For most companies, the marketing budget is rarely enough. This is because there is simply so much that has to be done to reach the sheer volume of customers necessary to sustain themselves and retain them, let alone thrive. In short, if you feel like you have an extremely limited marketing spend to work with, you are definitely not alone: Nearly all organizations go through this, especially during the beginning stages of building their businesses.
THE MARKETING BUDGET IS NEVER ENOUGH FOR MOST COMPANIES
Most companies never feel like they have enough money to spend on their marketing strategy. Marketing budgets typically include expenses such as website development, advertising, content creation, social media, or outsourcing your marketing to a marketing agency.
THE AVERAGE AMOUNT CANNABIS COMPANIES SPEND ON MARKETING
While measuring results is difficult because marijuana sales at various dispensaries are hyper-localized, this industry's average annual income is $1 million. Typically, cannabis companies should aim to spend anywhere from 3-9% of their sales or more on a monthly basis. That will usually add up to approximately $2,500 to $7,500 every thirty days. A lot depends on what part of the cannabis industry you are in. It may be drastically different if you are marketing to B2B vs. B2C. You really need to consider who you are targeting and where they hang out.
HOW CANNABIS MARKETING BUDGETS COMPARE TO OTHER INDUSTRIES
Cannabis companies sometimes spend a lot less on advertising than most other organizations. To be honest, weed is something that a lot of consumers want and are very willing to buy, so, while marketing helps simply because you want them to choose your specific dispensary and purchase your products, customers are usually pretty motivated to buy cannabis in the first place. Most organizations spend about 7.8-8.7% of their overall revenue, so this is near the higher end of what marijuana businesses spend.
Of course, dishing out 9% on exceptionally incredible advertisements to entice your consumers and retain them will likely work wonders when it comes to helping you stand out from your competition. At the end of the day, you should probably invest as much as you can in a convenient website that is as user-friendly as possible, a gorgeous physical location, and even improved packaging that features engaging visuals. All of these little details will almost certainly improve your bottom line.
WHAT IS THE RETURN ON YOUR INVESTMENT WHEN IT COMES TO MARKETING?
Honestly, tracking marketing metrics is your key to success. The return on your investment when it comes to marketing is arguably invaluable. First of all, it is challenging for customers to do business with you as a company if you don't have your name out there, especially with such stiff competition in this industry. Second of all, it's important to remember that there are many benefits to advertising your products.
For instance, if you have a YouTube channel featuring your favorite recipe for marijuana brownies, this will likely garner a lot of views, especially if you have grown your audience over the years. It will also bring in more cash as a result, which never hurts. If you invest in a beautiful website, this will help you stand out in the marketplace.
Sending out a monthly or weekly newsletter can help you engage prospects who want to know more about your brand and services products: Educating people about your product will establish your brand as the expert so when they are ready to convert, they will think of you!
On the other hand, there are consumers who are constantly looking for discounts. If you have a membership program of any kind or throw sales during black Friday, for example, they will probably be 100% committed to your company. Sometimes, discounts feel like personal gifts because life is just so expensive, and many people have to count every penny to make ends meet these days.
Furthermore, having an immensely convenient website where consumers can easily pay through various methods will almost certainly give you an advantage over your competitors. For instance, you might want to give people the option to purchase your products using PayPal and the like or their debit or credit cards.
At the end of the day, all of this can cost a great deal of money, but it is arguably worth the expense because you will likely earn significantly more than you spent as a result of your marketing efforts: There is a reason some of the most successful companies in the world continuously invest in improving their organization for consumers and employees alike.
In short, marketing is practically invaluable when it comes to meeting your financial goals as a business, attracting customers, growing your reputation in the cannabis space as a company that can be trusted with the needs and desires of the public, and retaining consumers after you've grabbed their attention.
By the way, it might be helpful to combine passive income strategies with your marketing efforts. For instance, you could create a cannabis-centric YouTube channel to inform and entertain your customers while also earning money from your videos on a monthly basis after you are able to monetize them.
You could also consider having a blog that is posted on a daily, weekly, monthly, or even quarterly basis so that customers who love to read—or love to learn about cannabis through the written word—are as satisfied as possible with your products and the information you provide. The bonus is that, if your blog gets extremely popular and attracts an enormous amount of traffic, you can often monetize it.
If you are stretched for time and completely maxed out when it comes to your professional responsibilities, it's important to remember that you do not personally have to produce every blog post and video. Instead, you can outsource these responsibilities to bloggers, ghostwriters, graphic designers, and videographers.
While nearly every budget is stretched to the max, this is definitely money well spent in the long run, so, as long as you have taken care of the rest of your basic needs, your organization requires to stay afloat—which can be costly, especially in the beginning stages—it's likely in your best interest to continue investing in marketing to increase your bottom line.
Many people spend money on marketing, but forget to track the results of their campaigns and ROI. This is a HUGE mistake. Every campaign must have tracking in place to make sure that you can track your leads, conversions, and ROI. Hubspot has some great tools that will help you measure your results. Most marketing agencies have a plan in place to track every marketing tactic that you do and measure results for you. If you are not sure how to get started, measure your results to ensure your marketing budget is accounted for, ThrivePOP has a variety of free resources that you can download to teach you what metrics really matter.
