Strategies to Market CBD Online to Increase Traffic & Brand Awareness

CBD is a trending wellness solution that has made it to millions of Americans’ routines, thanks to the 2018 Farm Bill making all hemp derivatives federally legal. Although CBD is now accessible at nearly every store, the opportunities to promote CBD online remain limited. There are so many rules to follow, and so many restrictions to keep in mind that you may find it tough to reach consumers using the internet as a CBD brand. However, ads are not the primary way of marketing your products, and there are strategies you can include in your marketing plan to increase traffic and brand awareness. 

Email Marketing for CBD Brands

While many still may underestimate the potential of emails, email marketing remains the most powerful marketing channel to increase sales. For more than a decade, email has been generating the highest return on investment for marketers, and for every $1 spent on it, you can expect $38 in return. 

Emails not only help to attract new customers but keep the existing ones engaged. 

They allow you to update your subscribers about new products, sales, new content on your website, or any news in the industry or your store. The good news is, email campaigns don’t cost a fortune, and they are cost-effective. For including email marketing in your overall marketing plan, you’ll need to choose the Email Service Provider for CBD brands to avoid marketing restrictions or any confusions that may arise while using marketing software with unclear rules about marketing CBD. 

If you don’t yet have a mailing list, make sure to include capture forms on your site, as well as a lead magnet – a free piece of content, discount, or even a product sample in exchange for an email address of users.

Optimize Your Website (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is crucial for bringing users to your site. It helps Google understand the context of your pages so they appear in relevant search queries. SEO also improves user experience, so once they visit your site, the pleasant first interaction increases their chances of becoming your customers. SEO is how you can increase your website’s visibility and increase traffic, so more prospects look at your product catalog. 

Write a Blog

Most online experiences start with Google, and most users are looking for solutions before they look for products to buy. Writing a blog is a beautiful way to educate your prospects, help them deal with issues they face, and find solutions for their problems. Blog articles allow you to demonstrate your knowledge in the field and build a relationship with your customers – all good reasons to start writing on your site. Moreover, a blog helps your website appear in more search queries and increase traffic to your site.

Social Media Marketing

Most of your prospects are on social media, and if you are not utilizing it for promoting your brand, it’s time to go social. Social media channels have strict policies regarding CBD advertisements; however, there are ways to increase brand awareness without ads so that you can reach more prospects. Firstly, you’ll need to determine who your target audience is. While teens are on Instagram, Baby Boomers prefer YouTube over other channels, and Generation X and Millennials choose Facebook. Knowing which channels are most preferred by each generation will help you utilize the right platforms for your goals and create relevant content for each of them.  For increasing the number of followers and boosting brand awareness, you can partner with CBD influencers who will create and share content for promoting your products and brand. Moreover, social media is an excellent place for sharing your blog articles, compelling information, news, or even graphics related to your products and CBD in general. Here you can reach more prospective customers, build direct relationships with them, and keep existing customers engaged and up to date about industry news, new products, and discounts.

Create Engaging Content

Although a blog is crucial for your brand, it’s simply not enough to build brand awareness and increase revenue. Nowadays, internet users have everything at their fingertips, and while some may love to read, others may prefer watching videos or listening to information. Engaging content may help you get more customers, as many of your prospects wish to be a part of a compelling experience before buying your products. They want to buy from a brand that cares about customers rather than from someone who doesn’t bother to educate, inform, and help their prospects. 

Use the Live Function

The Live function across social media channels allows you to effortlessly create educational videos for your clients, who can interact with the content and ask questions during the session. Live videos may increase trust towards your brand, as they aren’t pre-recorded and edited, and allow direct communication with potential customers. The topics you address in Live videos can be about CBD in general, different forms of CBD products, FAQ, how to take various CBD forms properly, CBD industry trends, etc.

Add to Stories

Adding to your Stories on different channels will allow you to keep your customers informed about your brand. They will know you continuously work on delivering the best CBD experience to customers. The audience will also get to know your brand better, and some of the stories you share can be from the event you attend, packages you ship, new products you add to the inventory, or even from the farm where your hemp grows. 

Upload Videos 

Internet users watch 500 million hours of videos per day on YouTube. Videos are more engaging and allow room for multitasking. Additionally, many queries on Google feature videos as featured snippets, known as ‘suggested clips.’ If you search for ‘how to boil water,’ for instance, you’ll see a suggested clip for the query. So, not only are videos more appealing for some of your prospects, but they also may get you at the top of search results in related queries.  Besides, YouTube is the second largest search engine globally, and many of your potential customers may start looking for information about CBD there. A YouTube channel will allow you to increase brand awareness and reach more prospects online.

Create Podcasts

While some like to read, and others like to watch and listen, some go online to stream podcasts and listen to them while cycling, walking, jogging, or commuting to places. Podcasts are becoming increasingly popular, and Spotify has 299 million listeners across 92 markets. Besides, Google has already launched a web version of Google Podcasts for iOS, Android, and Windows, meaning users can play your podcast series directly in the browser. Google Podcasts not only increases the exposure of your brand but also provides detailed listening information and graphs for your episodes, so you know who is listening and how the audience is interacting with the content. When you type ‘CBD Podcasts’ on Google, you’ll see a carousel of podcasts above the list of pages in the results, and these are podcasts from across the web. Below the first page in the query, you will see another carousel containing podcasts from Google Podcasts. 

The podcasts you create can be about the industry news, controversies, guides, etc. They will allow you to increase online visibility, reach more prospects, and share your knowledge with your audience. They are also inexpensive to produce, and all you need is a quiet setting and a microphone to record. Creating them is how you can make it to those prospects’ devices who like to consume information from their headphones rather than their digital screens.

Create Experiences

The increasing demand for CBD has caused the growing number of brands selling CBD products. To beat the competition, your brand needs to stand out and attract more potential customers. Your marketing efforts don’t begin with your website and end with social media channels. People love to learn more about their wellness products before adding them to shopping carts. They are also looking for different ways to stay in shape and physically active. Some of your prospects wish to connect with others that share the same interests as them. So, how can you educate, entertain, and connect people? 

Creating experiences, whether it’s an educational event, CBD product sampling, cooking with CBD, or even a marathon for beginners will allow you to reach more consumers. Experiences help keep customers engaged, build direct relationships with them, and increase your company’s credibility. Even when you cannot host experiences in person, different conferencing software applications and social media channels allow you to create online events. Tools such as Facebook Events help you spread the word about the experiences you host, whether online or in-person, and this helps boost your online presence, stand out from others, and increase brand awareness.

Partner With Local Companies

While other companies selling the same products as you do to your target audience are your competitors, some of the local CBD brands may help you increase brand awareness. You can partner with local companies or brands serving your local area by creating bundles and including 1-2 items from their product assortment. For instance, you may create a bundle ‘Family Kit’ and add CBD for pets from the other company if you don’t sell them. Similarly, other CBD companies can use your products in their bundles, and you both get more awareness together this way.

The CBD industry is becoming more and more competitive, with so many brands and products appearing daily on the market. Your prospects have a wide array of options when shopping for hemp-derived products online. To increase sales and boost revenue, you need to stand out and reach more internet users. We hope the strategies above will help you market products online, so more CBD enthusiasts and online users who want to add the compound to their regiment discover your brand and start shopping with you.