leave customer reviews. 

• Give out free samples: Do you have a new product that you want more customer reviews for? Try handing out free samples at the point of sale and asking customers to leave a product review if they like it. Everyone loves a free sample, so you’ll already be starting off from an advantageous position.

Most customers will be happy to offer their thoughts and feedback if you only ask. The key is to give them multiple, simple avenues to get online and put those thoughts into writing. Once you do so, the customer reviews are bound to start rolling in.

5 customer review tips to keep in mind

1. Set up detailed profiles on review sites

Before you can expect to gather a bunch of customer reviews, you need to make sure your profiles are set up and thoroughly completed. That means including contact information like your phone number, email, and website URL, as well as photos that help to identify your business, products, and services. If you can include more personal information, like the names of particular managers, that can help build a stronger connection with customers as well. 

You can’t expect people to engage with a profile that’s half-finished, so take the time to make sure yours looks great before you start asking customers to leave reviews. Remember, as circumstances change for your business, you’ll need to update these profiles too. Leaving outdated information on review sites may confuse customers and lead to a negative experience.

2. Engage with reviewers

Don’t just let customers send their reviews into a vacuum — engage with them by replying and keeping the conversation going. When reviewers leave positive feedback, be sure to thank them and invite them to come back. The more personalized your responses, the better. After all, these customers have gone out of their way to review your products and services. Acknowledging them and showing appreciation for their effort can go a long way to boosting loyalty and encouraging others to leave reviews as well. 

3. Leverage negative reviews, too

Negative reviews are also good, in moderation. Having some negative reviews can make your product look more authentic. Think about it: if you see a product with a handful of reviews and an average score of 5 stars, you may wonder how legitimate the feedback could be. However, if you see a product with many reviews and an average score of 4.7 stars, you’re more likely to accept that the feedback is authentic and the product is actually good.

The way you respond to negative reviews can also demonstrate your commitment to improving service quality and your transparency with customers. By proactively replying to negative reviews and seeking ways to improve customer experience, you can actually build brand loyalty. And, if you’re able to offer a discount or otherwise make amends with the negative reviewer, you may even turn them into a repeat customer.

4. Promote reviews on your website and social media

Once you have a robust profile set up and the customer reviews are rolling in, you can promote them elsewhere as part of an omnichannel digital marketing strategy. By directing users to your review pages, you can demonstrate the valuable social proof that shows you offer quality products and services. What’s more, this can have a compounding effect that drives more customer reviews, increasing the archive of feedback you’ve already gathered. 

5. Outsource customer review management

If you’re thinking this all sounds like a lot of work, you’re right. Properly managing review site profiles, gathering customer reviews, and engaging with reviewers can be a full time job, especially as your footprint grows. So, if your digital marketing budget allows for it, consider outsourcing the customer review management process to a marketing agency. 

The best marketing agencies will handle everything for you, from setting up review site profiles to gathering customer reviews to engaging with users who provide feedback. You should still collect customer reviews at the point of sale, but you won’t have to do the work behind the scenes to make sure it all comes together. Instead, you can just focus on keeping your business running.

Demonstrate customer satisfaction with customer reviews

Your customers want to give reviews and have their voices heard, and luckily for you, their feedback can be a powerful marketing tool. By using the tips above to get more customer reviews and showcasing them in the right way, your business can become a social proof machine. Nothing convinces a new customer to buy from you like independent, authentic customer reviews that validate your products and services. Don’t sleep on customer reviews — start gathering them today.

If you’re looking for support when it comes to customer reviews or any other aspect of cannabis digital marketing, CannaContent can help. Check out our services to learn more about what we can do for your business.

It’s a mad dash to capture customers in cannabis, and canna-lovers are increasingly turning to reviews to learn more before they buy, just like they would any other product. For many consumers, cannabis product reviews are the best way to anticipate what to expect when they’re considering trying something new. And the good news for dispensaries? These reviews are just about the hottest thing you can leverage in your marketing, from SEO to social media to your website and so much more. Here, we examine why you should fold cannabis product reviews into your SEO content strategy and offer up some tips for quality review-writing.

The importance of reviews for marketing, by the numbers

• More than 90%: Nearly all customers look for reviews before making a purchasing decision. Some estimates place this number as high as 99%. 
• 93%: More than 9 out of 10 customers say that online reviews affect their shopping choices.
• 49%: Nearly half of consumers trust online reviews as much as they trust personal recommendations from friends and family.
• 80%: More than 8 out of 10 customers look up products while they’re standing in a brick and mortar location.
• 10%: This is the average increase in sales a single review can produce.

