If you’re struggling to sell CBD products online in the USA, our data shows you’re not alone. Based on the last 18-months of cannabis and CBD marketing, here are 3 of the most effective digital marketing tactics you can implement to sell CBD in USA.
Three Simple Ways To Sell CBD in USA
CBD is federally legal in the United States as long as it contains no more than 0.3% THC. CBD has several health benefits so selling CBD in the USA should be easy, right?
If you’re already in the CBD industry, you already know that CBD does not get a person high, but did you know that the majority of Americans interested in CBD still think it’s intoxicating?
This fact is just a small part of what makes selling CBD in the USA a challenge. For now.
We’ve been working with CBD brands from across the United States since 2017 and have learned a ton about how to market and advertise CBD online and exactly how to sell CBD in the USA.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s still not easy to sell CBD online in the US.
It’s a challenge because of the years of prohibition with the cannabis plant, the limited amount of approved medical trials proving the health & wellness benefits of CBD, and the amount of misinformation about CBD.
It’s a challenge because so many people are excited to learn more about CBD’s health benefits, but most online CBD stores are focused on selling these people a product, or products, that they know very little about and need more education before they’re willing to buy.
So how do you sell CBD products in the USA to people who aren’t ready to buy yet?
Continue reading to learn the 3 Strategic Tactics on exactly how to sell CBD in the USA.
1. Optimize For Email Capture First, Sales Second
I know this may sound like madness to new and experienced entrepreneurs who are focused on sales being their main vehicle for growth.
Before you pass any judgment on this CBD marketing tip, remember that we’ve discussed why your CBD sales are super low for now and the fact that customers are confused AF.
If you don’t have time to click through the link above, my point is that people aren’t buying tons of CBD online right now, but people are very interested in how CBD may be able to help them.
So if the demand for your CBD products is not as high as you’d like it to be at this point, why focus all your marketing dollars on sales?
Believe it or not, you can get a decent ROI on your marketing spend if you change your focus for the first 3-4 months of your CBD marketing campaign from capturing sales to capturing email addresses (i.e. leads).
Capturing highly qualified leads from your website (i.e.email addresses) in exchange for useful information that educates confused potential customers is one of the best ways to sell any product, and is particularly ideal to sell CBD online in the USA.
Considering your potential customers are interested in the healing powers of CBD products, but are totally confused about which product category will help their specific health and wellness issue, let alone how much of it to take, it’s unwise to focus on sales in the first 3-months of your CBD advertising campaign.
Doesn’t it make much more marketing sense to focus on highly qualified lead capture on your website and use email marketing newsletters & automation tactics to further educate your potential customers while effectively pulling them through your marketing funnel?
Email capture and email marketing allows you to transform “cold” prospects who land on your website from Google Ads or organic search, into “warm” potential customers.
Through email marketing, these “warm” potential customers become aware of your brand and begin to develop trust in your products because you’ve helped educate them on the benefits of CBD, instead of trying to sell them something they know little about.
If all this sounds good to you but you’re wondering where to start and how to capture email addresses please read on as we discuss “lead magnets” and other digital tactics to sell your CBD products online in the USA.
2. Lead With Education To Increase Email Addresses & Online Sales
Your CBD marketing strategy will be much more successful if you lead with education – and not your products.
Recent data provided by Google reported that over 6.4 million people in the USA searched for information about CBD oil and CBD products in over just 30-days in April 2019.
If this is a fact, and it is, then why didn’t your CBD store sell a ton of CBD online last spring, and summer, and fall?
It’s because Americans are super interested in CBD and literally millions of people in the US are searching for information about CBD each and every month.
But that doesn’t mean they are buying CBD online or are ready to buy.
Even those who are searching on Google to “buy cbd oil online”, or “buy cbd cream online”, or “buy hemp oil online”, or using other related keywords with the intent to purchase, are not buying.
Here’s just one example of hard data that we’ve identified with many of our clients since 2017. The data is strikingly similar for all of our client’s selling CBD in the USA.
This chart shows data from the first 30-day Google Ads campaign from Dec 20, 2019-Jan 20, 2020.
Summary of the data from potential customers from Google Ads:
- Total prospective customers: 846
- Number of Sessions: 935 (shows high website engagement)
- Bounce Rate: 2.35% (average is 50%, showing highly qualified users)
- Average number of pages viewed per user: 6.3 pages!
- Average time spent on website: 2:00 minutes!
- Total Sales: < $1,000 USD
These numbers show a poor ROI for the first 30-days. This should be expected, especially if your ROI is focused on sales. Which I understand, as a business, it should be. But it’s a little different when it comes to selling CBD in the USA.
The numbers above prove that people who searched to “buy cbd oil online”, or used other related phrases with the clear intent to purchase, are confused when browsing CBD sites like yours.
These people clearly had the intent to purchase CBD, made clear by their choice of keywords used, and instead of making the purchase, they spend 2+ minutes, browsing 6+ pages, on a site that is selling CBD products. The site has the same products the user searched for, but they didn’t buy when on the site?
WTF right?
Believe it or not – this is actually fantastic news – especially if you collected a few email addresses. Here’s why…
Where To Focus ROI For The First 3-Months
There is actually really, really good ROI from the example above. In fact, this same ROI can be achieved for your store, or your competitor’s store, if you’re implementing the CBD marketing tactics were discussing here.
The ROI comes from:
- Successfully and strategically filling the top of your website conversion funnel with highly qualified potential customers.
- Building brand awareness with these potential customers as they found you via organic search and spent an average of 2+ minutes on your site, browsing 6+ pages.
- Building brand trust with site visitors/potential customers for the same reason as above.
- They clearly trusted your brand site enough to browse and pursue 6+ pages on average.
