Author: Nate Doelling

Why a CBD SEO Agency is Essential For Your Business

Nate Doelling

In today’s cannabis marketing realm, being visible online is key, especially for CBD businesses. It’s not just about having a great product anymore; it’s about making sure your audience can find you. That’s where a CBD SEO agency, like Seedless Media, becomes an invaluable ally.

1. Navigating Unique CBD Challenges: CBD companies face distinct hurdles in online cannabis marketing due to strict rules and ever-changing policies. A CBD SEO agency knows these challenges inside and out, ensuring your business stays compliant while reaching the right audience. We implement our growing knowledge of the cannabis industry to create the most optimal strategy for your business while also adhering to the regulations surrounding CBD and cannabis related businesses.

2. Tailoring Strategies to CBD: One-size-fits-all SEO strategies won’t cut it in the field of cannabis marketing. Seedless Media crafts personalized approaches, using CBD-specific keywords, content, and techniques that resonate with your audience. Our discovery process allows us to get to know you and your brand while also helping us take the necessary steps toward building the best marketing plan to produce the best results.

3. Industry Know-How: When you choose a CBD SEO agency over a regular SEO agency, you don’t just get a list of keywords and rankings; you get industry experts that understand the cannabis marketing landscape. Seedless Media is made of cannabis experts and advocates that keep up to date on the latest trends and regulations, giving your business a competitive edge. Our team will use the latest google trends to help you stay ahead of the competition.

4. Boosting Online Visibility: Getting noticed online is crucial. A CBD-focused SEO agency employs tactics to bump up your website’s ranking, making it easier for potential customers to find you. We provide detailed page content, backlink portfolios relevant to the cannabis industry, keyword rich blog content, and more with our SEO services.

5. Staying Compliant and Trustworthy: CBD regulations demand strict adherence that regular seo agencies aren’t aware of. We take the second guessing out of the equation for you by enlisting regulatory compliance monitoring across all of our cannabis marketing services. A seasoned CBD SEO agency ensures your content complies with the rules, building trust and credibility with your audience.

In the world of cannabis marketing, a strong online presence isn’t an option; it’s a necessity. Partnering with a specialized CBD SEO agency like Seedless Medias isn’t just about marketing; it’s about smart strategy. Their tailored approaches, industry insight, and compliance expertise can propel your CBD business toward sustained growth and visibility.

What’s The Difference Between Conquesting & Prospecting for Your Cannabis Business

Nate Doelling

When researching cannabis digital ads or different kinds of guerilla marketing, you may hear industry people talk about “conquesting” and “prospecting”. These terms describe strategies within the digital marketing realm to target prospective audiences for your brand. Conquesting means, targeting your competitors’ audiences, and prospecting simply means, seeking out new potential customers—both play pivotal roles in the cannabis industry’s growth. By using cannabis digital ads to promote your brand & products, Seedless Media can target your competitors’ customers and tap into new segments, creating a whole new customer base for your business.

Conquesting Unveiled

Conquesting is the act of targeting your competitors’ business and putting your ads in front of the competitors’ audience. It is most clearly illustrated in geo targeted cannabis digital ads. With Seedless Media geotargeting services we can set up a geofence around different locations or addresses (like competitor dispensaries, smoke shops, and other points of interest) and serve impressions to people who walk through that specific area. It’s like having fliers taped to your competitor’s door. Conquesting is great for cannabis digital ads because it provides you with a proven pool of customers in an area. This method along with our comprehensive data will provide you with the insight you need to really drive new customers to your business.

Prospecting: Nurturing New Horizons

Prospecting is using consumer insights and demographic data to serve impressions to a likely buyer. It covers people who are interested in cannabis that might not be shopping at any of the dispensaries or smoke shops you’re targeting through conquesting. These are people that may be interested in cannabis or have interests peripheral to it, without ever having walked into a dispensary or smoke shop. They’re on the precipice of purchase, and a few impressions is all it takes to convert them into a customer. Identifying who your likely customers are through cannabis digital ads, and serving impressions to people similar to them.

Striking the Balance

The best cannabis digital marketing strategy, whether you’re doing geo-targeted display ads, SEO, or some other form of marketing, is a mix of both conquesting and prospecting. Conquesting is efficient because it reaches out to an audience of people who are already likely to purchase your product. If you can offer a better experience or value proposition than your competitors, people will switch over to you. Prospecting is still important because as any industry continues to grow, the faces that are most well known are the ones that continue to reap the benefits of that growth. Putting yourself in front of consumers now means you will be the first person they think of when they are ready to give products in your niche a try.

