CBD Marketing: 7 Ways to Promote Your CBD Brand
Many leading consumer brands are spinning up CBD-infused or hemp-based products or even full product lines dedicated to the additive known to relieve pain and anxiety, while even more entrepreneurs are starting entire businesses around CBD products.
This trend has skyrocketed, but unfortunately major digital advertising channels like Facebook, Instagram, Google, Amazon and, most recently, Snapchat still have a long list of restrictions for paid ads, these brands are differentiating themselves with valuable organic content supported by strong SEO strategies, beautiful branding, interactive websites, user-generated social content and earned media.
While effective, these channels are becoming saturated, and brands are missing out on the growth-accelerating power of paid acquisition, leaving a booming industry to wonder – where can you advertise a CBD brand?
One option is to outsource your marketing to an agency with expertise in the CBD industry who is constantly developing creative strategies to navigate such challenges. But if you’re going to attempt to do it yourself, here are seven ways you can effectively advertise your CBD brand and products, despite limitations on major platforms:
1. Employ an Influencer
“Influencers” are people with large followings on social media, and they can do a lot for your brand if you choose one correctly. The key to finding a good influencer is to look for one with a niche audience who would be interested in your products. This generally means going for smaller influencers because larger influencers typically have broader audiences with less engagement.
Once you pick an influencer, you should strive to support genuine love for your product by sending free samples and information in exchange for them passing the information and their thoughts along to their followers. If their followers really trust what the influencer shares, it can instantly make a huge difference for your brand.
2. Use Affiliates
Affiliates are people that sell your product for a portion of the profit. Generally, you’ll issue-specific links or discount codes for each affiliate that they can then promote to get you more sales. Each time a customer uses an affiliate’s link or discount code, you’ll send a portion of the profits from that sale to the affiliate.
Of course, you’ll want to keep tabs on how the affiliate is marketing your product. Be wary of affiliates who use clickbait tactics and share unproven information just to get sales. Be sure to implement guidelines and strict promotion policy to avoid putting your brand in a bad position.
3. Native Ads
A native ad is a type of ad placement where your ad is meant to look like relevant content on the website. Compare this to a banner ad, which is obviously a third-party sponsored advertisement placed above, below, or next to content on a website. A good example of a native ad would be a sponsored Facebook post, which appears in a person’s feed pretty much like every other post they may see. Another example would be “read more” articles at the end of a post on a blog, with some of the articles being sponsored posts.
Native advertising can help your brand gain traction, so long as you choose a website that shares a relevant audience and is known for trustworthy content practices. Avoid clickbait content and other types of ads that will only diminish any reputation your brand is trying to build.
4. Syndicated Ads
A syndicated ad allows you to put your advertisement on a third-party website in the context of content that is relevant to your niche and audience. So, if you’re promoting your CBD brand, your advertisement could appear near an MSN article sharing facts about CBD. The sites your ads appear on will obviously depend on the advertising network you go through and which sites are part of the network. The budget will also have a lot to do with it, as the more popular the site, the more it costs to show your ad there.
5. Signage
Even if you don’t have a local presence specific to any one city, a traditional form of advertising like billboards can go a long way in helping to grow awareness for your brand. While expensive, a billboard and other forms of signage can help you build a strong reputation in a specific city or region and it’s an even better choice if you are planning on putting your product into physical stores around the area.
6. Podcast Mentions
Getting back to digital, another great way to advertise your CBD brand is through podcast mentions. There are many opportunities here across the health and fitness, wellness, lifestyle, and similar niches that have many podcasts where your perfect customer may be listening.
The cost of a podcast mention will depend on the popularity of the podcast and the popularity of the podcast host themselves. Some may also refuse CBD ads if they aren’t familiar with the regulations surrounding it, but you can definitely find some great opportunities to push your brand.
7. Guest Speaking Opportunities
Last but certainly not least, one of the absolute best ways to build a reputation for your brand–especially in a health-related niche like CBD–is to put your face out there and become the number one spokesperson for your company. When you tie your face to your brand, you can suddenly begin to leverage your own reputation when building one for your business. For instance, any medical experiences or certifications you have may help you push your product.
Even if you don’t have a reputation in the medical field, you can seek out opportunities to push your product through guest speaking engagements where you simultaneously teach people about CBD while making yourself an authority on the subject, which will certainly help your brand sell more.
CBD brands are accumulating by the day and an industry that was hardly around two years ago has become just as saturated as the beauty industry itself. There are ways to promote your CBD brand in a noisy digital marketing landscape.
