Upcoming Cannabis Events: Marketing Strategies

If you’re diving into the dynamic world of cannabis events to boost your brand, understanding how to make a lasting impression is crucial. From trade shows and expos to product launches, these gatherings offer unique opportunities for growth, networking, and learning. Here’s a quick guide to navigating upcoming cannabis events:

Identify Your Goals: Determine whether you’re aiming to increase brand awareness, generate leads, or find partners.
Choose the Right Events: Not all events will suit your brand; select those that align with your goals.
Pre-Event Promotion: Leverage social media, email marketing, and partnerships to build anticipation.
Engage Attendees: Create a memorable booth experience and consider giving talks or workshops to showcase your expertise.
Follow Up: Implement a post-event strategy to maintain momentum and convert leads.
Measure Success: Use key performance indicators to evaluate the event’s impact on your business.

By focusing on these areas, you can effectively leverage cannabis events to grow your brand and connect with your target audience.

Defining Your Cannabis Event Goals

With so much to gain from cannabis events, knowing what you want to achieve is crucial for doing well.

Think about whether you want to make your brand more well-known, learn what customers think, find new business contacts, or something else. Knowing this helps you plan better.
Having clear goals that you can measure makes it easier to see if the event was worth it. You can track things to see what worked.
Knowing what you’re aiming for helps you focus on what’s most important, rather than trying to do too much all at once.

By choosing events that fit with what you’re trying to do, you can turn these events from just another meeting into a real chance for your business to grow.

Understanding the Cannabis Event Landscape

Trade Shows and Expos

Trade shows and expos are big events where lots of cannabis businesses come together. They show off their products, meet other people in the industry, and try to get noticed. Here’s what you need to know:

They draw big crowds, including both business people and regular customers.
You can have a booth with your brand and products.
It’s a good place to meet potential business partners or customers.
Standing out means having an eye-catching setup and being ready to talk about what makes your products special.

Make your booth fun and interesting. Be ready to talk about your products, give out samples if you can, and collect contact info from people who stop by.

Conferences and Summits

Conferences and summits are more about learning. There are talks, panels, and workshops on different topics, like what’s new in the industry or how to follow the rules. They’re good for:

People in the business who want to stay up-to-date.
Experts sharing their knowledge.

To do well here, try to get involved in the talks or just go to listen and meet people. Share what you learn on social media and keep in touch with the people you meet.

Product Launches and Brand Activations

When you’re launching a new product, you want to make a big deal about it. These events are all about letting people try your product and getting them excited. Here’s how:

Build excitement before the launch with sneak peeks and ads.
Let people try the product and tell you what they think.
Use games or discounts to make it fun and get people talking.

Focus on making a memorable experience that fits with your brand and speaks to your customers. Collect people’s contact info and follow up to turn that initial excitement into sales.

Strategic Pre-Event Promotion

Getting the word out before a cannabis event is key to making sure people know about it, get excited, and want to come. Here are some simple ways to do that:

Share videos and photos that give a sneak peek of what you’ll be doing at the event, like what your booth will look like or any talks you’ll be giving.
Have contests where people can win something by sharing your event posts. You can also offer a discount on tickets if they share your posts.
Pay to have your event ads shown to people who are interested in cannabis stuff on social media. This can help more of the right people find out about your event.

Capturing Leads Through Email Marketing

Send out emails talking about special ticket prices that are available for a short time, contests, or what you’ll be doing at the event.
Put a sign-up form on your website where people can get emails with exclusive stuff about the event. This is a good way to keep in touch with people who might come.
Send different emails to different groups of people based on what they like or if they’ve come to your events before. This makes them more likely to read your emails.

Amplifying Reach with Strategic Partnerships

Work with other groups, famous people in the cannabis world, or news outlets to help spread the word. You can share each other’s posts, send out emails together, or write guest posts for each other’s blogs.
Talk to partners about doing special promotions, like having them share your event for a fee or other benefits. Look for deals that help both sides.
Give away tickets or promote your event through groups that do good things in the community. This can make people think well of you and tell more people about your event.

Executing a Memorable Brand Experience

Planning an Engaging Booth Activation

To get noticed at cannabis events, your booth needs to be fun and stick in people’s minds. Here’s how:

Contests and giveaways: Have games like spinning a wheel for prizes or taking a photo for a chance at free stuff. This brings people over.
Product demos: Let people try your stuff and learn about it. This is a good way to get feedback too.
Experiential design: Make your booth a cool place people want to take pictures of, like turning it into a mini beach for your cannabis edibles.
Educate through fun: Do a cannabis quiz or have experts talk about your products in a fun way. This shows you know your stuff.
Personalization: Get people’s contact info, then send them emails asking what they thought about your booth and products.
Gamification: Make learning about your products a game, like matching cannabis strains to their effects.

Pick activities that fit your brand and what you’re trying to do. Aim to make your booth something people want to share, while also gathering info on potential customers.

Crafting Impactful Presentations and Workshops

Show you’re an expert by giving talks and workshops that teach something valuable:

Research trends: Talk about what’s new and what customers like. This shows you really know the industry.
Share case studies: Tell stories about how your brand or products have helped people. This builds trust.
Make it interactive: Instead of just talking at people, ask questions, do polls, and get them involved.
Varied formats: Offer different types of sessions, like quick talks, panel discussions, or hands-on workshops.
Unique perspectives: Give your take on popular topics, offering something new.
Practice extensively: Work on your presentation until it’s smooth and engaging. Try recording yourself to improve.

