Identifying and Defining Your Cannabis Target Audience

The cannabis marketing environment is noisy.  For marketing, advertising, messaging and merchandising it’s important to know who the audience is for the business and product(s).  While this includes the final consumer, which is most important, the distributors, wholesalers and retailers are also included as the target audience.  For the marijuana industry the target audiences are the following:

Cannabis Users: This includes users of cannabis that do not grow cannabis.  These individuals frequent cannabis lifestyle websites and social media channels.   The cannabis users will be the primary focus of products that are for using cannabis.   

•             Geo locations of high concentrations of cannabis users: California (L.A. area, San Jose, San Francisco), Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Connecticut.

Cannabis Retail:  Dispensaries or similarly structured retail operations i.e. collectives, that dispense cannabis, inclusive of flower and edibles, to patients and/or legal residents.  Smoke shops.  Dispensary consulting companies. 

Cannabis Commercial Growers:  Growers associated with legal commercial growing operations normally associated with a legal dispensary.  Normally these operations take place in large greenhouses and warehouses that have been outfitted for large grow operations.  

Cannabis “home-based growers”/hobbyist growers:  Growers that grow in their personal spaces for themselves and/or others.  Normal plant counts are less than two dozen.  This group frequents websites and forums that center on education, techniques, grow journals and new products strictly about growing cannabis.  This makes up the vast majority of growers and does not include commercial growers. 

•             Geo location to target:  Entire U.S. but emphasis on California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Connecticut, Michigan, Arizona, Montana, Maine, Rhode Island…states that allow patients/residents to grow. 

Growing Suppliers:  Retail indoor and organic grow shops, both brick and mortar and online, and the distributors that supply those grow shops.  The audience comprises of shop owners, managers and purchasing agents for distributors.

•             Primary geo location to target:  Entire U.S. through distributors especially California, Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Michigan.

•             Secondary will be states that allow growing of plants by patients/residents limited to Connecticut, Arizona, Montana, Maine and Rhode Island.

     After identifying the target audience various criteria include purchasing behavior, levels of involvement, media consumption, lifestyle, and personality traits.  Using stock images of your target audience as visual aids will help in designing marketing approaches, advertising and selecting content for your social media postings.

      Advertising and marketing needs to be laser-focused to be effective in this noisy world.  So after the ideal customer is in mind, go into more detail of who they are including; age, lifestyle, living situations, married/single, hobbies, shopping patterns, frequented social media platforms and where they live. For example, if you have a smoking product you may identify your target audience as 18-25 men and women, living in high-density urban areas that regularly visit nightclubs and vape lounges, are in college, shop online and through specific social platforms (Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook) and do most of their shopping in the evening from 10 pm to 1 am. 

     Now using a tool, such as Nielsen, and using the zip code look-up feature you can identify if that zip code would have your target audience.  Now, you have your target audience, their attributes and where they are more likely to live and shop.  This will help immensely when you are launching any public relations, marketing or advertising campaigns.  

Keep growing,

Gib

This piece is an excerpt from the DIY Guide to Launching a Product Into the Cannabis Industry. Here's the link to purchase.  https://www.etsy.com/listing/252983128/marijuana-business-tool-kit?ref=shop_home_active_2 

Can Guerrilla Marketing Help Your Business?

The cannabis industry is "noisy".  Consumers are inundated with text messages with "today's specials", Twitter messages, content marketing, pop-up ads, commercials and other messaging to get them to buy, buy, buy!  In fact, it's estimated that 95-98 percent of marketing information that is thrown at consumers is NOT being absorbed.  So how do you differ yourself from the others?  How do you grab that much needed attention to drive your message home and gain new market share?  One potential solution is not new but is probably one of the most controversial types of marketing; guerrilla marketing.

Guerrilla marketing is an unconventional method of marketing that is meant to be; unconventional, surprising, original/creative, cheeky/provocative, cost-efficient, flexible, unusual/atypical, funny, spectacular and contagious.  While the term is thrown around all to often the bottom line is the three most important aspects of your next campaign are that it is unusual, contagious and cost-efficient.  

Why does it work?  Emotion.  Emotion drives people's actions.  One of the most obvious examples of this is political campaigns.  Rather than speak of boring issues that are most pertinent to our everyday lives, campaigns will focus on subjects that stir emotion, which drives action, which in that case is go to the polls and vote.  For business marketing, take a lesson from the "Trumps" and others that are talented at making people emotional and make your message one that gets them to laugh/cry/cringe/barf/second-guess their existence, share with others and create that curiosity to visit your store or website.

Guerrilla marketing effectiveness weighs heavily on the creativity juices of the authors and artists rather than spending a lot money.  This is why I strongly suggest a couple pulls off the chizzer before setting the pencil to the pad and brainstorming ideas.  Have fun with it, step outside of your comfort zone and make an impression that no one will ever forget.  The best test is show it to your mother/father/sibling/loved one and watch their face as its shown, if they laugh/cry/cringe/barf/second-guess their existence...you got a winner.  Go to print!!

Keep growing,

Gib