The Dos and Don’ts of

Marketing for the Cannabis

Industry

2022
The cannabis industry has seen explosive growth and unprecedented change
over the past few years. Exponential growth in the industry continues with no
end in sight. In fact, the US market is conservatively expected to double to
$41.5 billion by 2025.
While the industry continues its meteoric climb, many cannabis companies
are searching for ways to be more operationally efficient as they scale ever-
expanding enterprises. By teaming up with vertical business vendors that
oversee production and processing, cannabis brands can boost their
productivity, cut sales costs, and ensure quality control.
For companies looking to break into the cannabis market, particularly B2B
companies that sell farming technology, lighting, fertilizer, and other growing
and processing equipment, now is the optimal time to market your services—
but make sure you do it right. It’s a Goldrush out there, but it’s a gold rush
laden with conflict, government restrictions, guidelines, and penalties to get
tripped up on (we’ll discuss this in more detail later).
In an industry where change is the only given, how do you do it right? We’re
here to provide some insight from our experiences working within the
industry. So without further ado, here are our dos and don’t of marketing for
the cannabis industry.
Table of Contents
1. The Dos of Cannabis Marketing
1. Audit Your Foundation
2. Map Content to Sales Stage
3. Amplify Your Message
1. Cannabis Social Media Marketing
2. Work With Cannabis Social Influencers
3. Email for Cannabis Marketing
4. Cultivate Media Coverage
2. The Don’ts of Marketing Cannabis
1. Don’t Overlook Your Branding & Public Image
2. Don’t Fall Behind on Ever-Changing Regulations
3. Don’t Lie or Over-Exaggerate
4. Don’t Blend in With the Crowd
3. The Current State of Cannabis Marketing
1. The Public Is on Our Side
2. But Not Everyone is Convinced
3. The Legal Stuff: What Do You Need to Know?
1. State Laws
2. Cannabis Marketing – Federal Laws
4. Cannabis Marketing – Let’s Get Started

The Dos of Cannabis Marketing

1. Audit Your Foundation
First thing’s first: how prepared is your business? You cannot build your
marketing efforts without a solid foundation to fall back on. Does your
website speak to your audience and support their buying journey? Is your
team equipped to follow up with any leads you gain through your marketing
efforts? This is the most important step, so don’t skip it. Take these steps to
effectively audit your foundation:
Assess your website. Does the design reflect who your brand is today?
More than that, is it usable across all devices? Optimized for search
engines? You want to ensure that people find your website when they’re
searching for the solutions you offer—but your website must capture their
attention once they’ve found you.
Capture leads. Bringing visitors to your site is one thing, but what happens
next? If you don’t capture their contact information, they may leave without
you ever knowing they were there in the first place. Add relevant, impactful
call to action statements throughout your site. These should encourage
visitors to take the next step in their buying journey. You might provide high
value content that they will be willing to trade their contact information for
or encourage them to book a meeting with a business specialist.
Keep your contacts organized. When new high-value leads come in
through your website, what happens next? Are they saved to a CRM? The
right tool will help you organize your contacts and take further steps to
guide them through their journey.
With a solid foundation, you can be sure that your team is prepared not only
to bring in new leads, but to follow up on them and guide them toward a
buying decision.

2. Map Content to Sales Stage

Educating your audience means building credibility and consistently providing
value. What better way to achieve this than with smart, consistent, and
reliable content marketing?
Content marketing can boost your SEO, generate new leads, and establish
authority in your particular space.
Engaging content can come in many different forms, including blog posts,
case studies, ebooks and whitepapers, podcasts, webinars, videos, and
much more. But while you have options, it’s important that you approach
content marketing in a strategic way. The best way to do this is to analyze
your funnel. Start at the bottom and work your way up, making sure you have
relevant, timely content aimed at prospects at each stage in the funnel.
Bottom of the funnel. It’s tempting to start at the top and focus on the
information that will bring people to your site. But if you don’t have content
aimed at the bottom of the funnel, it’s unlikely that anyone will convert. Put
your target persona hat on and visit your website. Does the website have
essential content that your target customer needs to make the decision to
work with you? Examples include: request a consultation, live demos, quote
requests, published pricing information. Remember, today’s modern buyer
prefers to find this information online before engaging with a sales team
member. Make it easy for them.
Middle of the funnel. What content do you have to offer prospects who are
on your site and considering their options? You’ll want to support them with
plenty of content that will help them compare your solution to others. This
might include product or solution-focused, whitepapers and webinars,
demo videos, product catalogs, free samples, or customer testimonials.
Top of the funnel. Now that you have the necessary content to bring leads
through the funnel and convert them into customers, you can focus on how
you’ll get them to visit your site. Consider the questions that people are
asking within the B2B cannabis space. What can you help with? Once
you’ve identified the questions your prospects are asking, it’s time to create
the content that will speak to them and draw them to your website. This
may include blogs, vlogs, video product demonstrations, and more. Think
 about your prospects and the information that will be most valuable to
them.
Identify the content that your ideal fit buyers are looking for online and use
that information to create a prioritized content calendar. Keep the buyer’s
journey in mind to create targeted content that answers all of your prospects’
questions.

