Another year has flown by, and it’s already time for the 2024 EMJAYs! We’re still soaking in the gratitude from last year’s win, and we’ve just found out that we’re nominated once again for Marketing Agency of the Year! We’re up against some seriously great agencies that are a crucial part of the cannabis community, so we’re eager to show you why we are worthy of your vote!
We’ve put together some of our highlights to show why we deserve to go for the repeat. Thank you in advance for taking the time to learn more about who we are and what we love to do.
Puf’s Powerhouse Team and Data-Powered Success
What started as 3 equal co-founders has now grown 10 fold, with a roster of 31 incredibly talented and dedicated team members. Our fully remote team maintains ironclad communication and even makes time to connect with each other on a personal level, from silly get-to-know-you games to collaborating on themed Spotify playlists.
In the last year, we’ve added four new services that are seriously paying off for our clients, and they’re loving it as much as we are:
Paid Social Media and Google Ads
PufCreativ now offers comprehensive paid search and social media advertising on platforms like Instagram and Google. We design compliant social media and landing pages to boost traffic while keeping our clients’ organic reach safe. If any ads are taken down, we’ve got backup plans to minimize downtime.
Running online ads in the cannabis industry is tricky because of all the restrictions, but we’ve spent years researching the safest and most effective ways to execute ads on these platforms. We also execute a ton of branding, website, SEO, social media marketing, and strategy for our clients, so both Google and META have put the icing on the cake in terms of making campaigns successful and boosting revenue.
Loyalty Programs
We’ve added a comprehensive loyalty and points program through both Alpine IQ and Springbig designed to drive opt-ins, customer retention, and win-back campaigns for our clients. Our approach keeps dispensaries on customers’ minds without overwhelming them:
- Targeted Treats: We segment customer audiences to send targeted incentives, like focusing on edibles for customers who have only purchased edibles, to maximize the chances of bringing them back to the store.
- Tailored Touch: Weekly, personalized messages have driven impressive results for our retail clients. By crafting communication based on past purchases and preferences, we keep customers engaged and coming back, while most of all putting customers first.
Even though we were increasing customer acquisition and traffic to websites/stores, we noticed that clients either didn’t have…
- A customer retention strategy in place
OR
- Were not executing the strategy properly
Most of the time, they had one person sending an email and text weekly or monthly. We have a team of 6-8 humans working on each loyalty program per client to make sure that our clients (and their loyal customers) are getting the most out of these programs.
Turning Numbers into Growth: A Six-Month Success Story
In just six months, we helped an NJ client grow their loyalty list by 35%, increase loyalty revenue by 480%, and win back 621 customers, adding over $89,640 in recovered revenue.
Linking Up for Success: The Power of Backlinks
We’ve been giving our clients’ online presence a boost by creating high-quality backlinks that drive traffic and significantly improve search engine rankings. Here’s what you need to know:
- Backlinking is the practice of getting other websites to link back to yours, which helps boost your site’s authority, improves search engine rankings, and increases traffic.
- Link building is one of the fastest ways to enhance SEO domain authority, and our team strategically secures backlinks from authoritative cannabis industry sites.
- By increasing domain authority and visibility, our link-building services help attract more customers to our clients’ businesses.
We added this service to our Public Relations package because we found that clients were paying for links that didn’t actually drive relevant traffic or came from spammy sites. With the new algorithm updates, this ended up hurting clients in the long term. Also, not everyone has a budget for PR or enough going on to justify it. So, on top of our PR offering, we decided to launch a backlinking service that’s effective, affordable, and drives relevant traffic from high-domain authority sites.
Native eCommerce Integrations
As the cannabis industry keeps pushing the tech boundaries, we’re right there moving forward with it. With so many e-commerce providers opening up their APIs to support native e-commerce for their menus, we’ve built a solution that plays nicely with all the big names. That way, we can track revenue from both organic and paid channels down to the product level, and then use this detailed data to fine-tune our marketing strategies and make smart, specific adjustments for our clients.
