Welcome to Cannabis Marketing Live, All Puff. No Fluff.
Today is all about blogging. In this episode, we’ll cover:
- Why blogging is critical for cannabis companies
- What you need to know to get started
- Blogging Best Practices
Check it out!
Show Notes:
When I started my first blog in 2001, it was strictly for fun and allowed me to do two things I love:
- tell stories about my work/travel adventures
- Stay in touch with friend and family without having to send emails to everyone (oh life before social media was so fun when it came to staying in touch)
Over the years, it was critical for me to stay up-to-date about blogging for my students and clients. I’ve taken classes about blogging, researched it extensively to build a case for blogging at the university where I worked, and finally, I teach blogging as part of my social media classes.
But enough about me. Let’s talk about why blogging is crtical for your cannabis company.
Blogging is still important, and even more so for cannabis companies.
Consider these stats:
- B2B companies that blogged 11+ times per month had almost 3X more traffic than those blogging 0-1 times per month. (HubSpot, 2015)
- B2C companies that blogged 11+ times per month got more than 4X as many leads than those that blog only 4-5 times per month. (HubSpot, 2015) (Source: https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics)
- 47% of buyers viewed 3-5 pieces of content before engaging with a sales rep. (Demand Gen Report, 2016)
- 94% of people who share posts do so because they think it might be helpful to others
Blogging is critical for cannabis companies
Here are a few reasons why:
- You OWN the platform, you own the content
- Create original content that is new and needed in the industry
- Continue helping to change the perceptions around cannabis across the country and the world
- Increase your search rankings on Google (since we can’t run paid ads on Google)
- Consumers purchase from sites that provided trusted information and content!
- No one can shut you down
What you need to get started
There are lots of tools out there that make blogging quickly become intense and time-consuming, so we’re only going to focus on a few of them today.
- Your company and website
- Clear goals
- Understand your audience (create a customer persona)
- Key topics your audience is interested in – and there is a huge lack of real content to help new cannabis customers feel comfortable!
- Start Writing
Blogging Best Practices for Your Cannabis Business
There are many best practices and tips to use content to grow your business. Here are a few key tips to get you started!
Write for your audience
Who are you writing for? Are you writing for a millennial who is a regular smoker, or a baby boomer looking to try it for the first time in decades? Write for them. Don’t try to write for everyone, but write for them, you’re speaking to real people
Be Authentic
Who is your brand? What do you stand for? Why is your company in business? What is your Why? Use these guiding principles to stay true to your company and your audience. Our customers are sophisticated and they can sense insincerity, so stick to being real. Life is too short to do anything else.
Use Your SEO Cannabis Keywords
Write for your audience, but you want to make sure you’re including SEO keywords in your posts. Tools like Yoast (WordPress Plug-in), SEMRush and Answer the Public can help you get started in finding the best cannabis keywords for your business.
Have fun!
Use images, videos, GIFs, podcasts, or whatever is easier for you and fits your style. Always make sure you are using keywords and describing your content. Google doesn’t scan videos so actual words are still key to improving your search results, customer trust, and growing your business!
