Is Marketing The New Marching?

Email marketing really isn’t that hard.

It just takes time.

Which YOU don’t have…

The more I network and talk with business owners in the cannabis industry, the more I realize that email marketing isn’t always a top priority.

And the reason is pretty obvious once you’ve spent more than a day in this industry:

There’s 800+ other problems going on in the weed world that everyone is focused on.

• Tax issues

• Funding/banking resistance

• Laws against marketing your own business

• Stigmas following this industry around like a jealous ex

I’ll admit…

If I was trying to run a dispensary/cannabis ecommerce business in 2023/24, I probably wouldn’t be too concerned with marketing either.

Especially if I’ve already been banned multiple times from different platforms for talking about a plant.

But remember that old saying - ‘the squeaky wheel gets the grease’?

Think about it…

Throughout history there’s been countless times where a person, demographic, organization, or industry was ‘blacklisted’ by the general public or government, and were forced to fight back.

• Civil rights movement in the 1960’s

• Women’s suffrage movement at the turn of the century

• LGBTQ+ movement that’s still fighting to this day

• Our own medical marijuana legalization movement that’s been going on for decades

Each of these events was the result of a group of people deciding that they didn’t want to be told how to live their lives anymore.

And those people embarking on, essentially, marketing campaigns to improve the public perception of them.

The people being affected by these blacklists simply would not give up on their mission of fair inclusion with the rest of the population.

They kept fighting for what’s right.

The same approach should be used in our industry.

But instead of marching, we have open communication platforms (although, I’m about ready to start marching).

Never in the course of human history has it been easier to get a message out to the public!

How would you convince someone that sees weed as a harmful drug with no medical benefits that it’s actually an incredibly safe, beneficial form of treatment?

You’d probably show them some case studies or testimonials of real people that use cannabis to treat chronic illnesses.

Would that one conversation convince them to throw on some reggae and spark a doobie?

Probably not.

You’d probably have to prove your point again…

And again…

And again…

Luckily for us, it’s 2024 and you don’t have to go door-to-door handing out weed flyers anymore.

Why? Because we have a mass communication platform with over 4 billion active users.

Marketing isn’t about sales.

It’s about making your audience feel something.

People act on emotion.

If you want to improve the public perception on a certain topic, you have to be able to evoke emotion, and you need to do it a lot.

And I only see that happening if brands and industry pros consistently get their message out there, and show people that it’s not a scary drug, but rather a miracle plant for millions of people worldwide.

It can be a discouraging battle, but it’s a battle worth fighting.

Stop with the discount spamming.

Education > quick sales.

Until next time!

Steve

P.S. Happy New Year!