The role of product reviews in your SEO content strategy

1. Specific searches indicate a customer is ready to buy

In general, the more specific a query, the further along that searcher is on their buying journey. These keywords have what’s called commercial intent. When searchers use keywords with commercial intent, they’ve moved beyond the awareness stage of a brand or store and into the consideration stage. They’re evaluating options before they take action. By capturing these types of searches, you can help steer soon-to-be customers to your shop as they make their final purchasing decisions. A review can be just the thing that takes this type of customer from “just browsing” to “ready for pickup.”

An SEO strategy is a marathon, not a sprint. Read our article about how long it takes for SEO content to rank on Google to learn more.

2. Product reviews build authority

A content strategy does not exist in a vacuum. Blogs are part of an overall plan to contribute to your website’s relevance in your sector (in this case, cannabis). That relevance is essential to securing good placement on search engines and climbing up the ranks. 

Reviews also demonstrate that you’re an expert in cannabis. Reviews that dive beyond flavors and discuss the why behind their effects signal to customers and search engines alike that you’re a reliable source of information. That pays off in spades for your search engine rankings and your sales.

3. Product-specific searches are only getting more popular

Adult-use cannabis has been around for more than a decade. In that time, many companies have built brand awareness that’s essential to any successful marketing endeavor. Writing product reviews is a great way to capitalize on the brand awareness those companies built. This drives internet traffic to your website, brings customers into your world, and links your dispensary with the brand. These searches will only get more competitive over time as more customers search for these keywords and more dispensaries attempt to secure this traffic. Creating thorough, helpful product reviews now can help you get ahead of the competition.

Let’s take one of the best-selling gummies in the U.S. as an example of how branded searches are on the rise. Launched in Oregon in 2015, Wyld THC products are currently available in 10 states in multiple flavors and cannabinoid formulations. User search trends about Wyld’s brand and its products make evident how much its popularity has grown over time. Here are some data snippets that give you a sense of how the search trends grew alongside Wyld.

Searches for “wyld gummies” have grown steadily over the years, as you can see in this chart. The keyword is searched an average of 21,000 times per month on Google, with natural fluctuations from month to month.

As the brand’s reach increases, you start to see more specific searches emerge,  specifically those with commercial intent. Searches for “wyld gummies near me” started to rise in early 2020, and currently average 1,000 searches per month on Google in the U.S.

Searches for “wyld review” have been around for quite some time, but they really start to take off in the summer of 2020. The term is searched on Google an estimated average of 700 times a month. Each user searching this term is likely close to buying, so if you can direct them to your website, there’s a higher chance of conversion. They’re ready to become your next customer, but you need the reviews they’re searching for to capture their attention.

4. Customers use social media as a secondary search engine

Google may be the leading search engine, but social media platforms are not far behind. YouTube, owned by Google, is the second-largest search engine in the world. TikTok is rapidly catching up, with Gen Zers turning to the platform for information and first-hand experiences. TikTok may be notoriously anti-cannabis, but it hasn’t stopped WeedTok from flourishing, and it certainly doesn’t stop customers from looking. Product reviews posted to their platforms can help drive more people to shop for a specific item at your dispensary. 

Reviews posted to social media are often accompanied by photos and videos that show customers precisely what they can expect when they buy an item. This insight helps would-be shoppers make the best assessment of their choices, moving them further down the customer acquisition funnel.

What are Google’s guidelines for writing product reviews?

Google Search Central released guidelines for reviews earlier this year, giving us a glimpse into what the search engine considers when assessing and ranking product reviews for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. This key ranking factor is known as E-E-A-T, and it plays a foundational role in assessing your website for relevance and subsequent placement in search results.

According to Google’s guidelines, reviews:

• Should be original
• Should prioritize the customer’s point of view
• Should explain the purpose of a product, with best use case scenarios
• Should prioritize decision-making factors that a customer might take into account

Example of a top-ranking cannabis product review

For this example, we’ll use Wyld again. We put together a Wyld gummies review for our client, Michigan-based dispensary Iconic Wellness and Provisioning. Wyld is among the more popular gummy brands in Michigan and a hot seller at Iconic. This opened an opportunity to create content aimed at bringing unacquainted, yet motivated customers into their dispensary. 

The plan paid off. Iconic Wellness content appears on Page 1 of search engine results pages (SERPs) when you look up reviews for Wyld. The way Google prioritizes reviews is immediately evident from the metadata, seen below. The search engine automatically parsed out pros and cons from the content and made them easy for customers to assess. Searchers can also navigate directly to a specific flavor mentioned in the review (terms which are gaining search traffic on their own) without having to dig deeper into the website or on other search results.

What other ways can you leverage product reviews in your marketing?

• Social media. Customers don’t have to take your word for it when it comes to customer reviews. Posts and video clips shared on TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, and many more platforms offer more ways for customers to learn about the products your dispensary sells.

• Email and text message marketing. Whether you have a big Green Wednesday sale coming up or want to spotlight a brand partner, reviews make for great content for your email marketing. You can even consider repurposing this content in text message marketing if your customer base prefers getting information straight to their phone.

