In most states, in order to submit your application, you’ll need:
Retail Location
Identified Partners
Completed Branding
Website (we can get yours up and running in 1-2 days!)
Considering all of these factors, there are a lot of important decisions to make on top of all the other application requirements before your operation has made any revenue, let alone being approved for your license.
Here are some of thoughts on the best approach to take from a cannabis retail marketing perspective as you go through your application process:
Location, Location, Location (from the real estate world, trite but true).
Your location is one of the most important aspects of any cannabis retail project. In most states, you’ll need a locally approved retail location that you own or are actively renting. It also has to meet a number of security, parking, and various other additional requirements before you submit your application to the state.
Ideally, people pick locations that are conveniently located, have great parking and heavy foot traffic, and/or are around municipalities that did not approve cannabis sales. Understanding your location, the surrounding locations, as well as your direct competition and your target customers is all critical to your overall cannabis retail marketing strategy.
Utilizing this key information — even as early as during your application process — will pay off in the long term for your branding, website traffic, social media, PR, and advertising.
Identifying Your Partners
Secondly, in most states, you’ll need to identify your partners in your application submission. This naturally puts a lot of pressure on retail owners. Because there are so many other aspects to the retail application – partnership decisions sometimes don’t get the proper emphasis they rightfully deserve.
Looking to make your efforts pay off in the long term? Here are some things that you should consider (or in some cases that may be required) putting time into during your application process:
Marketing Partners
Talk to any expert and they’ll tell you: the cannabis industry is unlike any other industry in recorded history. Whether you have no marketing personnel on your team whatsoever, a marketing director who desperately needs help, or an entire in-house marketing team that just can’t seem to get it all done properly, your cannabis marketing partner is therefore a very important decision.
Your cannabis marketing partner should:
Know your market.
Understand the ins-and-outs of the cannabis industry, from seed-to-sale.
Understand how compliance works – state-to-state, federally, and globally.
Have the right partnerships in place.
Offer all the quality and agile services you’ll require to be successful.
All of the above-mentioned can and will make all the difference for your cannabis retail operation.
We’re able to set up the foundation of your entire marketing platform.
Here’s an example of an engagement with a retailer who is just starting:
Phase 1
Corporate Brand and/or Marketing Strategy
Naming
Trademark
Logo Design
Brand Book
Brand Identity
Packaging Design
Interior & Exterior Design Concepts
Phase 2
Custom Website Design & Development
Custom Mobile App Design & Development
Corporate Brand and/or Marketing Strategy Continued
Phase 3
Website Hosting & Maintenance
SEO
Social media
PR
Photo & video
Animation
Graphic Design (Digital & Print)
Blogging
PPC
Consulting
Tech Partners
Who you choose as your tech partners early in your process is a vital decision that many don’t put enough time into making. As a retailer you want to choose tech partners who will fit your business plan and financial model, however, they should also seamlessly align with your workflow, operations, and long-term goals.
A majority of transactions we see take place in the cannabis space happen online, first. While you’re dialing in your POS and online ordering partner, it would also be smart to identify which cannabis customer relationship management and loyalty partner is right for you. It’d be great to choose someone who integrates with your POS, online ordering, and other areas of your tech stack so you can align all of your data to make informed marketing, advertising, and business decisions.
Getting your customers through the door is one thing, but retaining your customers, creating loyalty/trust, and capturing attention is a whole other story.
Excute Your Initial Marketing Efforts
Next, although you haven’t opened your doors or generated any revenue yet, you’ll still need to execute some initial marketing initiatives for your application. This is also important in order to ensure the success of your grand opening and future marketing efforts.
Here are some marketing initiatives we suggest putting time and resources into during your application process:
Branding
Your logo design and branding are the first thing people see when they come across your business in person or online. It defines who you are, tells your story, and can give you a competitive edge. Here’s an approach to consider when branding your cannabis retail or dispensary location:
Target Demographics
Now that you understand your location, it would be smart to identify your target demographics. The name you choose for your business, the logo design, packaging messaging, etc. should all resonate and align with your target demographics.
Brand Identity & Messaging
Now that you understand your location and target demographic, it’s time to tell your story. It’s smart to have a tagline, mission statement, vision statement, as well as an introduction to the brand and brand vibe. This can help you come up with your name, logo, investor decks, website and other marketing essentials.
We encourage all of our clients to infuse community, sustainability, and social justice into their brand identity.
Name Selection, Trademark & Digital Assets Security
Once you identify your target demographic, it’d be great to choose a name that resonates with them and your story. Identifying that the name you chose also isn’t trademarked, and has a domain and social media handles available is always great to handle early on (to avoid the long-term risk/frustration associated with having to rebrand).
Logo Design
Your logo is the first thing people see. It should resonate with your location, target demographic, story, name and brand identity. We always suggest clean, simple logos that don’t scream, “cannabis.” This helps retailers to easily integrate into communities, especially communities that still suffer from the stigma of marijuana (in addition to avoiding the long term issues of having to rebrand).
The logo, colors, and fonts you choose can be used for all of the marketing assets you’ll need for your application, letterheads, business cards, website, and investor decks.
Retail, Packaging & Swag Concepts
Although you may not need these concepts, they do bring value to your efforts for a number of reasons. Especially regarding an Investor Deck – The more your investors can see your vision through renders of your retail space, packaging and swag concepts, the more likely they’ll invest.
Brand Book
Now that you’ve dialed in your target demo, mission, vision, messaging, logo, colors, fonts, etc., it’s smart to bring it all together into a singular brand book. That way, anyone who touches your marketing, design, website, PR, ads, etc. knows exactly what the rules and ethos behind your brand are because they’re all in one place.
Plus, this asset is great to share with investors, partners, consumers, etc.
Website
Although we currently just have a landing page, the sooner you have a full website with content for search engines to index, the better off you are in the long run. Our clients who launched their sites and SEO program very early before opening have all had successful retail launches and continue to see great results!
That being said, the mentality is: as soon as you can realistically start those lifecycles for your business model, the better. Not everyone is in the same situation.
Social Media
If you’re going to have a landing page or website url, you might as well have a social media profile. Your website and social media are the first place folks go to learn more about your brand. The sooner you have these up, the sooner you can start collecting followers and data, popping up in searches, etc. Social media is a great free tool to start with.
PR
Finally, it is likely PR may be the last thing on your mind at this point, but it’s definitely something worth putting some time into. Identifying a PR partner and becoming friendly with local, state, and national media outlets will help your business gain credibility and trust.
PR is also a great way to build backlinks from high domain authority sites which improve your SEO. For example, every site backlinked in this article is benefiting from Marketthebud.com domain authority. We do PR for certain clients who are a perfect fit.
What should you do after you submit your cannabis retail application?
Now you sit and wait for the real fun to start! Our motto is, “All Things Green,” when it comes to everything in the cannabis space, but also with our dispensary. No one has any clue how long it will take to get approved. But making sure you follow all required steps is a solid plan..
Marketbud.com: Always Helping to Guide You in the Right Direction For All Things Green
Everyone is in a different situation with their brand/intentions, every state has a different application process and there are a number of partners you can choose from in the exponentially expanding (now global) cannabis industry.
If you have any questions, always feel free to reach out to us at grow@marketthebud.com so we can get started. This blog's intention is to offer the best approaches to cannabis marketing for retailers, brands, cultivators, manufacturers, and ancillary businesses.