Pick your topics carefully, be engaging, and show you’re passionate about cannabis. This helps set you up as a leader in the field.

Maximizing Post-Event Impact

After the event is over, it’s important to keep the buzz going and make the most of the connections you made. Here’s how to do it in simple steps:

Crafting Post-Event Recaps and Highlights

Write blog posts or social media updates about the best parts of the event, including what people learned and fun moments. Add pictures and videos.
Send an email to everyone who came, thanking them and sharing the highlights. Include links to more info.
Talk to speakers, partners, and attendees who were really happy, and share their stories online.
Do this quickly after the event to keep the excitement alive.

Leveraging User Generated Content (UGC)

Ask people to share their best event photos, videos, or stories and use a special hashtag. Offer prizes for the best ones.
Share these posts from attendees on your own pages. It looks more real and exciting when it comes from them.
Show off all the different experiences people had at your event to help with future event promotion.

Implementing Effective Lead Follow-up

Sort your new contacts from most interested to least based on how they interacted with you. Plan different follow-ups for each group.
Set up reminders to send them emails, call them, or send messages at the right time.
Give the most interested people special deals or content to encourage them to buy or get involved.
Keep track of who actually takes you up on your offers to see what’s working. Adjust your follow-up plans as needed.

By taking the time to recap the event, share real attendee experiences, and follow up with leads in a thoughtful way, you can keep the momentum going and make the most of your event long after it’s over.

Analyzing Event Success and ROI

After you’ve taken part in a cannabis event, it’s important to look at how well it went and if it was worth the money. This means checking if you met your goals and how much you gained compared to what you spent.

Setting Measurable Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

First, decide what signs of success you’re looking for:

Lead generation: Keep track of how many people showed interest in buying, signed up for emails, or gave you their business card.
Brand awareness: Look at how many new followers you got on social media, how much people interacted with your posts about the event, and if you were mentioned in the media.
Network expansion: Count how many new business contacts you made by talking to people, having meetings, or getting referrals.
Market research: Collect opinions on your products, brand, and services through surveys or chats.
Web traffic: See how many people visited your website because of the event, through search engines, social media, or emails.

Having clear goals and ways to measure them helps you understand if the event did what you hoped. Comparing this year’s results to last year’s can also show you where you can do better.

Calculating Return on Investment (ROI)

Next, figure out if the event was worth the cost by comparing what you spent to what you gained:

Costs

Money spent on booth space
Paying your team
Making products to show or give away
Printing flyers or other promotional items
Travel and hotel stays

Benefits

More people knowing about your brand
New potential customers
Sales made after the event
Being talked about in the media
New business partners

List all the costs and benefits to see if you made more than you spent. It’s also good to think about how the event might help your brand in the long run.

Looking closely at what you spent and what you got in return helps you decide if your marketing money was well spent. It also highlights what worked best and what could be better next time, helping you make smarter choices for future events.

Conclusion

Going to events for cannabis businesses is super important. They help you get noticed, meet new people, learn stuff, and grow your business. But, with so many events happening, you’ve got to be smart about it to really stand out.

Here’s what you should remember:

Know who you’re talking to – Make sure you understand who your audience is and pick events that they would likely go to. Going to events that don’t match can waste your time.
Make clear plans – Have clear goals that you can check off, like getting more people to know about you or finding business partners. This helps you stay focused and see if the event was worth it.
Spread the word smartly – Use things like social media, emails, and influencers to get people excited and show up for what you’re doing at the event.
Make your spot interesting – At the event, make sure your booth or presentation grabs attention by showing what’s cool about your products or services and fits what your audience likes.
Keep in touch – After the event, don’t forget to follow up with the people you met. Send them messages or emails to turn them into customers.
Check how you did – Look back at how many people you reached or how much you sold to see if going to the event helped your business. Use what you learn to do better next time.

By really thinking about these steps and making sure every part of your event plan talks to the right people, you can make a big splash and help your cannabis brand grow. It’s all about being smart and making sure you’re seen by the people who will care the most.

What is the cannabis market trend in 2024?

By 2024, the legal cannabis market in the U.S. is expected to hit $35.16 billion. Out of this, $22.4 billion will come from adult use (people buying for recreational reasons) and $12.72 billion from medical use. Yet, the illegal market will still be bigger, estimated at $70.9 billion.

What is the best cannabis campaign?

Some of the coolest cannabis ads in 2023 were:

Show-Me Organics | ‘Ask Your Doctor’ by Bandits & Friends
Cannabis Media Council | ‘I’m High Right Now’ by Sister Merci
Show-Me Organics | ‘Buoyant Bob’ by Powderbox
Embarc dispensaries | ‘Devil’s Lettuce’ (done by their own team)

These stood out because they were creative, had a clear message, and really got people’s attention.

What is the market trend for cannabis in the US?

The U.S. cannabis market is on a fast track to grow, possibly hitting $53.5 billion in sales by 2027. The market for adult use (recreational cannabis) is expected to grow quickly as more states are setting up their programs. For example, New York is working out how to start its adult-use market. This growth state by state is a big reason for the overall increase.

What is a cannabis brand strategy?

A good cannabis brand strategy is all about showing what your company stands for, its mission, and what makes it unique, in a real and honest way. It’s important to focus on the quality of your products, how they’re made, and making sure everything you do meets high standards. Building trust is key, so it’s better to be genuine in your messaging rather than coming off as fake.