• Collateral: Testimonials are instrumental to influencing the purchasing journey. Making them part of your case studies, flyers, and other marketing materials gives shoppers confidence and encourages them to move ahead. 

4 tips for cannabis product review writing

1. Give customers a sense of what their experience may be.

Is the product you’re reviewing great for kicking back and relaxing, staying laser-focused on a project due next week, or great for giggling along to your favorite stand-up? Include that information in your review. Be sure to clarify, though, that the reader’s experience may vary. No cannabis experience is guaranteed, and your customers need to know that they need to try something to get a full understanding of how it will affect them.

2. Highlight different flavors and formulations in a blog post.

If a brand has different serving sizes, cannabinoid ratios, terpene profiles, or flavors, try to discuss as many of these factors as possible when writing. This delivers a complete package of information customers can use to make an informed decision about their purchase.

3. Ask your budtenders and customers.

Which edibles are flying off the shelves? What brands are customers constantly asking about? Surveying shoppers and budtenders gives insight into the information people want to read and what influences their decision-making processes. It also validates your review, offering third-party perspectives that back up what you’re saying.

4. Think about how you’re distributing the review.

After your product review is written, think about how that content is going out on social media. Where will it be posted and which form will it take? Who will create that content? Have a plan before you write. 

Turn cannabis reviews into opportunities for your dispensary marketing

The timing couldn’t be more perfect to fold reviews into your marketing plans. SEO-informed reviews are a prime opportunity to take advantage of emerging search traffic and growing brand awareness, leveraging it into a powerful traffic driver for your business. And with the combined power of omnichannel marketing, your reviews go beyond the pages of Google and into thousands of inboxes and social media feeds. That power can’t be underestimated — you have to see it to believe it.

Cannabis consumers — and just about anyone, for that matter — turn to the internet first when looking for any product or service. It’s crucial, then, for your business to have a strong presence across the web. 

Cannabis marketing agencies can help create a digital marketing strategy for your business, but choosing the right partner is a critical first step. Working with a good cannabis marketing agency can lead to more sales, higher transaction volume, and satisfied, loyal customers. In this blog, we’ll explore the importance of selecting the right digital marketing agency for your cannabis business and provide some tips to help you make the right decision.  

Why should I hire a cannabis digital marketing agency? 

A strong digital marketing agency that specializes in cannabis can help your brand stay ahead in the industry’s competitive landscape. By partnering with a reputable agency, you can ensure that your company stands out from the competition and reaches your target audience wherever they’re most active online. Investing in a cannabis-focused digital marketing agency can offer the following benefits:

• Save time and money: The best digital marketing agencies make magic happen quickly and cohesively, ultimately saving time and money by freeing up your time and resources to focus on other essential aspects of your business. Digital marketing is an important full time job, so trusting expert professionals to devise and execute your campaigns can help boost return on investment (ROI) while allowing you to focus on what matters most — running your business.
• Reach more likely customers: Experienced cannabis marketers know which channels to use to reach your target audience and how to use them effectively. A digital marketing agency can help you to increase your online visibility and brand awareness through targeted digital marketing campaigns that span your website, social media, email, text messaging, industry publications, and more.
• Experience and expertise: The cannabis industry is a dynamic place, so it’s best to have expert advice and input. A cannabis digital marketing agency will understand changing trends and what works best for each market segment, as well as the unique legal and regulatory requirements of the cannabis industry. These insights make sure your marketing campaigns are relevant, targeted, and in line with regulatory requirements and third-party platforms’ terms of service.
• Connections: Working with an agency broadens your brand’s horizons. They may have resources or tools you may not have in-house and can help you bridge valuable relationships within the industry. Agencies work with a variety of vendors, so they can serve as referral partners in addition to bringing the value of their professional skills and expertise to your business.

Realizing these benefits of course depends on hiring the right cannabis marketing agency. If you’re ready to shop around, you’ll want to do your due diligence to make sure you select the best team for your business. 

7 things to consider when outsourcing marketing for cannabis

Not all digital marketing agencies are created equal, and choosing the wrong one can be costly for your cannabis business. Every company has different needs, but the following aspects are good to consider when choosing a digital marketing agency for your cannabis business:  

1. Experience with the cannabis industry and your market segment

The cannabis industry is a unique and evolving space, so the marketing agency you choose should have demonstrable experience working with other cannabis businesses. Ask for case studies that highlight their success stories in the industry, ideally those involving companies in your same market segment. 

An experienced cannabis digital marketing agency also understands the legal and regulatory restrictions surrounding advertising and marketing in the industry, and will use that knowledge to develop strategies that comply with these restrictions to avoid potential legal issues. Additionally, they will have knowledge of industry trends and practices, allowing them to create effective campaigns that resonate with your target audience.

