The cannabis industry has seen unprecedented growth in recent years. Medical marijuana alone emerged as the largest cannabis segment in 2016, according to Grand View Research, and is estimated to be valued at $100.03 billion by 2025. However, with the popularity of these products comes more competition. Today, there are more than 7,490 dispensaries across the United States, according to a 2020 Cannabis Dispensaries Growth Study conducted by Kisi. Creating an effective dispensary content marketing strategy can help businesses in the industry gain a competitive edge.
Having a strategic content marketing strategy can be highly advantageous for dispensaries looking to increase their reach and build brand awareness. A solid content marketing strategy can help a business build trust with their audience, connect with customers and generate leads. In a highly digital age, modern consumers have come to expect high quality and consistent content from leading brands.
Create A Dispensary Content Marketing Strategy In 12 Steps
Successful brands know how to portray their business in a way that attracts new consumers and encourages existing customers to return. Content marketing not only increases audience retention, but also enhances social media traction, increases conversions, enhances SEO efforts and builds authority as a brand. There are several essential steps involved in the creation of an effective dispensary content marketing strategy. Follow these essential steps for creating, sharing, measuring and tracking business content.
1. Establish Goals & A Mission
Before putting pen to paper, it is important to consider what goals the business is expected to achieve through content creation. Some of the most common goals include improved revenue, more traffic to the business website, increased sales, reduced marketing costs, SEO success and enhanced social media engagement.
With goals in mind, develop a content marketing mission statement. This statement should include information pertaining to the target audience, the benefits they can expect to receive when reading the content and the type of content that will be delivered. There should be no confusion about what products or services the business provides and how these products and services benefit customers.
2. Set Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
All goals set by a dispensary business should be specific and measurable. This can be achieved by first establishing key performance indicators for the content marketing strategy. KPIs can help a business determine if they have achieved their goals by setting smaller milestones.
Milestones can range depending on business goals but may include sales, revenue, SEO, traffic or other types of goals. KPIs should be specific and have a set value. For example, a dispensary may have a goal of acquiring 100 new email subscribers in a one-month period.
3. Know Your Audience Better
A major component of developing an effective content marketing strategy is getting to know the target audience. When a business fails to understand the unique demographics of their audience, they are not able to create targeted content that appeals to this vital group. Analytics from websites, social media and email can provide valuable data about customers, such as their gender, age, education and income.
It is also important to uncover more information about a target audience outside of this basic identifying data. Some analytics tools, such as Google Analytics, provide more in-depth demographics, such as customer interests. Many social media sites offer similar tools that can help businesses learn more about prospects and customers.
4. Conduct A Content Audit
If a dispensary has been around for any amount of time, it probably already has some content on the web. This could include blog posts on a website, social media posts, videos, podcasts or other forms of media. When developing a content marketing strategy, it is important to determine exactly where a business stands in terms of content by conducting a content audit. A content audit means taking inventory of all pieces of content on the web, assessing their usefulness and success and identifying possible gaps in content creation.
5. Compare Content Channels
In order to reach a target audience, a business must find where customers spend most of their time. Today, there are many different ways that a dispensary can connect with prospects and customers, such as social media. Take the time to review analytic data to determine which networks show the dispensary’s content being shared the most.
Businesses can also use tools on the web, such as Buzzsumo, to find this type of information. This content analysis tool allows the user to input a domain name and receive detailed charts that reveal the number of shares by content type, by network and by content length. It also shows the top content for the past year.
6. Select Content Types
Businesses must also consider the type of content they would like to publish online. There are several popular types of content that do well and each type can be used to create a comprehensive content marketing strategy. Many content marketing strategies follow a similar concept. Content is published on the business’s website or blog, and is then repurposed on other sites, such as social media. From there, people are free to share the content. When creating content to be shared, it is important to provide value and be actionable.
7. Identify Tools & Resources
Once a business has decided which types of content they would like to create and where they are going to share this content, they must gain access to the right tools and resources to deliver their content. Dispensaries should decide who is in charge of creating and maintaining the content, and what the publishing workflow will look like, including the content schedule. Also consider what tools may be used in the creation of content. For example, a dispensary may choose to hire a freelancer or have an in-house content creator to deliver a steady stream of content.
8. Build A Content Schedule
Businesses that post consistent content are more likely to maintain customer engagement. Without a solid content schedule in place, it can be easy to lose track of content creation and fall behind. That is why it is essential to use a content calendar to plan out posts and if possible, have content automatically post on scheduled dates and times.
Of course, publishing content is not always as easy as uploading a post once in a while. For businesses that publish a lot of content on a regular basis, it may be necessary to invest in task management tools. These tools often contain editorial calendars that allow businesses to easily schedule various parts of the content creation process.
9. Create Engaging Content
It is not enough for a business to simply post content. The content must be factual, interesting, engaging and have a heading that draws in readers. Some types of content are also more popular than others, such as how-tos and list posts. Before creating content, it is important to conduct a quick search to see if similar content has already been posted and if creating new content on the same subject could bring any further value to the reader. Improving on content that has already been covered before is known as the skyscraper technique.
10. Distribute Content
The next step in the content creation process is distribution of content. Start by establishing a schedule for sharing content through social media. Next, use email marketing to further distribute this content to subscribers. If any influencers are mentioned in the content, send notifications about these mentions so that they are able to spread the word.
11. Marketing & Promotion
Marketing and promoting content are not as easy as they sound. To get their content noticed, businesses must use a variety of promotional tactics. Businesses can start by engaging directly with their community. This means starting a conversation on social media or joining groups for which the content is relevant and suggesting the content naturally.
When a business is new, they may find it necessary to pay to promote their brand and content. Advertising content can be successful when approached in the right way. Advertising methods, such as pay-per-click, can help increase the number of impressions to a page and help the content reach a large number of people. Facebook and other social media platforms allow businesses to create targeted ads based on a wide range of criteria.
12. Measure Results
The last step in the content creation process involves measuring results. It can be difficult to determine if a business’s marketing strategy is truly working if there is no data that shows its progress. To measure results, review the KPIs created at the start of the content strategy plan and see what progress has been made.
Businesses can also measure results by looking at analytics data to see how the content is performing and what type of content is performing the best. Popular tools, such as Google Alerts, can help businesses determine how often their content is being shared and mentioned online.
Reach Out The Experienced Cannabis Marketing Agency
Creating a successful dispensary content marketing strategy can be challenging. However, taking the time to go through each of the steps mentioned above can lead to major rewards. A well-developed content marketing strategy can boost a business’s SEO and web traffic, create brand awareness and enhance social media and PR results.
Dispensaries of all sizes can benefit from having an effective dispensary content marketing strategy. To learn more about the steps involved in creating an effective dispensary content marketing strategy or for assistance with developing a content marketing strategy, reach out to the web marketing experts at 321 Web Marketing.