Conquesting and Prospecting, not conquesting vs prospecting

It is important to recognize that the comparison between these two types of marketing is not to draw a line between the two and make you pick one, it’s to help you come to the conclusion that both are important for a successful cannabis digital marketing campaign. Whether it’s an impression based cannabis display ads campaign or a long term SEO campaign, or a guerilla marketing campaign, your campaign will function at its best when it keeps your competitors and bystanders in mind.

At The Seedless Media, we understand the intricate dynamics of cannabis marketing. Contact us to tailor strategies that seamlessly integrate conquesting and prospecting for your business growth.

How To Use Cannabis Consumer Data To Improve Conversions

Nate Doelling

In the dynamic realm of cannabis marketing, unlocking the potential of consumer data stands as a game-changer. Data and insights aren’t just numbers, they’re trends that tell you exactly who your consumers are, what they’re interested in, and how you can sell to them more effectively. Collecting data and properly analyzing it can help you greatly improve your sales, but misinterpreted data can do the exact opposite. If you need help collecting data and analyzing it, hire a cannabis marketing team like us.

Start by Collecting Data

Before you can analyze data, you need to collect it. How do you do this? POS systems and online menu tools like Dutchie will tell you exactly what your most popular items are, but if you want more personal information, you need to treat your customers like people and interact with them. Sending out surveys via email or having your budtenders in-stores ask them a question or two while checking them out can give you valuable insights into the people that are already engaging with your brand. Email tools like Klaviyo tell you what kind of information your customers are most interested in by tracking open and click through rates.

The Power of Personalization

All of this data can help you paint a picture of your likely buyers. This includes age demographics, location, interests, and all sorts of other information that helps cannabis marketing teams like ours develop strategies to target the people who are most likely to make a purchase.

Elevating Customer Journeys

Collecting data at every touchpoint from the first display ad served to the first email sent, will help you figure out how you can better serve your customers. You can look at the different drop-off points in the customer journey to figure out how you can boost sales. If your emails have high open and click through rates but low conversions, maybe it means your prices are a bit too high or maybe it means your website is difficult to navigate.

Use Data To Inform Discounts

Reward repeat customers with points systems or percentage discounts. You can use your sales data and the click through rates of your different advertising channels to put together future promotions. If you know your customers love flower and respond well to BOGO deals, why not give them exactly what they want?

For deeper insights into optimizing your cannabis marketing strategies through consumer data, explore The Seedless Media today.

Remember, behind every data point lies an opportunity to connect with your audience on a deeper level and transform it into meaningful conversions.

Mastering Cannabis Advertising : Tips to Increase Conversions

Nate Doelling

Conversions and sales are the name of the game in advertising. Many services like SEO are great for building traffic and bringing people to your website, but how do you get them to actually make a purchase? This blog will give some advice on boosting website traffic and what you can do to turn that traffic into conversions.

1. Know Your Audience Inside Out: Before you convert a website visitor into a customer, you need to convert someone outside of your purchase bubble into a website visitor. Effective advertising starts with truly understanding who you’re talking to. Dive deep into what makes your audience tick – their interests, preferences, and pain points. Crafting ads that speak directly to their hearts and minds is the key to success.

2. Visuals that Tell Stories: Ever heard the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words”? In cannabis advertising, visuals are your storytellers. A well-put-together display advertisement can convey exactly what you’re selling and bring a person who is at the precipice of purchase right to your shop page. A banner at the top of your home page with some kind of discount code can convince repeat visitors and first time visitors alike to make a purchase.

3. Embrace Diverse Platforms: On average, it takes 7 interactions or touches before someone acts on your call to action(making a purchase). Repeat touches from the same point aren’t as effective as different touches. This means a person that sees your website organically through Google searches, sees your display advertisements on various websites, and sees you on social media is more likely to make a purchase than a person that has only seen you in one of those places. A diversified approach ensures your message reaches your audience wherever they are, and it builds trust when they see you in their spaces.

4. Retarget Your Traffic: It isn’t realistic to convert every website visitor into a customer, but you can increase conversions by providing strong first time deals or turning first time visitors into repeat visitors through email marketing. Setting up an email popup with Mailchimp or Klaviyo will greatly increase your form submission rate. One way of increasing this even further is including a discount for email subscribers and mentioning it on your popup.

5. Offer Strong Deals: Its true that offering incentives cuts into your profit margin, but you need to put yourself in the shoes of a first time visitor to your website. They haven’t tried your products before, so they have no point of reference for how good they are and how they stack up against the competition. Discounts and sales help to increase the likelihood of conversion.