Need an example of a business doing it right? Illumitex is a company

that offers LED solutions for growing plants. They use various forms
of content marketing on their site to promote their services. Their
blog debunks common myths and provides tips on using LED to grow
plants.
Illumitex also runs podcasts and provides downloadable case studies
to showcase their expertise. They quickly build trust with visitors
who land on their site, positioning themselves as the expert in the
LED grow space.
3. Amplify Your Message
Once you’ve built your foundation and you have the right content to support
your customers as they explore your products, you want to get your message
out there. The most important thing to remember is that you need your
content and your message to appear in the places that your prospects care
about. If they’re not on Twitter, there’s no reason to attempt to amplify brand
awareness on Twitter. Similarly, if you’re not present in the spaces that your
prospects care about, they’re not likely to notice you. So how can you amplify
your message?
Cannabis Social Media Marketing
4 Great Cannabis Social Media Networks for B2B Companies
Social media can seem like a minefield for cannabis businesses. As
regulations shift by the day, it’s difficult to know what is okay to post and
what might get your account banned. For this reason, cannabis brands are
typically encouraged not to run paid ads on social media sites—but that
doesn’t mean you can’t make the most of organic reach.
Social media is an excellent platform to reach a wider audience and educate
them about your services. The platforms we recommend include:
Instagram: Images-centered platforms are the best option for brands
selling to the cannabis industry. Companies can use channels like
Instagram to boost awareness and build their targeted high-value
audience.
Facebook: Brands in cannabis verticals can use Facebook to build a
community, promote excellent customer service, or keep clients updated on
the latest news and updates at your company.
 Twitter: Twitter is an excellent tool to network and exchange ideas with
leaders in the cannabis industry. Targets can include CEOs, influencers,
and journalists.
What should you post? The most important thing to keep in mind is social
media should be used to educate your customers (not to push your
product). Think about the things they care about and cultivate posts that will
speak to them. Impactful and relevant forms of content on social media
include industry news, educational graphics, sharing links to relevant
strategies and technologies, and behind-the-scenes footage of your products
in use.
Once you’ve begun posting, test out and really dig into the analytics you get
from each specific platform. Identify what works best for you and spend your
time and resources on that channel. Remember: you don’t want to spend time
and resources on channels that aren’t relevant to your audience, so this
analytics step is important.

Acreage Holdings is a leading cannabis brand with an active social

media presence. Their mission is to make cannabis safe and
accessible for legal users. On their social media pages, they publish
fun facts about marijuana, industry news, and video interviews to
educate their audience and challenge the arguments driving the
misguided war on drugs.
Cannabis brands can make great use of traditional social media platforms, but
there is still the fear that you might cross a line and get your social accounts
banned as a result.
A good alternative is to explore other platforms that focus strictly on
cannabis. Joining these websites can open doors for your business without
the worry of possibly getting banned.
Here’s our top pick for platforms to join:
Leafwire: Leafwire is a great place to network with investors and
professionals in the industry.
MjLink: With 2.5 million users, MjLink makes it easy to connect with other
cannabis entrepreneurs.

