5 Resolutions for Your Cannabis Advertising Strategy in 2022

Ah, January. It’s the month to reflect on last year and make resolutions for the rest of the new year. For dispensaries and cannabis brands, this is a good time to think about your biggest wins and your biggest learning opportunities. While 2020 seemed to usher in a golden age of cannabis, 2021 was a different experience for everyone in the industry. The landscape is getting more competitive than ever, which means acquiring new customers and building loyalty is crucial to every cannabis business in 2022. 

So now’s the time to get ready for the rest of the year by making your business resolutions for the future. Here are five resolutions for your cannabis advertising campaigns that can help make sure that you have your best year yet: 

1. Create Best Practices for Customer Data.

When a customer walks into your store, do budtenders collect any information? If an order goes through your website, are you able to reach that customer again? And, if you do, do you store those customer interactions in a place that makes sense?

Customer data is the best way cannabis companies can make more personalized communications and advertisements. By storing the data in an organized way that makes sense, you can better segment your customers by interest, purchase history, and demographics for email campaigns, digital ad campaigns, SMS campaigns, and more. 

Want to start the year strong when it comes to cannabis customer data? Start looking into a Customer Data Platform (CDP) that helps you activate, organize and get more insights out of your data. Also, train staff to collect data at the point-of-sale or create an incentive program that gives customers discounts for creating a profile, as the strength of your marketing efforts rely on how well you understand your customer. 

2. Learn Some Ad Tech Buzzwords.

Every industry has buzzwords. When it comes to cannabis advertising, a lot of those buzzwords are from the ad tech industry. The most important one you need to know is simple: return on ad spend (ROAS). ROAS is simple: it is a metric of measurement to understand how many sales occurred as a result of your ad campaign, or how one dollar of media translates in X dollars in sales. 

When you’re working with a cannabis advertising solution, you’ll want to know how to talk about the goals you’re trying to achieve. That way, when you’re analyzing the results of a campaign, you can figure out what’s working and what you might need to improve - and you can talk about it with partners. 

The best way to get started? Check out our glossary of cannabis advertising terms to brush up on the most useful ad tech buzzwords. 

3. Make a Marketing Calendar.

Yes, 4/20 is a big holiday. But did you know that last Halloween weekend was the fourth-biggest cannabis sales day of the year? Or that New Year's Eve cannabis sales are higher than Green Wednesday? Hey, some people are even calling this month “Cannuary.”

When you look at the full calendar year, think about when you want to run big seasonal campaigns. From Valentine’s Day and Super Bowl Weekend to St. Patrick’s Day, Labor Day Weekend and Black Friday, there are plenty of opportunities for cannabis advertising campaigns that go beyond traditional messaging and catch consumer attention.

The best bet is to look into free project management tools like Trello. They have a calendar that can help you set up reminders and tasks for when you want to launch a campaign to help you start planning ahead.

4. Analyze Last Year’s Results.

Conduct an audit of all of your cannabis advertising channels. Which social posts got the most likes? What email and SMS messages had the highest engagement? Which ads drove the most revenue? What webpages got the most traffic? 

Once you have that information, look at the creative for your winning campaigns. Did a particular message or offer perform better than the others? Is there a specific image or product that resonated with your audience? How can you target those people specifically?

Your ad performance metrics are probably fragmented across a few different platforms. To really understand the full picture, make sure to centralize it all. Look for a measurement platform that measures omnichannel media or aggregate your data in a BI tool or spreadsheet!

5. Set Your KPIs.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) can help you determine the most important goals for the year. Start by looking at the areas you want to improve the most and then choose three core KPIs to help guide your cannabis advertising efforts.

Each month, measure your progress toward your KPIs and think about how to keep optimizing your strategies to achieve them. The easiest way to set your KPIs is to take what you did last year and figure out a stretch goal for your performance this year. Is it total sales? In-store traffic? Ecommerce activity? New customers? \ By setting KPIs, you can help focus your priorities around specific milestones.

A Year to Remember

In 2021, legal cannabis sales industry grew by 41%. With new markets opening throughout the year and consumer sentiment at all-time highs, you’ll likely have more opportunities to drive new business this year. Making your resolutions now will set you up for success for the rest of the year. So take what you learned from last year and keep growing!

Ready to kick things into high gear? Register for a demo with Surfside to start 2022 off right!