6. Give Prospects The Information They Need To Make An Informed Purchase: Your customers know what they’re looking for. They want to know what the product you’re selling looks like, how much THC, CBD, and other cannabinoids are in it, and what kind of effects they can expect after using it. If you have that information available, why not share it with customers? Informed customers are more likely to make a purchase, and more likely to spend more than uninformed customers.

Need help setting up a popup or creating an eye-catching banner at the top of your homepage? At The Seedless Media, we’re experts in CBD and cannabis digital marketing.

Curious to see how we can transform your cannabis advertising game? Check out our Display Advertising page for insights into our expertise.

In conclusion, mastering cannabis advertising involves speaking authentically to your audience while navigating industry regulations. By implementing these strategies and partnering with seasoned professionals, you’ll not just boost visibility but forge meaningful connections and drive conversions for your brand.

Cannabis Advertising Agency

Tips For Effective Digital Cannabis Advertising

Nate Doelling

Traditional forms of advertising are great, but as the world moves further towards technology, having an online presence is becoming increasingly important. There are only 24 hours in a day, and you can only spend a fraction of that time on your digital presence, so how do you beat dispensaries and ecommerce CBD companies that already have a strong digital presence online?

Here’s some important things to keep in mind when developing your digital marketing strategy for your dispensary or ecommerce CBD business.

  • Review the laws – Cannabis legislation moves at a breakneck pace, this means you need to be on the lookout for potential legislation changes including things like the SAFE banking act, along with local and state-level legislation. Along with the legality of your CBD or cannabis products, there are also special rules for advertising. Search engines like Google and social media like Instagram and X(formerly twitter) are constantly changing their rules and expectations surrounding cannabis and CBD.
  • Set a budget for your digital cannabis advertising campaign – It would be amazing if all forms of advertising could be free and effective, but like most things in life, you need to pay more to see the best results. It is important to set aside some amount of money as an advertising budget and do your best to stick within that budget. This means picking specific channels of communication that will give you the best return, and being ruthless when you notice you aren’t getting the ROI you’re expecting.
  • Know the KPIs – This works in tandem with your budget, don’t just throw thousands of dollars at a cannabis marketing agency without knowing what you’re measuring. Check in with the agency you’re working with or thinking of working with and ask them what KPIs they track for each of your campaigns. It’s important to be cognisant of the fact that not all campaigns are run with the intention of driving a sale. Some campaigns exist solely to increase a consumer’s awareness of your product and make them more likely to think of you and purchase your product down the line when they’re ready to make a purchase, not to turn them into a shopper five minutes after they’ve been exposed to your ad.
  • Keep your website up to date – Many digital campaigns set a goal of driving traffic to your website – if you don’t have a sleek website that makes people want to click around, they will leave your website. The same way you keep your dispensary or home clean, your website needs to be clean and appealing to potential customers.

Go with an omnichannel approach

Putting all your eggs into one basket and only running display advertisements or only having an SEO campaign is like trying to drive a car with only one wheel. It takes a minimum of 7 different touchpoints to convert a person into a customer, and it takes continuous touchpoints after the fact to keep your brand at the top of that customer’s mind the next time they want to purchase cannabis or CBD products. This means running multiple campaigns and efforts at the same time, ranging from local events to display advertising to email marketing. Doing all of these takes much more work than just doing one, but the more engaged you are with your potential customers, the more engaged they will be with you.

Display Advertising

What to Consider When Designing A Dispensary Display Ad

Nate Doelling

Display advertising is a cost effective form of advertising that is based on serving impressions directly to prospective customers. Display advertising can be very effective for cannabis dispensaries and ecommerce companies that sell CBD products, but only if you have a well designed advertisement and the right segments in place. Here are some of the most important things to consider when putting together a display advertisement.

Make sure the advertisement matches your brand

Display advertisements will be many customers’ first impression of your brand, and it is important to make sure this impression is consistent with your website or in-store appearance. If you plan on running display advertisements for a prolonged period of time, having a consistent brand image with the same logo, colors, and font will help your customers instantly recognize the advertisement as yours, and make them want to engage with the advertisement.

Be specific about what you’re advertising

A generic advertisement that just says “We’re dispensary X” won’t get anyone to click and visit your website. Your advertisement should give people a reason to click. This means including some sort of discount or showing off a product that can only be bought in your dispensary or on your website.

