How to Promote Your Cannabis Business With Instagram

Marketing a cannabis business is notoriously challenging. With cannabis and its associated paraphernalia illegal at a federal level, most common online forms of marketing such as Google, Facebook, and Instagram ads are out of reach for cannabis entrepreneurs.

This meant the industry has had to find creative solutions to market their cannabis-related products while remaining compliant with the stringent rules and opaque regulations imposed by online gatekeepers.

As technology has grown, a new world of influencer marketing began to take dominance on social media platforms, rapidly making them one of the most popular ways to promote products and services.

Contributing to a blog is basic to cannabis businesses and auxiliary businesses. Zero in on distributing incredible substance on your blog and sharing it on your cannabis business social network as well as straightforwardly distributing helpful substance through your social media posts. In a perfect world, your crowd will see that content, similar to it, and offer it with their own crowds.

With major celebrity influencers like Kylie Jenner or Kim Kardashian having millions of followers on their accounts, these major influencers and celebrities can demand eye-watering fees for plugs and mentioning brands to their large following.

Marketing statistics on Influencermarketinghub indicate that for each $1 spent on an influencer marketing campaign, businesses will receive a return above $5. While these large influencers remain popular with household brands, their shine is fading due to a perceived lack of authenticity.

This trend now is using micro-influencers, and an increasing number of savvy brands are being rewarded with a high return on investment. The cannabis industry, including vape producers, dispensaries, and online headshops, has been fast to embrace this new trend.

Using Micro-Influencers to Leverage The Most Reach

Emerging players in the cannabis equipment industry, such as Lookah, Puffco, Dr.Dabber, and many more, are successfully using micro-influencers to boost the profile and recognition of their brands.

These micro-influencers are not huge celebrities, but they do have a loyal and dedicated following.

What Are Micro-Influencers and Macro-Influencers?

A micro-influencer is a personality on social media who has between 1000 and 100,000 followers.

A macro-influencer is the tie above this with between 100,000 to 1 million influencers.

Before launching a new campaign, it’s essential to consider your brand’s target age, gender, lifestyle traits, and more even location.

Once you have identified these demographics, you can start to find influencers that will best speak to your audience.

Here are some interesting statistics that are taken from a 2020 Influencer Market Hub study that are worth considering as you look to find influencers for your marketing strategy:

• 84% of Micro-Influencers promote services or products at least once a week.
• 77% of Micro-Influencers create content each day.
• Micro-Influencers have over seven times the engagement rate of Macro-Influencers.
• 63% of marketers questioned say they will increase their influencer marketing budget next year.
• 54 percent of influencers would only work with brands who respect them.
• 91% of millennials questioned say they trust online reviews to the same degree as recommendations from friends and family.
• 68% of bloggers would rather work directly with a brand than go through an agency.

Authenticity Matters

With any marketing, you want to build trust; to do that, you need to have authenticity.

Perhaps the biggest advantage micro-influencers have when promoting products to their followers is that they are deemed trustworthy sources. Trust in major influencers has started to wane as a number of high-profile scandals caused users to question their motives and credibility. This leads to doubt about if their recommendation is genuine or driven by other motives. Establishing transparency and credibility, and trust is critical to the success of any marketing campaign.

Built Relationships 

Building relationships with influencers not only get your products in front of their followers but also let you grow and nurture long-term brand partnerships.

Once you have found an influencer who represents your brand and company ethos well, maintaining and growing a relationship with you helps establish brand ambassadors. One of the best ways to build and maintain these relationships is to find ways to enrich and broaden your collaboration. Setting out clear expectations and benchmarks allows both parties to be clear about what you each want from the campaign and communicate it smoothly.

Some considerations you want to think about before starting your campaign may include. 

• Content imagery.
• Suitable language.
• Frequency of posts.
• Payment method, gifting products, or monetary.
• Desired campaign outcome regards engagement, followers, etc.

Influencer Outreach

Now you know how to take your social influencer cannabis campaign to new highs, it’s time to get started!

Establish a list of the influencers who are best placed to reach your desired audience. Once you have this list, it’s time to start the outreach.

Look for official contact emails as opposed to sending DMs. Often times the DM box is full of inquiries that your request can get buried and lost in.

Make sure you proof and message before hitting send. You want to make a good impression with a professional and well-crafted request.

There are plenty of sample collaborative emails online to look at. If possible, include their name rather than their account alias. Say why you want to work with them; a compliment on relating to their content is always a good start. Be sure to include who you are, what you are offering, and why you want to collaborate with this influencer.

Don’t be Afraid to Ask The Experts

No matter if you’re just starting out or an established brand, marketing in the cannabis industry is time-consuming and difficult. Consider joining cannabis business forums and groups. Consulting with others who worked in the industry lets you learn from one another and help grow. It will help guide you through building a successful marketing campaign for your cannabis business.