How To Establish a Strong Cannabis Brand Identity
The cannabis market is growing – and you’re going to need to stand out and establish a good reputation. So where do you start? Aside from the product itself, you’ll need to consider your marketing tactics in accordance with the rules and regulations of the state/country you’re selling in. There’s a lot to consider, but hopefully, this guide can give you some useful tips to help you establish your cannabis brand identity.
1) Consider Your Product and Your Audience
There are lots of cannabis products out there, what is going to make yours special? As a general rule, it’s better to niche to an audience rather than create another generalized product that has to compete with all the others on the market. Effectively, what is your Unique Selling Point (USP)? Think about your audience, their ages, needs, and jobs. From there, you should be able to come up with an effective marketing strategy from design to online presence. For example, it’s not a good idea to try and sell cannabis-infused candy to the elderly with social media being your primary marketing platform.
2) Know Your Rules, Regulations, and Restrictions
Rules and restrictions don’t just apply to the product itself, but also to the packaging you design. You’ll need to carefully think about what you can do with your packaging to stand out against your competitors. Not only this but keeping up to date with rules will enforce your knowledge and reassure your customers that you know what you’re doing – prompting them to continue to buy your product because they trust you. Reputation is important to brand identity!
3) Branding
This is a vital step to creating a successful brand identity. You might want to consider hiring a professional designer to help you with this and encourage maximum visibility for your product. The designer will be able to come up with a logo, color scheme and fonts for you to use in your branding toolkit. Make sure to inform them of your restrictions though. You should always keep your branding consistent and stick to the toolkit to establish a cohesive cannabis identity. If you keep changing your design, customers will get confused!
4) Start an Online Presence
Create an appealing website, and regularly use social media too. This will attract new customers and show that you know what you’re talking about. Creating a blog will demonstrate that you have the knowledge and help with your SEO and boost your business on search results pages. The higher up you are on Google, the more people will trust your brand. Social media can also help your brand identity and build a rapport with customers and competitors.
5) Get Out There!
You can pay lots for a beautiful branding design, but if nobody’s going to see it – what’s the point? Many businesses fail because they lack the drive to go out and network, or to be risky on social media. To establish your identity, you need to push through. Attend conferences, attract investors, make TikToks and social media posts according to your brand strategy, and set up a mailing list. Word of mouth recommendations are a powerful tool, talk to as many people as you can in the beginning and let them advocate for you.
It is important to note that cannabis is still a violation of Facebook/Instagram's community guidelines. it will be very difficult to directly market cannabis online. It is up to you to find innovative and indirect ways of reaching your target audience such as censoring, content marketing or just focusing on guerrilla marketing altogether
At PACKAGEWEA, we have been crafting some of the top brands in the cannabis industry by ensuring the highest quality product designs and the finest quality of packaging to bring out the best in your brand. If you’d like a free consultation for your business, do not hesitate to get in contact!
