Marketing Marijuana Edibles Should Be At The Top Of Your List Right Now
If you operate an online or retail marijuana business I’m betting you’re seeing an increase in demand for your THC edibles throughout 2019.
I’m also thinking you may have seen a spike in online and retail sales for marijuana edibles since the fall of 2019.
Whether you have or haven’t seen an increase in sales for edibles at your dispensary yet, the fact is that sales of marijuana edibles have significantly increased in at least 4 US states – and it’s all due to the vaping health scare.
For example, according to data provided by Seattle-based company Headset, the share of cannabis sales captured by edibles has increased steadily through October 6, 2019, since the first vaping death was reported August 23, 2019:
- Colorado: 15%, up from 12.7%.
- Nevada: 14.9%, up from 10.9%.
- California: 13.6%, up from 10.9%
- Washington: 10.6%, up from 8.9%.
In this article, we’ll discuss how to implement effective marijuana advertising strategies focused on this growing demand for THC edibles.
Wholesale Companies Who Make Marijuana Edibles Are Seeing Increasing Retail Accounts
Here’s just one excellent reason to focus part of your cannabis marketing strategy on selling marijuana edibles online or in retail stores.
Manzanita Naturals, a San Francisco-based maker of all-natural, THC-infused craft sodas landed six new retail accounts in the week of October 13, alone! Their CEO says this will bump their monthly sales to almost $30,000 USD.
CEO Andrew Amend says that “People are starting to wake up and ask questions about what’s in their product. Stores in San Francisco are dumping their vape cartridges and preparing for a ban and talking to me about beverages now.”
One of the largest marijuana brands based out of Denver, Binske, which makes both edibles and vape pens, is now ramping up production of its edibles products – even though it hasn’t yet noticed an increase in demand.
Alex Pasternack, Binske’s executive vice president says that “customers are starting to ask more questions and be more concerned about the products, but the trickle-down effect hasn’t gotten to the brands yet.”
I feel there are two interesting insights from this information:
1. A vape manufacturer is focusing production on marijuana edibles and not in vape pens.
2. Potential customers are starting to wake up and ask questions and are more concerned about all the ingredients that are in your products.
The second insight points to the fact that consumers of both cannabis/THC products as well as hemp/CBD products are super confused and need information, education, and brand trust before buying your edibles online or in-store.
The first insight points to a bigger story that doesn’t bode well for the vape industry. Vapes sales have been declining since August 23, 2019, because of the national vaping crisis.
If Your Vape Sales Are Decreasing Focus on Marketing Marijuana Edibles
The same study from Headset that reported on the increase in sales of THC edibles in 4 key US markets, has also reported that sales of vape products have significantly declined in those same four markets since August 23, 2019.
Vape products in Colorado accounted for 19.4% of marijuana sales on August 23 2019. However, by the week of September 23, 2019, sales of vape products dropped to 12.4% of all marijuana sales.
Clearly, the vape industry is going through challenges. If you’re feeling this with your cannabis business, you may be able to recover revenue by focusing on marketing and selling THC edibles.
How To Advertise Marijuana Edibles On The Google Search Network
While it may not be easy, in my experience the most effective route to profitability and ROI is to use our Google Ads services to sell your marijuana edibles online or in retail stores.
The reason being, Google search advertising is 100% based on the user’s search intent.
Look at it this way: people don’t search Google using terms like “buy edibles online” or “buy weed edibles near me” if they don’t have the intent to buy.
By running monthly, hyper-targeted google ads campaigns to market and promote your marijuana edibles, you’re able to target people who are at the bottom of the sales funnel and ready to buy now.
In other words, these are “warm” or “hot” potential customers for your business who are actively searching for the THC edibles you’re selling.
If you provide a super great offer, with equally super great user experience (on mobile specifically), with limited “noise and friction”, you’re going to get the sale.
If you’re lucky, you’ll get the sale, the word of mouth, maybe an online review and a return customer.
But I Thought Google Flags and Bans Marijuana Advertisers?
Yeah, I did too…
But then I searched online to buy marijuana edibles to see if there are any PPC (pay-per-click) ads for cannabis-related products and guess what I saw?
As you can see from the screenshots above, I saw 4 paid PPC search ads for cannabis flower, marijuana edibles, as well as for CBD oil and other CBD products, on the Google search network.
So clearly Google is taking the media spend from these advertisers and allowing companies to advertise marijuana edibles online in Google search.
Therefore, it is possible to get campaigns and ads approved for THC edibles on Google search. We’re doing now!
We offer Google Ads ad management services and are currently running campaigns for marijuana edibles, CBD edibles, and cannabis flower on Google search for several of our clients.
For details and KPIs, you should view our case studies.
