Medical Marijuana Marketing Strategy: Content & SEO
So you have a medical cannabis company in Canada or in one of 33 states in the USA and you’re looking for marketing ideas for medical marijuana. We have some answers to your questions as well as some MMJ marketing tips that you can implement into your medical marijuana marketing strategy.
Those in the medical cannabis business know that current advertising restrictions prohibit licensed producers, medical dispensaries, or other marijuana-related business to advertise on digital or traditional platforms.
So how do you market medical marijuana? What new digital marketing tactics can be used for MMJ marketing?
How about using content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) to produce educational content, targeted at new medical marijuana patients or prospects, that can be found for free on search engines like Google and Bing?
Did you catch the key word I used there? The word “free” meaning no paid advertising needed. One of the best digital marketing tactics to market medical marijuana is content marketing and SEO.
This article will define exactly what content marketing means. I’ll also explain to you why SEO for MMJ marketing is key to marketing medical cannabis without advertising on Google or social media.
You’ll also learn how to use these proven digital marketing tactics to promote your medical marijuana products and services to new and existing medical marijuana patients without any advertising required.
Let’s get started!
Content Marketing For MMJ = Education For New Patients
The public needs to educated about the health benefits of medical marijuana. New cannabis patients really need to be educated about MMJ because they know so little about this ancient plant and likely have many reservations about using it medicinally.
I believe it’s the job of licensed producers, medical marijuana dispensaries, and other MMJ related business to produce highly relevant, informational and educational content that is easily accessed by new MMJ patients and prospects.
This is a win-win approach to medical marijuana marketing.
Those in the cannabis industry win because they are educating a new market on the health benefits of CBD & THC and that will lead to an increase in sales and revenue for all businesses in the medical marijuana industry.
The prospective and current medical marijuana patients win because they are getting more and more informed on the health benefits of MMJ, how to consume MMJ, and where to buy the best MMJ strains for their needs.
What is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is defined as “a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”
So essentially, instead of pitching your marijuana products and services, you are providing truly relevant and useful content to your prospects and customers to help them solve their issues related to MMJ.
How To Use Content Marketing to Promote Medical Marijuana
This is the easy part! You’ll need the support of your in-house marketing and creative team, or you’d need to outsource your medical marijuana marketing to an experienced cannabis marketing agency.
Your goal here is to educate a “cold” audience. Those who are new to medical marijuana or who are considering using MMJ to treat their unique needs.
These people know very little about the health benefits of medical marijuana let alone the risks, if any, of using medical cannabis. They need useful, relevant, and educational information to help them understand your products and services.
By providing this useful info you’re able to move these people through your conversion funnel into a “warm” audience and then a “hot” audience of people who have their MMJ license and are ready to purchase your medicinal weed, oil, or edibles.
Examples of Content Marketing Assets For MMJ Companies
I bet you’re asking for an example of “content marketing” to wrap your head around this concept.
Here are some excellent examples of content marketing assets that can be used as free downloads in return for an email address (to be used for retargeting campaigns):
- E-Book: Top 10 Medical Marijuana Strains For New Users
- Infographic: How to Get a Medical Marijuana Prescription in # Easy Steps
- Video: Meet Our Doctors and Nurse Practitioners
- E-Book: 5 Ways CBD Heals/Helps Anxiety/Depression/Epilepsy
- Blog: Best Ways To Consume Marijuana Without Smoking It
The idea is to create valuable content assets, branded to your company, that provides the answers to the many questions many prospective, new and/or existing medical marijuana patients have about the plant and its benefits.
You then offer this as a free download on your website or landing page in exchange for the user’s email address. You want to collect as many email addresses as you can so you can retarget these people with additional content assets via an email marketing strategy for your medical dispensary.
You’ll certainly want to make sure that the content you create is optimized for users (user experience) and search engines (SEO).
The content should be easy to download, easy to read, easy to share, etc. This is a key step in user experience when it comes to website development.
Your content also needs to be optimized with a keyword strategy, i.e. SEO. This way it can be easily found on search engines with a relevant and popular keyword search phrase that your target audience is using to find information on medical marijuana.
Let’s get into what is SEO and how do you effectively optimize your MMJ content marketing.
SEO For Dispensaries = No Paid Advertising Needed
SEO is an essential tactic to market medical marijuana simply because people who are interested in MMJ are searching on Google and Bing for information on the plant, the weed, the edibles, the oils, the gadgets, etc.
People go to search engines with a specific intent to find an answer to their random or relevant questions and queries. Google and Bing search is super intent focused when it comes to your customer.
This is why the awesome and relevant content you create needs to be optimized for search engines and users.
A keyword strategy must be implemented on all of your digital content, including your website, your website pages, your site’s metadata, images, and blog articles in order for your MMJ content to be found in search results.
What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” It is the process of getting traffic from the “free,” “organic,” “editorial” or “natural” search results on search engines. Payment and advertising aren’t involved, as it is with paid search ads.
All major search engines such as Google and Bing have primary search results, where web pages and other content such as videos or local listings are shown and ranked based on what the search engine considers most relevant to users.
How To Use SEO to Promote Medical Marijuana
SEO not only helps your cannabis content rank in search results for related keyword phrases but it can also help you find lucrative topics to write about or to create different types of content for.
All SEOs use keyword research when beginning an SEO optimization process. We want to find out what the actual terms are that people are using when searching for MMJ related products and services.
Our team will identify a long list of short-tail, long-tail, and semantically related keyword search phrases related to medical cannabis to determine an overall keyword strategy for your website, blogs, ebooks, videos, or other content pieces.
We can also use this wide range of keywords as content topics. The keyword research is telling us that certain search terms are more popular than others. So we know those phrases get a lot of monthly searches.
So, why not create different pieces of content to answer all of the popular questions your consumers are asking that you’ve identified in your keyword research.
You know your prospects are searching for this “answer” or “solution” based on the keyword research so if you create content better than what is currently ranking for that keyword, your site may get more qualified traffic!
For more information on SEO for MMJ dispensaries check out this article: 5 Local SEO Tips For MMJ Dispensaries To Improve Search Rankings.
If you’d like tips on choosing an SEO agency for your dispensary please download our free e-book which also includes the top 10 questions you should ask your SEO agency.
How To Effectively Implement Content Marketing & SEO For Your 420 Business
When it comes to SEO optimization of your MMJ website and developing an optimized content marketing strategy to market your medical marijuana you do need the help of an experienced marijuana marketing agency.
It’d be much more challenging for you or one of your team members to learn the complexities of SEO and understand Google’s 500-600 search algorithm changes each year.
ColaDigital.ca is Canada’s most experienced boutique cannabis marketing agency specializing in SEO, content marketing, and social media for medical marijuana dispensaries. We work with 420 and MMJ businesses all over the world.
Our team of SEO experts are Google Analytics and Google AdWords (Google Ads) certified search marketing professionals.
We can help you build your website, optimize your site with an SEO and keyword strategy designed to drive the right medical cannabis users to your website or retail dispensary.
Contact us today to start the conversation by filling out the form below.
We’ll help you grow!
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