When selecting a cannabis marketing agency, be sure to ask questions about all of the above and expect to receive detailed responses that demonstrate the team’s expertise in each of these areas.

2. Range of services offered

When searching for a cannabis digital marketing agency, it’s essential to ensure that they offer the specific services that you need. This may include social media marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), blogging, building accessible websites, email marketing, and more. By partnering with an agency that can offer a comprehensive suite of services, you can ensure that your brand is reaching its marketing goals and reaching your audience effectively. Finding an agency with “deep and narrow” experience in one specific service, such as content writing or social media, can provide value and insight into specific marketing strategies as well. 

3. Extensive client portfolio in the cannabis industry

It’s not enough to be a skilled marketer to operate in the cannabis industry — your marketing team needs to understand the cannabis space itself. Review an agency’s past work and check out their current and previous client portfolio. This will give you an idea of their capabilities and whether they fit your needs. You can also look for testimonials and case studies from past clients to provide you with valuable insight into the agency. With this information in hand, you can make a more informed decision.

4. Transparent communication and professionalism 

You’ll want to work with an agency that is responsive, available, and able to communicate effectively throughout your partnership. Consider the agency’s ability to provide updates, answer questions, and address concerns in a timely and professional manner, as well as their availability and responsiveness. These qualities should be apparent when you first engage a company, from an introductory call and initial proposal throughout your entire working relationship.

Always look for agencies with clear communication protocols and set expectations for regular check-ins and updates. By partnering with agencies that prioritize communication and professionalism, you can ensure that your marketing is executed smoothly and you are kept informed along the way. 

5. Alignment in company culture and values

Consider whether the agency’s mission and values align with yours. When an agency understands and supports your vision, they are more likely to create marketing strategies that resonate with you and your target audience. By choosing an agency that shares your company’s values and priorities, you can be confident that you’re working with a partner who understands and supports your vision for your cannabis business. 

Explain your brand mission and vision statement in the introductory call. Ask how the agency feels about your values and whether they share them. It should be clear if this message resonates with the agency or not. Digital marketers are your first line of communicating your brand, products, and services to your customers, so they need to get what you’re all about. Choose a company that intrinsically understands these elements of your brand for the best results.

6. Agency size and location 

If you prefer face-to-face meetings or want the agency to be close to your physical location, it’s best to choose a local agency. On the other hand, if remote communication works for you and your business, selecting an agency that operates entirely online may be more convenient. 

Also consider whether a marketing agency has the capabilities to scale their services as your business grows. Ask about their processes when it comes to content creation and production. Make sure they have the capacity to meet your needs, delivering quality content for your campaigns in a timely manner. 

Marketing agencies also range in size, and small companies with small client lists generally offer a more personal experience and specialized attention to your business needs.  

7. Pricing that fits your budget

It’s essential to have a clear understanding of your finances and ensure that the agency you choose can provide quality services within your budget. Keep in mind that larger agencies with more prominent client lists may come with a higher price tag but also tend to offer more resources and expertise. Don’t be afraid to reach out or schedule a consultation with potential agencies to discuss your budget and get a better idea of what services they can provide. 

Expect a detailed proposal that breaks down the costs of each service an agency will provide. Transparent pricing is essential to planning your marketing budget effectively.

How to get the most out of your digital marketing agency

While a digital marketing agency is there to help, there are certain things you can do to ensure the best possible results. Follow these tips to foster a productive and successful partnership and get the most out of the relationship: 

• Be proactively involved: Your digital marketing agency should be seen as a partner rather than a vendor. It’s important to be actively engaged in the process and provide input and ideas to help share your marketing campaigns. Marketing teams may need access to team members for interviews or assets like graphics, images, and videos. The best marketing teams can create these for you if you don’t already have them.
• Schedule regular check-ins: Scheduling regular meetings with your marketing agency can help keep your campaigns on track and ensure everyone is on the same page. Use these meetings to discuss progress, address any concerns and provide necessary feedback. 
• Respond in a timely manner: Your agency will likely have questions about your business and goals throughout the process. It’s essential to be responsive and provide them with the information they need to create effective marketing campaigns.  
• Be open to suggestions and willing to make changes: Your agency is likely to suggest changes or adjustments to your campaigns based on their experience and expertise. Be open to their suggestions and willing to make changes as needed to improve results. 

If you adhere to these tips, the relationship with your marketing team will be a productive one and their work on your behalf will be all the better for it.

Cannabis marketing done right with CannaContent 

Choosing the right digital marketing agency for your cannabis business is crucial to achieving success in this highly competitive market. At CannaContent, our team of experienced professionals understands the unique challenges and opportunities facing cannabis businesses today. Whether you need help with SEO, social media, content marketing, or all of the above, we’re dedicated to helping our clients succeed. Contact us today to learn more about our services and how we can help you grow your cannabis business.