Most CBD business owners run into this problem: They make amazing CBD products, create a likable brand, design beautiful packaging and develop an e-commerce website but they aren’t getting many sales.
Even if you have the best product on the market and an attractive brand that everyone loves, that just isn’t enough.
The CBD market is thriving and consumer sales are increasing significantly every year. The latest Brightfield Group report states that the CBD product sales will amount to $23.7 billion by 2023.
Selling CBD products yields a lot of profit potential but it is also a very attractive industry for entrepreneurs because of the low barrier-to-entry. This creates a lot of competition.
There are well over 5,000 CBD companies in the U.S. alone. With that much competition, just creating a website with your products is not going to generate sales.
Most small to medium sized businesses turn to Facebook and Google for their advertising needs. These platforms allow businesses to easily promote their products and services to a specific audience with a low budget. Unfortunately, regulations and advertising policies limit most businesses from advertising CBD on Google and Facebook.
This means you will need to get more creative with your CBD marketing plan.
Below are the best CBD marketing strategies to generate more sales in 2020:
CBD Marketing Tactics
1. Pay influencers to promote your CBD products on social media.
Reach out to social media influencers and ask them to send over their promotion rates. Most influencers will be happy to promote your product if it aligns with their image and their followers’ interests. A lot of micro-influencers might even be willing to post a photo with your CBD product for free. You will just need to let them keep the CBD products that you send them. Check out our list of the top CBD influencers on Instagram to get started!
Benefits of influencer marketing for CBD products:
- Quickly builds trust
- Improves brand awareness
- Enriches your content strategy
- Fuels word-of-mouth marketing
- Low-cost for micro influencers (1,000 to 1M followers)
2. Start an informational blog about CBD on your website
Starting an informational CBD blog on your website is a great long-term strategy to increase your website traffic and sales. This is a place for you to build trust with your audience by sharing your knowledge and expertise about CBD.
Benefits of blogging for CBD brands:
- Drive website traffic from Google & Bing
- Target an audience interested in CBD
- Build brand credibility
- Generate backlinks for SEO
- Add value: Educate prospects & customers
3. Offer a discount to website visitors in exchange for their email address
You put a lot of effort and money into driving users to your website. Don’t let them get away! Add a pop-up to your website offering a discount in exchange for the users email address. The discount offer will get users excited and increase their chances of making a purchase. Even if your website visitors do not purchase your CBD products after receiving the discount, you can now re-engage them via email marketing.
Benefits of email subscription discount offers:
- Build your email marketing list
- Increase conversion rates
- Promote specific products
- Turn website visitors into prospects
- Turn prospects into customers
4. Email marketing
Email marketing might sound like an old school marketing tactic, but it is necessary to increase your sales and profits in the CBD industry. There are a lot of businesses competing in the CBD market and most consumers are not tied to one brand. They will shop around until they find one brand that really connects with them. Email marketing is the best way to keep your brand at the top of your customers’ minds and keep them coming back to your shop for their CBD needs.
Benefits of email marketing for CBD brands:
- Improve customer retention and sales
- Increase the lifetime value of customers
- Promote discounts and sales
- Restore lost revenue with abandoned cart email campaigns
5. Partnerships & affiliate marketing
Brand partnerships and affiliate marketing are very cost effective ways to build brand awareness for your CBD brand and increase your sales. These tactics are great for driving positive ROI because they are typically performance driven, so you only pay for results (purchases). These tactics are focused on sales, but one of the biggest advantages is that the views, impressions and website visits from your partners and affiliates are all free.
Benefits of partnerships and affiliate marketing for CBD brands:
- Low risk – Only pay commission on sales
- Rapidly scale your traffic & sales
- Boost your reputation
- Broaden your audience Cost effective – No upfront cost
A final note on effective CBD marketing strategies
So now you have several marketing tactics to take your CBD business to the next level. However, I have a few tips before you get started:
- Long-term marketing success is dependent on having a great product and a likable brand.
- Make sure you are selling CBD products that people will buy (and continue to buy).
- Confirm that you have a brand that will connect with consumers. If you’re on a low budget, using friends and family as a focus group will work.
- Work with a marketing expert or agency with experience in the CBD industry.
- Learn from the professionals. CBD marketing experts and agencies have worked with other CBD businesses before. They know what works and what does not work. This could save you a lot of time and money in the long run.
- Most marketing consultants and agencies give free consultations. Even if you plan on doing your own marketing, it is at least worth chatting with them to get some industry insights and recommendations.
- Plan and execute.
- Testing is the key to marketing success.
- Find out which marketing tactic works best for your business and scale to maximize your profits.
If you start adding these tactics to your marketing strategy, I believe you are well on your way to taking the CBD industry by storm.
Don’t forget to test! Continuously adjust your marketing budget to focus on the tactics that drive sales and ROI.
