Cannabis marketing can be an intimidating sector, especially with various misconceptions surrounding not only the plant but also derived products like cannabidiol (CBD) items. Those who want to dive into the cannabis industry should take a look at CBD and what it has to offer. It is the more popular and available alternative to medical marijuana, making it a great business venture.
Whether you are thinking of using the CBD angle to marketing your cannabis and CBD products or you want to establish a CBD business, you want to make sure that you are equipped with facts when building and executing your campaign.
Here, you will learn 5 essential CBD facts and how you can apply them in your marketing plan. Check it out.
5 Facts You Need to Know Before Doing CBD Marketing
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CBD is Not Marijuana
One thing you need to make sure of is to differentiate cannabidiol from marijuana. As a CBD business owner, you will find that many people tend to confuse CBD with marijuana, especially as popular media fail to clarify the differences between the two. This can lead to potential customers steering away from your shop.
The first fact that any CBD marketer needs to know and incorporate in their campaigns is that CBD is not marijuana. It is one of the hundreds of chemical compounds found in the cannabis plant called cannabinoids. Moreover, not every cannabis plant is marijuana, and not everyone is hemp.
Cannabis is a genus of plants that come in different species (sativa, indica, and ruderalis). Marijuana refers to cannabis plants or parts of the plant that are high in THC but low in CBD, while hemp is plants that are high in CBD but low in THC. Based on legislation, marijuana contains more than 0.3% of THC, while hemp contains 0.3% and less.
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CBD is Non-Psychoactive
Perhaps one of the greatest factors that attract customers is the fact that CBD does not offer psychotropic or psychoactive effects commonly associated with marijuana. Scientific research shows that it has a lot of medicinal potentials. Just to clarify, researchers also found medicinal properties in THC, which is the foundation of medical marijuana programs.
For CBD, the associated therapeutic effects include pain relief, anti-inflammation, stress relief, energy boost, cognition improvement, and mood enhancement. It also helps to know effects can vary per individual and their body’s needs. Researchers have also found its potential in reducing Alzheimer’s-related plaques.
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The FDA Recognizes its Medicinal Potential
This cannabinoid has also shown potential in treating medical conditions like rare forms of epilepsy (Lennox-Gastaut and Dravet syndromes) and seizures associated with tuberous sclerosis complex. Epidiolex, a drug with cannabidiol as the primary component, was approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
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‘Treat’ is Different From ‘Cure’
When talking about the medicinal potentials of CBD, it is important to remember that it is currently being used as a treatment aid. Many people tend to forget that treating a medical condition is not the same as curing it, making them feel that they are being misled when learning about the medicinal potentials of CBD.
As a treatment aid, the cannabinoid serves to help manage the condition and improve outcomes for patients. What it does not do is to help patients get rid of the condition, which is what curing is all about.
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The 2018 Farm Bill Made Hemp-Derived CBD Legal
Given the science-based findings on its therapeutic properties, the federal government has recognized its medical value. Aside from the FDA, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has also given CBD its approval by removing it from the controlled substance scheduling.
Before the 2018 Farm Bill, it was considered a Schedule I drug without any recognized medical value due to its association with marijuana and THCs. It was moved to Schedule V until it was finally removed from the scheduling.
The 2018 Farm Bill, which is now called the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (AIA), has provided guidelines for regulating hemp and hemp-derived products including CBD extracts.
Thanks to the legalization of hemp, businesses such as farmers, processors, manufacturers, and retailers now have a legal threshold to operate within, which helps them ensure that their operations and products are legal.
Keep in mind that while there is a federal basis on the legality of CBD, states can enact laws regarding what CBD products are allowed or if they are allowed at all.
How to Use CBD Facts in Marketing
Armed with these essential facts, you can start planning your marketing campaign with this knowledge in mind. Here are several ways you can use them to market your brand and products.
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Write About Them
The cannabis sector may be a big market today, but its popularity takes a hit due to misconceptions that people have and that some sources perpetuate. As a business in the cannabis community, you need to make sure that you champion facts about the plant and its cannabinoids.
Writing about these facts is the best way to keep your target market informed, while also opening up your platform to become a resource for the skeptics.
Make an effort to help your target market understand the essential differences between cannabidiol and tetrahydrocannabinols, as well as cannabis, marijuana, and hemp. Having a clear understanding of these can help consumers decide whether particular products suit their wants, needs, priorities, and values.
Educational information can play a huge role in your marketing campaign, especially with the use of search engine optimization or SEO. Say you decide to include information materials on your website. You can take advantage of these pages by optimizing them (and your entire website) to fit search engines’ standards, particularly Google.
Optimization makes it easier for Google’s algorithm to find your site and pages, and to bring them up whenever customers use Google to look for CBD info using related keywords. The goal is to rank high in search results whenever potential customers make queries on Google.
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Partner with Websites Concerned with Dispelling Misconceptions
The thing about SEO is that it can take some time before you see organic results. You can help move this process along with the help of pay-per-click advertisements. This is a proven and tested method to boost your website’s ranking.
If you are looking for ways to speed this up and get your desired results, you should consider partnering with other websites. In line with your goal of disseminating CBD facts, you want to look for those committed to debunking misconceptions about the cannabinoid.
A question you might have is, “Why?” To answer this, let us go back to SEO. As mentioned, the goal of this strategy is to rank high on search results pages. What you need to know is that Google not only takes a look at how optimized your website is but also how popular, trustworthy, authoritative it is on the subject. If your website is new, then you probably have low domain authority.
You can boost this by having backlinks from a high-authority site to yours. Websites that get high traffic, are optimized, and are recognized as an authority on the matter are your best bet. You can get in touch with their webmasters to ask them to post one of your articles on their website. Make sure that the articles have backlinks or links going back to your site.
When clicked by their visitors, cannabis backlinks can help boost your authority and your ranking along with it.
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Use Them to Boost Your Reputation
Your business’ reputation is an essential factor in customers’ decision to transact with you or to take their business somewhere else. You want to maintain an overall agreeable and positive reputation to attract more potential customers and gain more sales.
If, for example, you decide to generate content based on CBD facts, you need to make sure that you use reputable and updated sources when talking about these things to show your dedication to facts. Publishing enlightening posts about cannabidiol and cannabis, in general, can help improve your reputation among individuals looking for more information about these things.
Using SEO and optimized articles for reputation management is also possible, especially if you happen to get a bad review from a persistent customer.
Say this customer leaves bad reviews about your business or post about this on their blog. Things can be disastrous to your reputation if it appears at the top of the results whenever users search for your business name. SEO and outreach to high-authority sites can help you get this bad review off the top of the results into oblivion.
Of course, you still need to better manage your online reputation by getting more customers and giving them something to post a good review about. You should also plan a proper response for good and bad reviews.
Final Words
As a business in the cannabis community, it is part of your responsibility to ensure that your customers are well-informed about the plant and its cannabinoids, particularly CBD. These facts can help you get started, especially with your fact-based CBD marketing campaign.