Have you or your marijuana marketing agency created detailed buyer personas/customer avatars for your cannabis and CBD customers? If not, in this article we outline the 9 types of cannabis and CBD buyers that you should use to effectively target your marketing campaigns.
9 Cannabis & CBD Consumer Personas & Customer Avatars
Selling cannabis may not be as easy as it sounds. You need an in-house team with a skill-set in CBD marketing, or you’ll need an experienced cannabis marketing agency with recent case studies.
With legalization in many US states and federal legalization in Canada, there is a whole new market filled with people who are interested in discovering or rediscovering cannabis and in trying CBD products.
As a cannabis retail store, online marijuana dispensary or online CBD store owner, without an experienced cannabis marketing agency, the most effective way to increase your market share and sell more cannabis products, is to really understand your customers.
When it comes to the cannabis consumer, it’s important for you to understand that there are many different types of cannabis/CBD consumers.
This includes those who want to get high with THC products and others who want relief, without the high, with CBD products, as well as many other cohorts.
One recent study from an ancillary marijuana marketing company found that baby boomers and women have shown remarkable market share growth and consumers are increasingly turning to cannabis as a wellness tool, using CBD.
This study goes on to reveal that the cannabis customer base in the USA is growing and diversifying, demonstrating a rise in popularity across all adult groups, regardless of gender or age.
It turns out that the “normalization” of cannabis throughout 2018 and 2019, many US consumers are turning to cannabis to curb unhealthy habits.
A majority reduced their alcohol consumption, with Millennials showing the most significant decrease, while many reduced or eliminated their need for over-the-counter and prescription pain medication.
So with the many different types of cannabis customers, how does a cannabis retail dispensary or online CBD store understand their customer base? Can you do this yourself or do you need a marijuana marketing agency?
The answer is to create data-driven consumer/buyer personas or customer avatars.
Read on to understand what buyer personas/customer avatars are and learn about the 9 unique consumer personas for cannabis & CBD products.
What is a Buyer Persona/Customer Avatar?
A buyer persona/customer avatar is a fictional person who represents your company’s ideal customer.
Typically, your cannabis advertising company would create your company’s buyer persona to get crystal clear description of the individuals who they’ll be marketing to. That is, you’re target demographics.
Until you or your marketing agency nails this down, you can’t really be sure that your offerings and your marketing messages are going to be successful. That’s why the buyer persona is often based on real customers, and/or extensive research.
It’s important to note that your cannabis marketing strategy should have more than one buyer persona. Your products are a super good fit for several different “types” of people, so you should create a unique buyer persona for each.
If you do this well, you can use these personas/avatars in your keyword research and audience targeting to better optimize your CBD Google Ads Campaign, and lower your CPCs and CPAs.
To make sure you do this well, below, we’ve identified from a high-level, the 9 key cannabis & CBD consumer/buyer personas/customer avatars you or your cannabis marketing company should focus on for your go-to-market strategy.
Breaking Down Cannabis & CBD Customer Segments
The following are 9 “types” of cannabis/CBD customers that we’ve created for our clients and are happy to share with you and/or your marijuana marketing agency.
Keep in mind these may need some editing to work for your unique business and your own CBD/cannabis marketing plan.
These nine distinct consumer types are based on particular consumer habits, preferences, and experiences.
The avatars are classified by respective rates of usage: heavy consumers, moderate consumers, and light consumers.
The consumer types are further distinguished by market share, ranging from 17% to 5% of the industry’s consumers.
> Light Consumers
————————————————————-
1. Infrequent Conservatives (9%)
People in this target persona are older, recreational consumers who use cannabis only a few times or less per year, for relaxation.
Your cannabis marketing agency should categorize people in this avatar as married, often retired, and fairly politically conservative.
They are also more traditional in their cannabis preferences, preferring to smoke joints, and are generally unwilling to consider cannabis in other forms besides flower.
2. Silver Dabblers (14%)
These people are typically white, single or divorced older men who live alone and generally indulge in cannabis use occasionally, a couple of times a month or less.
Their main purpose for using cannabis is to relax or enjoy social situations. Those in this buyer persona are longtime smokers, acquire their cannabis on the illicit market and prefer to smoke flower in joints or pipes.
