10 Potential Red Flags in Your Cannabis Dispensary Marketing Services

The path to boosting your income and generating more sales in the cannabis industry in 2024 can be overwhelming. Given tight restrictions that put us into a similar category as niches like guns, tobacco, and cryptocurrency for marketing, dispensary marketing services are put into a place where they need to get ultra-creative to help their clients get ROIs and boost their income.

>>After years of research, I also compiled these safe strategies into a free cheat sheet. Download it here.

1. Not Specialized in the Cannabis Industry

You wouldn't hire a dentist to do back surgery, nor should you hire a specialist in dental marketing to do your dispensary marketing services! A generalist marketer is usually a jack of all trades - but a master of none.

Not to mention, they will have a massive learning curve for important aspects in this industry like advertisements, social media, 280E, taxes, and so on. What may be their bread-and-butter in other industries typically won't transition well over to cannabis.

Instead, find a company that specializes in cannabis, knows the rules, knows where to find your customers, how to retarget them, and brings them back into your door without breaking (or bending) any of the industry-specific norms.

2. You Are Running Google Ads

Does a lawsuit from the FTC strike you as enticing? This is what can happen when you run ad campaigns deemed as deceptive. Not to mention, Google can also ban you permanently from the platform - and potentially flag your main domain as "dangerous content" (I've seen it happen, and it's tragic).

I see cannabis dispensaries tricked into thinking that it is both safe and okay to run Google Ads - and it breaks my heart. Your dispensary marketing services do this by buying separate domains & landing pages for your dispensary (which the latest Google API leak shows a dark future for), setting up ad copy and landing page copy that doesn't include any banned words, and then targeting for your terms on these separate domains.

Let us not be confused, this may help you reap some immediate benefits, but you will be caught and banned - it's only a matter of time. Instead, focus on white-hat and long-term strategies that will help you sleep well at night.

3. You Go Through a Gatekeeper to YOUR Digital Assets

A common practice that many dispensaries fall trapped into is having the marketer charge exorbitant rates just to do basic maintenance tasks on your website. If you are no longer on contract with them, it's one thing, but asking to do some basic technical SEO or site maintenance tasks should be free.

Marketers should be in this industry to help people along their business journey - not hold them hostage at important steps. I practice what I preach here too. Yesterday, an old client contacted me about a site we made for them 3 years ago.

We helped them out, fixed the issue, and didn't ask for a dime. We do this for all of our clients here at Green Dispensary Marketing.

4. There Are No Performance KPIs

One of the first things that you should make clear before working with any dispensary marketing service is how they know that the work they are doing is having success, and benchmarks (KPIs) that indicate that their hard work is paying off.

We recommend doing this by tracking the clicks on a site, using Google Search Console & Google Analytics to track where these clicks are coming from, and how they are using the site. Then, compare this data with your revenue reports.

You should also keep in mind your overall traffic. Google My Business (GMB), Yelp, Weedmaps, and your site traffic are all indicators of whether or not your traffic is increasing on the side of the dispensary marketing services.

5. No Focus on Your ROI

Money talks, while many marketers tend to just blabber, overpromise, and then deliver trash on the backend. An experienced marketer, on the other hand, will take you in as a consultant. They will look into your brand before making any claims or promises.

After investigation, they will often then come back with some ideas that you may tweak to improve your overall performance. At this point, they should then present them as possible solutions, without promising the moon and all the stars.

In any case, the heart of their solution should be a path toward making more money.

6. You Can't See Any Noteworthy Results or Case Studies

One of the first things that you should ask for before working with any marketer is a case study - showing that they have a history of providing results. Otherwise, they could just be a new freelancer hoping to make a new career online - but not sure of how to deliver results on the backend.

I see this all the time. New sales professionals coming in from a successful career in automobiles, real estate, etc., deciding to jump into digital marketing. One of the first questions that they ask me is "how can I provide results?" Being a good salesman and convincing you to buy is one thing, but how do you know that they are actually good at fulfilling the results being promised?

7. Emphasize "Quality" While Charging You Ultra-High Rates

Any good marketer in this space knows that managing your site's presence doesn't require a massive monthly effort. This is because good marketers build good systems and SOPs that they can copy and paste onto any other cannabis dispensary.

In addition, there is hardly ever any secret sauce involved in the world of digital marketing. We are all connected to the same sources (Google, digital agencies, books, YouTube, podcasts, etc.) and follow the same long-established norms and practices. Those who do find ways to trick the system eventually get caught and put in the fire. I saw this happen personally recently in the world of parasite SEO.

Therefore, if you are quoted anything over $2000 for a monthly retainer (for Local SEO or managed digital presence), we promise you that this is way too high. Instead, you are contributing to high profit margins. Meanwhile, sidestepping the hungrier and equally talented marketing services that can offer you a closer relationship, a cheaper price, and even better quality service that you can get elsewhere.

8. You Are Paying Monthly Hosting

One of the common "gotchas" that dispensary marketing services have is to build you a website, and then charge you monthly on the backend for the hosting. You don't need the dispensary marketing service to host your website - as you can do so at a cheap price on various platforms, including Bluehost, Namecheap, HostGator, and many many more.

The reason that this practice is a red flag is that it takes away the keys to your own website and your own assets. If they own your hosting, they can also take it away from you. This leaves them with considerable power over you should you decide to break up with the marketer.

9. Customer Loyalty is an Afterthought

When people come to us and ask for free information, one of the first things we point to is their customer list. Many dispensaries simply do not retarget their customers, and depend on them remembering them and being loyal to them just because.

Instead, you can treat your customer list as a gold mine. One that is constantly being added to, and also one of the biggest assets for your dispensary. A great marketer will also see things this way and want to continually reach out to your customers.

The safest way to do retargeting campaigns is to conduct email marketing or MMS marketing. We prefer email marketing since it is the easiest and safest way to ensure that you reach the inbox. Otherwise, having your own dispensary app and leveraging push notifications is the next best way to boost loyalty from customers.

10. You Don't Get Online Access to Their Reports

Transparency is so important in this industry. Once you have KPIs written down in the contract, you should then get access to an online dashboard and routine updates by phone, text, and video consistently.

If you find that it takes several days to reach out to your marketer and get a response, they are perhaps too Hollywood for you and are indifferent about you as a customer. Is this really the treatment that you deserve?

Download Our Dispensary Marketing Cheatsheet

Mastering this niche won't be an overnight process. Instead, you will likely need to read up more on the marketing strategies that are proven to work today. After compiling all the best data and practices from over a decade in digital marketing, we are happy to share our dispensary marketing cheatsheet free of charge.

>> Download it here.