Work With Cannabis Social Media Influencers

“Influencer marketing” is a term that gets thrown around a lot these days, and
it doesn’t always have a positive connotation. It might call to mind the image
of a vapid teenager who can’t look away from their phone—but wait! An
influencer is anyone who can influence potential buyers by promoting or
recommending your product. B2B businesses can make use of this method
just as much as B2C businesses, though the partnership may look a bit
different.
If you want to work with influencers, start by figuring out who your
customers are paying attention to. What topics are they searching for
online? Who do they follow on social media? Spend some time doing
research, and once you’ve come up with a list of influencers in your niche
market, reach out to them to discuss working together.
Email for Cannabis Marketing
When used correctly, email marketing is an incredibly powerful tool to reach
your target audience. It’s a great way to deliver your message directly to your
prospects and keep them up-to-date on the latest news about your business.
Start by building your email list. Remember, you should never buy email lists
—that’s a quick way to get yourself in trouble. Rather, you should attract
potential customers with your content marketing efforts and encourage them
to give you their email addresses. They may trade their information for high-
quality content offers, or they may sign up for your email newsletter.
Once you have their email addresses, it’s time to craft your email marketing
strategy. Ask yourself:
How often will you send out emails?
What will the emails be about? Upcoming events, new blogs, product
launches?
How will you segment your emails? Will you send the same message to
everyone, or change the messaging based on certain actions your prospect
has taken?
Email marketing is a great way to keep your brand top of mind—and at the
top of your prospects’ inboxes.
Cultivate Media Coverage
The cannabis industry is still relatively new, but it is in aggressive growth
mode—the media naturally has many questions and would love to learn more
about the market.
Getting media coverage should be a priority for B2B cannabis brands. Not
only is it a cost-effective promotional channel, but getting spotlighted by
news outlets is a great way to build credibility and boost your company’s
reputation and profile.
Here are examples of news publications with which B2B cannabis brands can
network:
Forbes: Leading business publication Forbes Magazine has a whole team
dedicated to the cannabis industry and they publish online stories
frequently.
Cannabis Business Times: Owned by GIE media, Cannabis Business Times
provides news on current industry trends. They also offer advice on topics
such as cultivation and marketing.
Marijuana Venture: This magazine is a leading B2B trade publication with a
large subscriber base. It’s also available in every major bookstore chain
across North America.

The Don’ts of Marketing Cannabis

Now that we have covered the dos, AKA “The Fun Stuff,” here’s what you
DON’T want to do when marketing your cannabis services—AKA “Don’t Stick
Your Finger in that Socket.”
1. Don’t Overlook Your Branding & Public Image
Companies in the cannabis industry must emphasize their public-facing
image. Don’t forget that just ten years ago, selling equipment to help grow
cannabis was still seen as a black market enterprise.
It’s up to you to present a professional brand image—your clients want to see
you as a legitimate business, not one that engages in shady practices.

2.Regulations
Don’t Fall Behind on Ever-Changing
Guidelines for cannabis marketing are continually changing, particularly when
it comes to social media.
Social media giants have proven to be unpredictable when it comes to
cannabis industry marketing. As laws change, the means by which you can
market your cannabis business on social media will change too.
The worst thing you can do is to ignore changes in regulations. To help you
out, here are some tips to keep up with the times on social media:
Don’t show cannabis consumption. As you post on social media, avoid
showing people consuming marijuana on your page. Many cannabis brands
have had to learn this lesson the hard way.
Be intentional with hashtags. Social media is still strict on cannabis and
marijuana-related searches. Do your research and avoid potentially risky
keywords that could get you banned.
Don’t run cannabis themed ads. Google and leading social media platforms
all abide by federal law. Running most paid campaigns on Google and other
major social media platforms is not permitted and will result in accounts
being taken down. While it is possible to run ads (carefully), it’s a labor-
 intensive process and one misstep can result in a ban. It’s best to leave this
one alone.

3. Don’t Lie or Over-Exaggerate

The overall goals of digital content marketing are to provide valuable
information to your target audience, boost relevant traffic, and generate
conversions. Lying about your products or services defeats your purpose and
will backfire.
It’s not enough to highlight the benefits of your services. You’ll also have to
prove your claims with links to relevant studies or content.
Whatever you do, avoid pseudoscience at all costs!

4. Don’t Blend in With the Crowd

It won’t be long until verticals in the cannabis industry are jam-packed with
competition—some of it good, some of it fly by night.
With a profusion of competitors, it’s crucial to establish how your product
stands out from the fray. Ask yourself these questions:
What makes your cannabis equipment different from others in its category?
How can you improve upon current industry standards?
What makes your brand similar to competitors, and what can you do to
differentiate yourself?

The Current State of Cannabis

Marketing: 2022 and Beyond
Now that we’ve explored some of our top tips for marketing in the cannabis
space, let’s dive a bit deeper into some of the reasons that this industry is so
very complicated. With changing public perceptions, government regulations,
and the added complexity of state and federal laws, the industry is in a
constant state of flux. Let’s explore some of the factors at play.

