CBD marketing is more challenging than ever before. The influx of CBD products in the market is making it increasingly difficult for CBD brands to stand out from the crowd. Users are spoiled for choice with so many options available, and brands have to fight for attention.
Successfully marketing CBD has become so much more than just advertising products. It calls for innovation, thinking outside the box, and a familiarity with traditional marketing techniques.
While this may seem overwhelming, we have deconstructed everything you need to know and compiled all the information into easy-to-understand sections. Read on to learn everything you need to know about the ins and outs of CBD marketing.
Read more about the CBD Market Projections
Why is CBD marketing important?
CBD marketing is an effective way to build your brand, retain customers, expand your market reach, and increase sales. It is vital to concentrate on CBD marketing, especially since so many rules and regulations dictate how you can go about marketing.
Unfortunately, you have to cut through a lot of red tape to get your CBD brand and products noticed. Worst of all – a lot of ad networks completely forbid CBD advertisements. The reality is that launching a CBD business can be exceptionally difficult, given that many people are still uneducated about the differences between CBD and marijuana, and there is a lack of information available.
As such, we cannot emphasise enough how important it is to market your CBD brand and products successfully. CBD marketing is much trickier than marketing so-called ‘regular’ products such as books or electronics, and there are many pitfalls you need to be aware of. You have to stay informed and up-to-date with all the regulatory changes that come into effect if you want to have a successful CBD business.
Fortunately, if you succeed with your CBD marketing, your business will almost certainly go from strength to strength.
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You need to work hard to make your brand stand out from the rest if you want to make your mark in the industry.
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A sure-fire approach to doing this is by collaborating with a top cannabis digital marketing company in UK to help develop informative and engaging content for your target market. One of the leading digital marketing firms in the CBD industry is ORH Marketing. With almost ten years of experience in CBD-focused marketing and digital marketing, they are better equipped than others to identify the numerous pitfalls in this developing industry, and are one of the top CBD marketing agency in UK and Ireland.
ORH Marketing can give your CBD brand the push it needs, whether you’re just getting started or hoping to grow it. If you’re interested in getting the help and expertise of ORH Marketing, get in touch with them right away.
The difficulties of CBD marketing
Despite rising public awareness about CBD and a better legal environment, there are still many challenges you will face when marketing your CBD brand and products, such as:
- Brand differentiation
- Knowing your target market
- Lack of education
- Payment issues
- Restrictive laws
- Saturated market
- Using the right words
Let’s look at these challenges in greater detail.
Brand differentiation
With the various potential benefits of CBD, many brands advertise their CBD products as being able to help address the symptoms of almost any condition. Instead of concentrating on pain, insomnia or anxiety, most brands sell similar products that promise to do it all, from helping ease symptoms of anxiety to improving quality of sleep. Very few, concentrate on one specific angle. This makes it difficult for newcomers to determine brand fit and what position they should take.
The best thing you can do for your brand is to prioritise a solution. To promote your CBD brand effectively, you must find the right fit. For example, if you are selling CBD oil, concentrate on it as being beneficial for one specific thing, such as to help improve quality of sleep or help support overall wellness. Don’t make it a panacea for all concerns or conditions. You need to target specific benefits to stand out and get more attention than your competitors. Else, you will be just like everyone else.
Knowing your target market
It can be difficult figuring out who your target market is, especially with all the confusion still surrounding CBD and its usage. You need to ask the right questions in order to build an effective targeting strategy.
Factors to consider when deciding on your target market:
- Ailments to address
- Age
- Background
- Education level
- Ethnicity
- Gender
- Geographic location
- Income level
- Marital status
- Religion
Getting answers to these questions can help you develop a successful CBD marketing strategy for your business.
Lack of education
Although CBD is more understood and popular than ever, it is still a source of uncertainty, which makes it challenging to market and sell CBD. Many people are still unaware that certain CBD products are legal and safe to use, and are unsure as to the benefits of the cannabinoid. Some are scared it will get them high and still associate it with drug culture, as CBD is related to hemp and marijuana.
While research into CBD’s potential benefits and effects is increasing, there is still a long way to go regarding CBD education. However, instead of feeling disheartened, you should use this as an opportunity for your brand to engage with the public and educate them. The more you inform, the more people will realise the potential benefits they are missing out on. Basically, education = more customers.
Payment issues
CBD businesses experience unique difficulties concerning payment processing. Because of the uncertainty surrounding the legality of CBD, many financial institutions will not do business with CBD-related enterprises. They see CBD companies as ‘high risk’ because of the chance that regulations governing CBD could change, and false public perceptions could harm a company’s brand.