Don’t use coupon codes

We just talked about discounts, but the more steps you put between your customer and them making a purchase, the less likely they are to make a purchase. Our cannabis marketing experts have found that coupon codes are not an effective use of the real-estate on your display ads. The nature of display advertisements is that they move along relatively quickly, and if a person is engaged and clicks on the advertisement to get to your website, they are unlikely to see that advertisement on whatever app or website they were on previously. This means you’re relying on your customer’s memory and ability to remember a coupon code. In our experience, an automatic coupon code that can be redeemed at checkout by simply adding the right items to the cart works infinitely better than having your customers remember a coupon code.

Make the ad engaging

This can be achieved by including moving elements and multiple instances or slides. You can feature a variety of products and deals in one ad, it doesn’t need to just be one product per impression. This means you get to show more of your brand and product offerings, and you’re giving customers more opportunities to see something they like. The different colors and text will also make people more invested in the ad and make them want to click. The most important part of the advertisement by far is the inclusion of a call to action. It might seem trivial, but the inclusion of some kind of text that says “click here” or “buy now” makes all the difference in the click-through-rate for cannabis display advertisements.

Size Matters

The resolution and actual size of the still image or gif file matter. Different publishers have different rules, so make sure you check with your publisher or ask your cannabis marketing company what their size limit is. Along with the file size, you need to keep the dimensions or resolution of the ad in mind. Different publishers will support different sized advertisements, and you’ll want to have different resolutions of the same ad ready to accommodate different apps and different monitor or phone sizes. Any images and text included in the advertisement should be clear and easy to read. The main focus of your display advertisement should be whatever product you’re highlighting, and that should take up most of the space on the design.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help

Working with a cannabis advertising agency that specializes in cannabis display ads is a great way to make sure your first attempt at cannabis display ads is a success. Cannabis advertising agencies have access to in-house graphic designers and a wider publishing network than you may have access to as an individual cannabis dispensary or CBD retailer.

Geo Targeting Ads Drive Traffic

The Pros And Cons Of Paid Ads for Cannabis Businesses

Nate Doelling

Dispensary owners and online cannabis and CBD retailers all understand the importance of advertising, but not all of them understand which parts of advertising are the most important. The Coca Cola Company spends close to three billion dollars on advertising each year, just to stay top of mind for consumers.

Most dispensaries don’t have an advertising budget and rely on free forms of advertising like word of mouth and organic engagement on social media. Organic, free advertising is great, but it’s also the most saturated space and method of reaching your customers. Most dispensaries have an Instagram account or some other form of social media, but not every dispensary is running display ads. If you have the budget to incorporate paid advertising into your cannabis marketing mix, you can reach customers and segments that you could never reach with word of mouth.

Understanding the pros and cons of paid ads can help you to determine if it is the right option for your business.

Benefits of Paid Advertising

Paid advertising is self explanatory, it is advertising you pay for. This can include hiring a cannabis marketing agency or some other digital marketing agency to perform specific services like dispensary geo targeting, display advertising, SMS marketing, cannabis SEO, or PPC.

PPC and display advertising both function by serving an impression to a prospective customer. PPC or pay per click advertising is most commonly associated with Google Ads, but social media platforms like Twitter, Tiktok, Instagram, and Facebook also offer some form of PPC advertising. PPC is great for high dollar value products that you know you can convert customers on.

Display advertising functions by purchasing a flat number of impressions instead of purchasing the clicks. This means it is up to you or a cannabis marketing agency to put together an engaging display ad that convinces potential customers to click. Display advertising isn’t comparable at all to word of mouth or social media advertising, the impressions you buy are a guarantee that your company’s name and products will be seen by a certain number of people. It’s essentially a billboard that you can track.

Cons of Paid Advertising

Unfortunately for dispensaries and CBD companies, there are unique restrictions to cannabis and hemp that aren’t present in other industries. Instagram and Facebook are among the most restrictive, not allowing advertising of cannabis and only allowing some forms of advertisements for hemp products. PPC advertising is also heavily regulated and restricted by Google, we’ve heard many stories from our clients about how they attempted to run a PPC campaign only for it to be taken down a few days later. We do have a workaround, but it’s the kind of thing we only share with clients and prospects.

The other con of paid advertising is the cost. If you’re used to the free impressions gained from organic posting, any advertising expense will feel prohibitive. The important thing is setting a budget and having realistic expectations and goals with your advertising. Organic growth is important, but when you’re trying to catch up or beat your competition, you’ll need to invest in your brand and image. The biggest dispensaries and ecommerce companies found success after investing in marketing with a cannabis marketing agency or working diligently with their internal team.

