If you've recently opened a marijuana dispensary and are looking for ways to market your product, it's important to be methodical in your approach. Good marketing has the ability to draw many customers to your business, while bad marketing could not only push prospective customers away but also potentially harm your reputation in the community. Here are some dos and don'ts that you should keep in mind as you develop a marketing plan for your marijuana dispensary.
Do: Focus On The Benefits
Benefit-driven marketing is always a good practice, and this is especially true when you're marketing marijuana. You want to focus on the health benefits that this plant can provide, including pain relief, help with sleeping and anxiety, and other similar benefits. This type of marketing approach may encourage people who would not otherwise have thought about legally trying marijuana to consider visiting your dispensary and purchasing some marijuana, given that you've shown your product to be beneficial to people's lives in several ways.
Don't: Try To Make It Hip
While it's a good idea to tout the medicinal benefits of marijuana, you generally want to stay away from marketing this product as something that is hip to consume. This approach may make people in your community believe that you're marketing it toward teenagers, given that "hip" advertising typically suits teens — and this, in turn, can create an uproar and the type of publicity that you don't want to face with your new business.
Do: Stress Safety
There may be some people who are reluctant about visiting a marijuana dispensary because of safety concerns. For example, perhaps someone is thinking about the drug still being illegal and thus imagines undesirable people lurking around your business. For people to become customers, it's important for you to present your business as a safe environment. You can do so with your marketing in several ways, including showing images of your business and describing its location. For the latter, describing your dispensary as "Next to Joe's Juice Bar" sounds more healthy and safe than "Next to Joe's Adult Superstore."
Don't: Emphasize Smoking
While it's true that many users of medicinal marijuana favor smoking it, there are people who will view such habits as illegal — even if it's been a long time since marijuana was legalized in your area. Instead of emphasizing smoking, you can focus on the other ways of using marijuana, such as through the consumption of edible products such as brownies and chocolate bars. Such products don't carry the same connotation to certain people as the idea of smoking.
If you need help marketing your marijuana products, contact a company like Foottraffik.
