It’s 2020, and in our modern digital world, it seems there’s a new CBD or hemp brand popping up everyday. Unfortunately, there are also CBD brands out there not being transparent with their lab testing while also selling products without actual hemp extract or CBD in them. Both of these factors can cause confusion for consumers exploring the hemp space and businesses that acquire hemp-related products to sell in their stores.
First, it’s important to know the difference between hemp seed oil and CBD oil, and that we’re using both keywords in this blog for SEO keyword intentions. Below you will find 6 CBD marketing tips to help brands succeed in the competitive hemp industry:
Hemp Products
Before a marketing campaign even starts, it all boils down to the products themselves. Because hemp products are becoming more accepted as health and wellness “must haves”, it’s important that the ingredients in the products being marketed are of the utmost quality. It’s also important for those ingredients to be unique, so the product is distinguished from others. It’s way easier to market and gain the attention of a consumer or business with a unique product offering.
CBD Branding
How many times have you seen CBD branding that’s green and/or has a hemp leaf on it? As major players in the industry like Charlotte’s Web and Pure Kana continue to innovate and dominate both the B2B and B2C landscapes, brands are forced to have clean, consistent, creative, friendly and digestible branding. On top of quality ingredients, as well as the creative and design aspect to the branding, there needs to be a brand story, messaging and strategy that truly resonates with the target markets. We like to take care of the branding foundation during our brand discovery and creative direction phases of the logo design, brand identity and brand book process.
Hemp Packaging
It’s important that the branding translates into the packaging. Until we are in touch with the packaging company, we’ll typically create mock-ups of potential packaging for the brand book, so clients can use them for early-on investor or sales efforts. At any point in the life cycle of a project, packaging design and functionality is important to both users and businesses. Both will make purchases based on the packaging alone. If users are not happy with the packaging functionality and information presented on the packaging, they may refrain from purchasing it.
CBD Website Design and Development
Not only is your website a key ingredient to your marketing platform because it brings your entire look, feel, vibe and story together, but it also can be utilized for CBD e-commerce. Your website can be an easy place for both consumers and wholesalers to purchase products. Then, all of that data is easily trackable and translated into future marketing strategies like CRM integrations, email campaigns, and influencer strategies.
CBD Influencers Strategy
It’s great to involve influencers into your CBD marketing strategy because they can help with brand exposure, growing your social media accounts and generating sales.
Micro
Starting with a smaller budget and some micro influencers can be a great thing. Sometimes, micro influencers have more niche and loyal followings than macro influencers. Instead of wasting time or money, you can cast a wide net and then learn from tracking the influencers’ work to see the demographic of macro-influencers in which you want to invest.
Macro
Investing in macro influencers is always best when being as strategic as possible. Even an influencer with over a million followers may not produce an ROI. With the right content, timeline and defined deliverables, a macro influencer campaign can generate a substantial ROI for a CBD brand.
Hemp Marketing and Sales Strategy
Organic
If a hemp brand has done things right, up to the point of the launch, your internal sales and marketing team can generate some substantial organic growth by creating an alignment between the sales and marketing efforts. An example would be targeting the b2c and b2b marketing to a specific location, before and after a sales effort is made.
Paid
It can be beneficial to put your ad budget into some targeted ads, influencers, paid partnerships and PR for a launch. We’ve seen success when applying organic data to a safe ad campaign by setting up a safe URL and alternate social media profiles. Ultimately, ads perform best when the branding, social media, SEO, influencers, email marketing, website, and sales are functioning optimally and cohesively.
Will Carr
Will Carr is the Founder of PufCreativ clients Genesee Nutrition and Sunrise Supplements. Will has been through the ups and downs of the hemp industry, but has always remained realistic about his budget, expectations and strategy. We currently provide content creation, SEO, hosting and consulting services for Will’s brands.
Both Genesee and Sunrise offer products that have quality ingredients, that are well branded, have great packaging, and solid marketing considering his budget and current situation. I recently did a podcast with Will that goes through his story, what it’s like navigating the hemp industry in 2020, and how he’s handling having almost $75k worth of product mistakenly sold on Amazon!
Listen to the full podcast on all major streams:
Anchor: Anchor.fm/john-shute/episodes/Will-Carr-The-Hemp-Industry–Entrepreneurship–Inspiration-ei555c
Spotify: Spotify.com/episode/3pi3G0OJPBPrjqmoy8TsD3?si=EZAxSWNzSL-9o8kdz5AFtQ
Apple Podcasts: Podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/will-carr-the-hemp-industry-entrepreneurship-inspiration/id1351101015?i=1000488185175
Follow Will Carr on social media:
Instagram: Instagram.com/willcarrspeaks/
LinkedIn: Linkedin.com/in/willcarrspeak/