Fortunately, there are a few financial institutions and merchant services that are willing to work with ‘high risk’ businesses such as those in the CBD industry. One example is LumiPay, an up-and-coming merchant processing service that focuses on “high-risk” industries.
Restrictive laws
Although the cannabis market is expanding, strict regulations dictate how brands can market CBD products. Your CBD marketing strategy must abide by stringent laws and regulations.
Find out if Delta 8 THC is Legal.
You must exercise extreme caution when creating marketing copy and other content for your brand. Ensure you comply with the following:
- Follow the guidelines set out by the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act)
- Refrain from making any unfounded claims about your CBD business or products
- Ensure that any statements you make are supported by concrete evidence
- Don’t make any medical claims without credible and pertinent medical advice
What you say is especially important, and you need to ensure you toe the line with what you say. To avoid potential repercussions, avoid the following:
- Advising treatments
- Displaying consumption
- Guarantees
- Making medical claims
- Targetting minors
While there is more to the list, these are the most important ones to keep in mind when marketing CBD.
You can learn more about CBD laws and regulations from our blog: Is CBD legal in UK? The CBD Oil UK law explained or learn more if or not if weed is legal in the UK.
Saturated market
Due to the CBD industry being largely unregulated, practically anyone can enter the market. The industry is expected to grow to such an extent that only those with the best business and marketing strategies will survive the intense competition as the industry gets oversaturated.
To ensure that your business succeeds in this fiercely competitive industry, you need to outperform your competitors with a strong marketing plan.
Best marketing strategies for marketing CBD online
Time to get down to the nitty-gritty – how to market CBD online. You can use many digital marketing strategies, both online and offline, to promote CBD. However, this takes time and effort.
Learn how to successfully market CBD online by using the following strategies listed below.
Do your research
Before implementing your CBD marketing plan, it is essential to conduct thorough research, especially concerning your target market, competitors and regulations.
Establishing your target market should be the first step in your CBD marketing strategy. You need to do your research in order to recognise their wants and needs and provide them with products that will fulfil them.
Secondly, you need to research your competitors. Many companies sell CBD products, and you can gain insights by studying their marketing tactics. See what they do and how they do it, then ensure your brand does it better.
Lastly, you always need to do your research to make sure you stay up to date with any changes that come into effect regarding the laws and regulations surrounding CBD and CBD marketing. They constantly change, and what is legal one day may be strictly regulated the next.
Prioritise SEO marketing for CBD
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is arguably one of the most natural ways to establish your brand on the Internet. Although you may not want to spend more money, hiring an SEO specialist is your best bet, as SEO can be challenging to implement. Fortunately, the cost is typically far lower than it is for other forms of advertising.
By using effective SEO strategies, you will establish yourself as a respected thought leader in the evolving industry and make it easier for web users to find your site when they are searching online. Customers can find you more readily if your sites are optimised for Google searches, and brands that rank well on search engine results pages (SERPs) have authority. SEO helps your content appear on page 1 of search results that are relevant to you. This is extremely important for brand visibility and sales, as people rarely go beyond page 1.
How to ensure you implement SEO successfully
If you want your content to show up when web users search terms related to your CBD brand, the content on your website needs to be optimised with a solid SEO keyword strategy.
If you are unsure where to start with SEO, begin by auditing your website and making the necessary changes. Here are some steps you can take when performing an SEO audit:
- Ensure your keywords are correct and relevant
- Check that your content ranks for specific keywords
- Test how fast your website loads
- Use keyword phrases in your titles, tags, images and alt-tags
- Include backlinks from reputable sites in your content
- Include relevant internal links in your content
- Publish engaging, trending content on your blog
- Ensure your site uses HTTPS
- Compare your ranking with that of your competitors
- Check redirects
- Fix broken links
This list is by no means exhaustive, and there is so much more to successfully implementing SEO. While it is a never-ending process, it is totally worth it. When SEO is done correctly, you will see excellent results.
Use social media
For most businesses, using social media marketing is a walk in the park. However, this is not the case for CBD businesses. Although your CBD brand can have an account on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, most online platforms don’t allow CBD advertising, and there are so many rules and regulations you must abide by. Social media networks are continually experimenting and refining their CBD advertising guidelines. So far, Facebook has loosened its rules on CBD advertising, but this could change, as is so typical when it comes to CBD.
You have to keep up with social media platform legislation to ensure you aren’t breaking any rules that could lead to your account getting restricted or banned. While it is challenging to avoid such pitfalls, adopting best practices will help your business succeed on social media and keep you in line with restrictions.