3. Social Opportunists (17%)
This group is comprised of the largest consumer type. They use cannabis a few times or less per year and typically in a group setting only.
> Moderate Consumers
————————————————————-
4. Discreet Unwinders (8%)
These are women who are mothers of adult children and have been using cannabis for decades. They also strongly believe in the health & wellness benefits of CBD and cannabis.
People in this CBD buyer persona use cannabis for relaxation, stress relief, and pain management. They aren’t generally new to cannabis—almost as they began smoking before they were 18.
However now, their consumption tends to be personal and private and not associated with social activities. They use it primarily alone to relax while watching TV or doing housework.
5. Weekend Enthusiasts (11%)
Most often this persona/avatar is made up of parents in their early 40s who consume cannabis regularly to decompress, chill and enjoy their free time.
6. Medical Purists (12%)
These people are most likely to use cannabis, and more specifically, CBD for its medical and wellness benefits. They consume cannabis and/or CBD daily by themselves.
This buyer persona is made up of cannabis consumers across the adult age range, often women, who use cannabis and CBD products mainly for pain management, anxiety reduction, and sleep quality.
They overwhelmingly embrace CBD products and tend to prefer solid edibles.
Medical Purists generally live in states with adult-use markets, and are likely to purchase their cannabis and/or CBD products in a brick-and-mortar dispensary, but are open to buying CBD online from a brand they trust.
> Heavy Consumers
————————————————————-
7. Traditional Lifestylers (14%)
Think young professionals and older Millennials. People in this group are young, diverse, and single. They’re also high-spenders who use cannabis daily.
8. Modern Lifestylers (10%)
Also young and enjoy large incomes. They consume a wide variety of cannabis and CBD product types, for a wide variety of different reasons.
9. Functional Dependents (5%)
This is the smallest consumer type. These people are young, hard-partying cannabis evangelists who spend more than $100 each month consuming cannabis. If you’re focusing on this “legacy” persona/avatar, you’re ignoring 95% of the cannabis market.
So What Does This Mean & How Can You Use This Data?
As mentioned above, these CBD and cannabis buyer personas are distinguished by market share, ranging from 17% to 5% of the industry’s consumers.
So for example:
- At 10%, Modern Lifestylers represent ideal clientele by purchasing from businesses (instead of private sources) and consuming the widest variety of product types.
- At 17%, Social Opportunists are the largest consumer group, yet are the least likely to purchase their own cannabis.
How To Use This Data in Your CBD & Cannabis Marketing Strategy
Since we’ve identified “Modern Lifestylers” as an ideal target cohort for cannabis marketing, you should develop a set of buyer personas that are congruent with your brand values and product line.
Remember, don’t stop at one persona, build several.
Build a few for men, some for women, and some for gender-neutral people. Continue by crafting others for single people in this group as well as married couples.
Additional personas can differentiate between household incomes, online interests, types of online media consumed, types of websites visited by each persona, and other factors.
Since “Social Opportunists” are the largest cannabis consumer group, but don’t tend to buy their own cannabis products, you could go two ways:
- Ignore this group as they may be “users” but will never be “buyers”.
- Exploit this opportunity by executing an SEO and blog content marketing strategy focused on information and education about the health & wellness benefits of cannabis and/or CBD, and target it directly at these personas.
I’m hoping this makes as much sense to you and as it does to me and my cannabis marketing team. I really like breaking down your cannabis and/or CBD consumer into these 9 avatars because they’re so right on!
Think about it for a second. I bet that you probably know and can name various people who could fit into each of these cannabis avatars, right?
Just imagine how you can use your cannabis buyer personas in strategically hyper-targeted Google Ads campaigns for your cannabis and/or CBD products.
Your marijuana marketing agency will be able to use the data in each buyer persona to strategically target your Google Ads to your target audience, making the user journey seamless from Ad to purchase.
We Can Help Build Your Buyer Personas!
Do you need help in building buyer personas for your brand?
Need some assistance using your customer avatars to craft effective, hyper-targeted Google or Facebook advertising campaigns?
Please reach out for a free 30-minute phone consultation or email us to request a quote.
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