Building Momentum from the Inside Out
So with all this buzz, why haven’t you heard from us?
With all of the exciting things happening this year, you’d think we’d be shouting it from the rooftops. But that’s just not how we roll. We’ve got some major momentum right now, so instead of turning outwards, we decided to turn inward:
- PufCreativ has been hyper-focused on how to best support our team while we ride this wave together. Specifically, we’ve been making big changes to our organizational culture, learning how we can best operate as a team, and making sure we’re cranking out nothing but heat for our clients.
- With all of this focus on our internal growth, we’re honing in on exactly what allows us to deliver next-level creativity and results. By fostering a strong, supportive culture within our team, we’re setting the stage for even more innovation and collaboration.
The goal is to continue pushing boundaries and making sure every project we touch is on fire. Because we know when our team thrives, our clients do too.
The Power of Community
Aside from running our business and supporting our clients, giving back to the community and making the world a better place is a top priority for us. We’ve raised over half a million dollars for nonprofits across the country through events and marketing campaigns, and we’ve been fortunate enough to co-found several impactful organizations.
- Companies Doing Good: A consulting community and educational platform dedicated to building a racially just, planet-loving, people-centered cannabis industry.
- Cannabis Impact Fund: A nonprofit rooted in racial justice, environmental sustainability, and community engagement.
- Cannabis Creative Movement: An educational guidebook series designed to highlight important issues while raising funds for nonprofits addressing those very concerns.
Supporting Entrepreneurs and Creatives
This year, we’ve been looking for tangible ways to give back to our community. One of the biggest ways we’ve been doing this is by choosing beneficiaries for our services.
- ButACake: We gifted a dope website to ButACake, the first (and only) independent woman- and minority-owned edibles company in New Jersey. Since then, we’ve developed a great relationship with owner Matha Figaro, and we continue to support her throughout her journey.
- Fat Nugs Magazine: We’ve been providing discounted and pro bono services for Fat Nugs Magazine, a fully independent publication committed to capturing cannabis culture in its most authentic form. The team’s dedication to their motto, “Cannabis Culture Welcomes All,” is an inspiring reminder of the cannabis community’s inclusive, diverse nature. It’s been an incredible opportunity to amplify voices that celebrate the heart of cannabis culture and contribute to something that aligns with our own values of authenticity and inclusivity.
Events with Purpose: Play. Party. Purify.
If you’re headed to Vegas for MJBiz, you’ll be able to take part in one of our biggest initiatives: Play. Party. Purify. Events with a Purpose. We’re hosting three events throughout the conference:
- A pickleball tournament
- A cannabis brand showdown
- A sound healing brunch
All of these events support the Cannabis Impact Fund, the Last Prisoner Project, and other grassroots organizations.
Empowering Our Clients to Build Community
The final key to building community is encouraging others to do the same. We’ve supported our clients in creating their own community outreach programs for causes that are close to their own hearts. So in addition to our own efforts, we’ve helped our clients create community outreach programs:
- Pecos Valley Production’s charity events throughout the year.
- Shore House Canna’s beach clean-ups and local initiative to create cannabis-friendly locations for tourists
- Peake ReLeafs advocacy for the LGBTQ+ community and Black Lives Matter.
The cannabis industry is relatively small but growing quickly, and the best way for us all to move forward is to create a community that uplifts and supports each other. Let’s keep sharing knowledge, resources, and opportunities to help shape a future where everyone in the industry thrives. Collaboration over competition allows us to build a stronger, more sustainable cannabis culture — one that’s made for businesses, consumers, and advocates.
Vote for PufCreativ for Marketing Agency of the Year at the EMJAYs!
If you’re feeling moved by our words, you can click this link and send in your vote. Once you’ve entered your email the first time, it’ll only take you a few seconds to vote for us on subsequent days (if you’re feeling extra motivated). Either way, we are so grateful for your interest and support. Hope to see you in Vegas!