- People who aren’t interested in the brand/product will not spend more than 5-15-seconds on a site.
- This client is averaging 2 minutes per user.
- Improving the way Google views your site in terms of website authority and relevance.
- Google “sees” these potential customers searching to “buy cbd oil online”, clicking on your ad, landing on your site, clicking through your site, and spending significant time on the site.
- This shows Google that your website is highly relevant and authoritative for terms like “buy cbd oil online”.
- This, in turn, can help your organic SEO as well as lower costs on your PPC campaigns.
The point here is that people are interested in CBD, they are looking to buy CBD products online, but they get confused when they get to your CBD store.
So, an effective way to sell CBD online to people in the USA is to lead with education and collect emails from these highly interested potential customers.
You stand a better chance to sell your CBD products to people who have shown interest in your products and trust your brand enough to give you their email address (i.e. “warm” prospects), than you do trying to sell CBD to random people who landed on your site from a Google Ad.
3. Lead Magnets: How To Increase Email Submissions On Your CBD Website
I’m sure all of the above sounds great to you but you must be asking, how do I collect email addresses from everyone that visits my site organically, or from a digital advertising campaign?
The answer is strategic conversion rate optimization and lead generation tactics designed specifically for the confused CBD customer.
Here are 3 unique lead magnets that we’ve designed to help your confused CBD customers choose the ideal product and ideal dosage for their specific needs.
You’ll notice we are intentionally being niche/specific and not general in our approach. I highly, highly recommend this.
(A) CBD Questionnaire
This is a super simple idea that works very well as a conversion optimization tactic for email capture.
The idea is to reach out & initiate to help the potential customer as soon as they land on your website or within a strategic period of time.
Using this approach is the opposite of what most CBD website’s are doing today.
Typically, the first thing most CBD sites ask from the customer is to “Shop Now!”. You can see this in the main call to action button in the hero image on the homepage of most CBD websites.
Instead, this approach has the same CTA button but the copy says “Start Your Wellness Here” or something similar that fits your brand.
The point is we’re not asking a confused customer to shop for products that have no idea about, or how much to take.
Instead, we’re reaching out to offer some help/guidance on finding the ideal CBD product or dosage for their needs, while capturing their email address for future email marketing tactics.
The key is to make this questionnaire super simple and easy for the user – on both desktop, tablet, and mobile.
The user experience on each device is an important consideration that should be optimized. If not, users will not complete the survey and you won’t get an email address.
The other key is to make the approach to getting users to the questionnaire interactive, not static. Make sure you prompt the user.
Don’t wait for them to find the questionnaire, encourage them to at various points of their experience on your site.
We have successfully implemented this tactic and added additional conversion rate optimization tactics that reach out to the user and prompt them to take the questionnaire while they’re browsing the site.
If you’re interested in seeing a demo and potentially adding this to your e-commerce website, please reach out for a free 30-minute phone consult or to request a quote.
(B) CBD Dosage Calculator
This one is a no-brainer because through research and data since 2017 we’ve identified that most American’s have no idea how to dose CBD products.
One of the main barriers for new users is that they don’t know how much CBD to take for their health issues.
So why not create an interactive dosage calculator with a superb user experience on mobile phones that helps the potential CBD customer choose their ideal dose, and provides you with a highly qualified email address/”warm” prospect?
This CBD marketing tactic works similarly to the CBD questionnaire discussed above. We’re not asking a confused customer to shop for products that have no idea about, or how much to take.
We’d rather guide the potential customer on finding the ideal CBD dosage for their needs in exchange for their email address.
Keep in mind that this dosage calculator will only be effective if it’s not static. It’s only going to work well if you actively show it to the user & outline the features and benefits of the calculator.
Therefore, the same conversion rate optimization tactics mentioned above for the calculator should be used here as well.
Exit popups, times slide-outs, and other functions can be implemented to prompt/push the user to take the survey while browsing your site.
If you’re interested in seeing a demo and potentially adding this to your CBD website, please reach out for a free 30-minute phone consult or to request a quote.
(C) CBD eBook Download
We’ve established that people are interested in CBD but they are also too confused to buy/try CBD online.
Offering an educational & highly relevant free e-book for download in exchange for an email address is our third email capture tactic for your CBD marketing plan.
The idea here is to use keyword research to identify the most popular questions Americans are asking about CBD, and isolate the phrases that can be most relevant to your brand and your target demo.
For example, if your target demo is women over 45+ who are looking for organic natural solutions to alleviate PMS and menstrual cramps, you should create an informational and educational e-book on exactly how your CBD producers can help women manage this pain.
If your target demo is men, 35-54, who are very active, into health & wellness, working out, and indoor/outdoor activities, you should create an ebook that educates these men on how your CBD products can help relieve muscle pain and inflammation.
What if your target is men and women over 45+? You could create an ebook that helps this demo understand how your CBD products can help manage back pain, arthritis, joint pain, and/or nerve pain and other conditions that affect this age demographic.
The idea here is to provide significant value in the form of CBD education in return for the user’s email address.
However, just like with the 2 lead magnets discussed above, just because you build it doesn’t mean they’ll come. If you just add a static call to action to download your ebook, you’ll likely not get many email conversions.
You’ll need to make sure you prompt the user to download this ebook while they are on your site. Don’t wait for them to find it.
We Can Help You Sell Your CBD Products In The USA!
If you’d like help generating leads from your website to help you sell more CBD products in the USA, we can help you.
Contact us to discuss a custom strategy starting with your website development, or if you already have a site, reach out to discuss how we can help you implement effective CBD marketing tactics to help you take your business to the next level.
Contact us today for a free 30-minute phone consult or to request a quote.
We’re Ready To Help You Grow!