Example Google Ads Campaign For Marijuana Edibles: Case Study
Here’s an example of a Google Ads campaign for marijuana edibles we’re currently managing for a client in British Columbia, Canada. We are under an NDA with this client so they will be anonymous.
This client is an online marijuana dispensary that sells cannabis flower, vapes, and THC edibles online only, in Canada.
We are currently managing an ongoing Google Ads search campaign for THC edibles for this client.
Here is a sample of the first 30-days of this campaign: November 1-30, 2019.
The KPIs to highlight are:
- 9.9% was the average Click-Through Rate (CTR)
- $1.54 was the average cost per click (CPC)
- 375 Sessions on Website by users from Google Ads
- 3.4 pages viewed on average by each user from Google Ads
- 1:40 is the average duration of time spent on website by each user from Google Ads
- $1500 was the total cost/media spend from the client
- $6,000 in total e-commerce sales in the first 30-days
NOTE:
- The data above is from the first 30-days only.
- There were tweaks made during the campaign, but it’s only been 30-days worth of data.
- We expect the CPC and CPA to decreases in the 2nd and 3rd months as we obtain more data and identify exactly where to optimize our audience targeting and ad spend. This helps to increase sales and decrease CPA.
How To Market Marijuana Edibles Organically
In order to effectively market marijuana edibles organically, your expectations need to change from online or retail sales to other key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure success.
Organic digital marketing strategies for THC edibles include tactics such as Search Engine Optimization (marijuana SEO), blog content marketing, and daily social media posts and stories.
Marketing marijuana edibles using these digital marketing tactics will work well if they target people at the top of the conversion funnel, who are looking for information & education on what type of marijuana strain is best for their respective conditions.
When implementing any of the organic marketing tactics listed above, it’s important to understand that these people are not actively looking to buy marijuana flower, e-juice, edibles, or other cannabis products.
This is why you need to identify a different set of KPIs so you can effectively measure the success of organic marketing campaigns for marijuana edible products.
We suggest the following KPIs for each organic tactic:
1. Search Engine Optimization (Marijuana SEO)
Use these monthly KPIs to measure success from a marijuana SEO strategy:
- Total number of clicks from organic search
- Total number of active website sessions
- Average time spent on the landing page
- Average time spent on the website
- Average number of pages viewed per visit
- Bounce Rate
2. Blog Content Marketing
Use these monthly KPIs to measure success from a blog content marketing strategy:
- Keyword rankings for each blog article
- Total number of clicks to blog article page from organic search
- Average time spent on the blog page
- Average time spent on the website
- Average number of pages viewed per visit
- Bounce Rate
3. Daily Social Media Posts
Use these monthly KPIs to measure success from a daily social media management strategy:
- Daily engagement rate on each post, tweet and each story on each platform
- Weekly increase in followers
- Total number of clicks from each platform
- Average time spent on the landing page
- Average time spent on the website
- Average number of pages viewed per visit
- Bounce Rate
You’ll notice that sales are not a KPI.
This may sound like madness but when you consider that the majority of people that you will be reaching with these marijuana marketing tactics are a “cold” audience who has likely never heard of your brand until now, it actually makes a ton of sense.
It’s going to be super-duper challenging to make a sale to a person like this. Especially considering what the two marijuana business executives said, that we quoted above.
That is, that your customers are starting to ask more questions and be more concerned about the marijuana products they buy.
The reason you want to implement an organic marijuana edibles marketing strategy is to fill the top of your conversion funnel with a constant and steady flow of potential customers.
The purpose of this type of marijuana marketing is to inform, educate, and build brand trust, with the goal of increasing your email database and eventually, your business revenue.
We Can Help You With Marketing & Advertising For Your Marijuana Edibles!
If you’re inspired and motivated to try any of the above marketing strategies to grow your marijuana edibles business, we’d be happy to discuss and offer a comprehensive plan.
A customized marijuana marketing plan for edibles is highly recommend based on the demand we’re seeing with our current clients as well as from the data presented above.
People are curious about THC edibles and CBD edibles. They really don’t understand how much to take for tons of fun or how much to take for micro-dosing.
Your potential customers likely may not even know about micro-dosing THC edibles, further emphasizing the point that they are confused. They are very interested in edible marijuana products, but very confused about the product as well.
If you want to target this group, we can help you with the organic marijuana marketing tactics discussed above.
Having said that, clearly, there are many people in the USA and Canda who are ready to buy THC edibles right now.
If you’re interested in reaching people at the bottom of the funnel searching online with the intent to buy weed edibles, we highly suggest trying a Google Ads campaign promoting your unique edible products.
Please call us for a free 30-minute phone consult, or email us now to request a quote.
We’re Ready To Help You Grow!