Tips For Improving Your Dispensary SEO Rankings

Nate Doelling

Modern dispensary owners understand the importance of having a good physical location for their cannabis business, and there is an online equivalent: search engine rankings. By ranking higher for common search terms like “dispensary” or “THC gummies,” you put yourself directly in front of your target audience. But how do you rank for these search terms? The answer is SEO.

The primary principle of search engine optimization (SEO) is making your web pages easier for search crawlers to audit your pages. At their core, the webpages that rank highly on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) are the ones that provide the most value to the real people that read them. This means the best way to boost your search engine rankings is to create engaging webpage content that provides value to the people reading them.

Google uses a complex algorithm that looks at more than just the specific text on your page and the use of keywords. Today, SEO also includes how your website is set up to include meta tags, content, link building, social networking, web design, organic traffic, sitemaps, and even the images and navigation on the website.

As a dispensary, there are legal restrictions surrounding what you can add to a website. However, successful SEO strategies can still make your dispensary stand out and move up the search results rankings.

Local SEO

Local SEO refers to pages optimized for specific cities or locations. Including your address on your website and having a Google Business Profile set up makes it possible for your dispensary to pop up when people search for “dispensary near me” or “cannabis near me” in the search bar.

Google My Business is Now Google Business Profile

Claiming and setting up your Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) and Bing Places for Business can help increase local searchability and build credibility with local searchers. If you set your profile up properly, your dispensary will show up on Google Maps. Google does have some unique restrictions on dispensaries and other cannabis-based businesses, so we advise working with a cannabis marketing agency to set up your Google Business Profile.

SEO Strategies Across Social Media

Social media marketing is an integral part of any digital marketing strategy, but it is often overlooked by SEO specialists, and SEO isn’t well understood by many social media marketers. Including some keywords in the form of hashtags or as part of your captions on organic posts can help increase the post’s organic reach in the algorithm. You can also direct traffic from your social media pages to your website, increasing the likelihood of your followers becoming customers.

Setting aside time to optimize your website for search engines properly can take up valuable time you can spend on other aspects of your business or with your family and friends. Working with a cannabis advertising agency for your SEO can save you time and lead to a better ROI and searchability.

How To Find The Right Web Designer For Your Cannabis Business

Nate Doelling

Your website is the first place potential new customers go to learn more about your busines. Whether you’re a brick-and-mortar dispensary or an online CBD business, you need a functional, good looking website to build credibility with prospective customers. Having an optimized website and online presence makes every other aspect of marketing your business easier.

Your website is a reflection of your company. It’s a platform for you to talk about your business’s mission and philosophy, and also to build trust with prospects and educate them on cannabis and cannabinoids. If you already have a strong brand voice, website designers can help amplify that voice. If you don’t have a strong brand identity, website designers at advertising agencies can help you discover your voice so you can connect with customers.

Traits of a Good Website Designer

Good web designers have an eye for design. Simply put, this means the work they put out will be visually appealing. Pick a designer that has designed websites for cannabis businesses in the past, and look at their portfolio. It isn’t hard to figure out if a website looks good or not, you can look at the websites of other reputable dispensaries or businesses and compare them to the websites in your designers portfolio.

Good website designers are also communicative and willing to take feedback. Make sure whoever you hire includes revisions as part of the website build and is willing to make changes.

For the cannabis industry in particular, website designers need to be up to date on legislation. Make sure your designer knows what state you’re in and is including necessary measures like age verification. If your website designer is also in charge of the on-page content, make sure they avoid making blatant medical claims and are using SEO best practices.

Getting More out of your Website Designer

The best way to get improved results out of your web designer is communication. Be clear about your expectations for the website and what your needs are. The more information you can provide, the better the end product will be. Make sure you keep the website design open enough that you can make changes in the future if you decide to change aspects of your brand.

Maine Allowing Dispensaries to Claim Advertising Expenses as Businesses Expenses for Tax Purposes

Maine Allowing Dispensaries to Claim Advertising Expenses as Businesses Expenses for Tax Purposes

Nate Doelling

Great news for any dispensaries in Maine, you can deduct your marketing expenses starting this year! Other states don’t allow this kind of deduction for any kind of controlled substance, including cannabis. The cannabis industry is one of the few with these restrictions on marketing, and it’s great to see Maine extend a hand to cannabis businesses. If any dispensaries in Maine would like to increase their budgets with this news in mind, you know who to call 👀