The Public Is on Our Side

The dos and don'ts of marketing for the cannabis industry -

cannabis,marketing cannabis,cannabis industry
Source
Bipartisan agreement is achieved!
Increasingly relaxed attitudes around the use of cannabis are driving the
industry’s explosive growth. Two thirds of Americans now believe that the
United States should legalize marijuana—more than double the number in
2000 (32%).
Cannabis
ConvincedRegulations: Not Everyone is
While the industry is growing, it is still in its infancy. Complicated challenges
lie ahead, including the long-standing illegal status and constantly changing
state/county regulatory changes.
Companies trying to enter the cannabis industry face a number of hurdles,
including:
Constantly changing regulations. The law remains a big obstacle. Across
the U.S., there are still many states that have made no progress when it
comes to legalization and due to cultural, religious, and governmental
pressure. Many of these are likely to never legalize—we’re looking at you,
Kansas.
Competition. There’s a lot of competition coming your way. A global market
worth $129 billion in 2019, the cannabis cultivation market anticipates
compound growth of over 14% a year through 2027, and you’d better
believe that anyone who can put up a string of grow lights is going to be
looking to make a buck off the industry.
Misguided Fear. “If the hideous monster Frankenstein came face to face
with marijuana, he would drop dead of fright.” This 1937 warning came from
the ever-rational mind of Harry J. Anslinger, who just happened to head up
the Federal Bureau of Narcotics for decades (and who must have been fun
at parties).
Media Portrayals. Society still has negative stereotypes of marijuana due
to decades of misguided propaganda and flat out misinformation. It was
called a “gateway drug” and rumored that it could cause brain damage—
notwithstanding the antics of Cheech and Chong. And who among us can
forget the scaremongering message behind the 1930s classic Reefer
 Madness, a cinematic gift from the office of the aforementioned Mr.
Anslinger?

Cannabis Legality: What Do You Need to Know?

The U.S. has a unique legal system in which each state has the freedom to
create their own laws, but we still have a federal government that regulates
laws for the whole country. This has created a unique conundrum: many
states have legalized cannabis within their jurisdictions, but it is still
federally illegal. Let’s explore how this plays out.
State Laws
As of February 2021, cannabis is entirely legal in 14 states (and Washington,
D.C.) and medical marijuana is legal in 27 states. Marijuana is still illegal in 8
states. It’s not surprising that states would seek to legalize cannabis due to
the tax revenue opportunity it represents for the state. That said, it’s critically
important to keep in mind that laws and regulations are not the same in each
state & county in which the product is legal.
It’s essential to research the cannabis laws in your state—and any state your
business operates in—before you invest in marketing. Not sure where to
begin? Check the bowling card below for some insight into your state’s laws,
or download our handy PDF pocket guide below.
And here is a handy map to show where you might want to vacation in 2022
—we make no judgments.
 States where cannabis is legal
Recreational Medical Illegal

WA
ME
MT ND
OR MN
NH
ID WI NY
SD MA
WY MI
PA NJ
IA
NV NE
IL OH MD
UT IN
CO WV
CA VA
KS MO KY
NC
TN
AZ OK
NM AR SC
MS AL GA
LA
TX
AK FL

HI

Note: Updated as of May 27, 2022.

Map: Shayanne Gal/Insider

The dos and don'ts of marketing for the cannabis industry -
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Cannabis Marketing – Federal Laws
Despite increasingly liberal attitudes and legalization in several individual
states, cannabis is still federally illegal, which can complicate your marketing
efforts.
The federal government classifies marijuana as a Schedule I drug—meaning
that it views marijuana as a highly addictive drug which has no medical value.
Other drugs in this category include cocaine and heroin (not good company
to be keeping). However, there is a movement pushing to reclassify marijuana
as a Schedule 2 drug. In October 2020, the federal government stated its
desire to back a World Health Organization (WHO) recommendation to
remove marijuana from the most restrictive global drug scheduling category.
Despite all of the complicated layers of cannabis law, things are changing. As
of February 2021, there are several bills in development which seek to
legalize cannabis nationally. However, it will not be an easy fight—and this
will affect your marketing efforts.

Cannabis
Started Marketing – Let’s Get
Businesses looking to break into the cannabis space have a lot to consider.
Changing attitudes, unpredictable laws and regulations, and a booming
industry are making it difficult to plan your marketing activities. Are you
looking for a partner to help you get started? New Perspective can help.
Contact us to begin your cannabis marketing efforts today.