Create new content
There are various ways to promote your CBD products and draw customers into your brand’s experience and story without having to use paid ad campaigns. One such method is by creating content.
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Content is king, and you need to ensure that what you put out there is high quality, relevant, engaging and original. Publishing shoddy content could lose users’ trust and badly damage your brand.
Creating blogs with SEO content is arguably the best content marketing strategy. SEO and content creation go hand in hand and can play a huge part in how high your website ranks in search results. In fact, simply publishing a relevant blog post that is aimed at your target audience in place of paid ads could get your content to rank well. To continue ranking high, add relevant keywords throughout your content to ensure that search engines can quickly find your brand and products.
Visit trade shows
Attending CBD trade shows are golden opportunities that you don’t want to miss. They can help you learn more about your competitors and give you a chance to network with key industry players, meet new people and even find investors. You also have the opportunity to showcase what your brand has to offer and get your name out there via word of mouth.
To find out what’s happening in and around you throughout the year, keep an eye on our Global cannabis and CBD event calendar.
Create an affiliate network
With affiliate marketing, a company pays an affiliate for each visitor or customer they bring in as a result of the affiliate’s marketing efforts. Affiliate marketers help spread the word about your product to the world without you having to do anything.
Affiliate marketing is a low-risk and less expensive strategy to promote your CBD company because affiliate rewards are performance-based. Additionally, a CBD affiliate scheme enables you to reach a broader audience.
Collaborate with related brands
A brand collaboration is when two or more companies work together to develop a product or campaign that will mutually benefit them. Collaborations with other well-known businesses could generate positive media coverage for your brand and is an excellent way to attract a wider audience. Other benefits include:
- Boosting sales
- Discovering new content
- Engaging with audience
- Saving money on advertising
- Gaining social media followers
Collaborating with other brands will boost your reach and promote your brand. It is an excellent strategy to get your name out there and grow as a business.
Use influencers
Since most online platforms do not allow CBD advertising, it can be tricky to build brand awareness on social media. Fortunately, getting influencers to speak about your brand and products is legal, as they are not considered advertisers. But what exactly are they?
An influencer is a person with a huge social media following who has power over your target audience. To choose the right influencer to promote your brand, you need to select someone who is reliable and has an interest in your brand. While larger influencers have their benefits, niche ones have a more engaged audience, which will provide a greater result.
Currently, collaborating with an influencer is the only way to promote your business and products on social media. Including influencers in your marketing strategy is a way to enhance your brand’s credibility and allows you to share content whenever you want, which will lead to an increase in sales.
Don’t neglect email marketing
Email marketing has been around since companies first began using online marketing. But just because it’s one of the oldest forms of online marketing doesn’t mean you should disregard it. There is a reason it has been around for so long.
Since there are various restrictions on CBD advertising, email marketing is a great way to reach out to customers without liability. It allows brands to contact their audience directly and keep them engaged and interested. It is also much cheaper than other marketing channels.
Email marketing remains the most lucrative and yields the best results compared to other marketing channels. A simple newsletter containing a coupon or deal effectively spreads the word about your products and improves customer relationships.
Develop an engaging website
An engaging website is the foundation of your brand’s presence online, so you must design it well.
Everything on your website should appeal to your target market, from the graphics to the content, and must be informative. Use it as an opportunity to tell your audience more about your brand and products, while also educating them. CBD is still quite misunderstood, so you need to ensure you are using your website to educate and answer questions about the cannabinoid, such as the potential benefits, side effects and legality of CBD.
It is crucial that your website has an on-brand design with clear and attractive graphics. It also needs to be simple to use, with an e-commerce feature for customers that want to buy directly from your website and have their purchases delivered straight to their homes.
If you don’t have the knowledge or resources to create a website, simply use a website builder. These platforms allow you to create professional, optimised websites without you having to know any coding or design. Alternatively, you can hire someone to develop the website for you. Whatever you choose, make sure your website is a masterpiece that effectively targets and informs your audience.
Measure results
To keep track of your CBD marketing campaign’s development and evaluate its success, you need web analytics tools. This allows you to judge whether your efforts are successful and whether you are spending your time and money wisely.
It’s encouraging if you see positive results after implementing CBD marketing methods. This proves your strategies are effective. However, if you see negative results, you may need to change up your strategy.
Key takeaways
The CBD market is becoming fiercely competitive as more players enter the game. If you want your business to survive and thrive in such a climate, you need to ensure you have a solid marketing strategy. In the end, taking the proper steps and having a strong marketing strategy will help your brand connect with your target market and have it stand head and shoulders above the rest.
You may also like our article: How to start a CBD business?
