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Archive for the 'Marijuana Marketing' Category

16
Apr

Merry 4/20

Posted by josh

Every culture, religion, country, ethnicity, club, or organization has a special holiday that means something special for the people who call themselves a member. Christians celebrate Christmas on December 25. American’s celebrate Independence Day on July 4. Football fans celebrate the Super Bowl on the first Sunday in February. OK, that last one may not be a real holiday, but you get the point.

In the medicinal marijuana field, April 20, aka 4/20 is THE holiday for the community. We at 420 Web Pros obviously take the holiday seriously considering the number is in the title of our company. With that in mind, if you own a collective we hope you have also put proper preparation into the holiday?

4/20 is likely to be the busiest day of the year for your collective, but it will also be the busiest day of the year for all collectives. There are more discretionary donations to be made on 4/20 than on any other day of the year. The retail industry has Black Friday where more discretionary income is spent on that day than on any other day in the year. That is a holiday for the retail industry, and retail businesses acknowledge that. Target competes with Best Buy, which competes with Wal-Mart, which competes with Macy’s, which competes with other large chain stores. They all may not be selling the same products, but they’re all competing for the same dollars. That is precisely why they all try to top one another with special deals on Black Friday. The medicinal marijuana field on 4/20 is infinitely more competitive on its holiday, because it’s a holiday specific to the needs of one group.

Every collective will be trying to set it apart from other collectives by offering specials on 4/20 like free gifts with a minimum donation and perhaps free food when you enter the showroom. That is good and all, but if you really want to provide a memorable experience for your patients then try thinking outside the box.

Here are a few unique ideas to make 4/20 the most rewarding day of the year for your collective and for your patients.

  • Extend your collective’s hours. You remember what it was like to be a kid on Christmas morning. You couldn’t wait to open presents and pull your stockings off the chimney. That was the one-day during the year that you woke up before the sun and you probably even woke up your parents from bed to get the day’s festivities started. Patients start celebrating the holiday early, which means you should too.
  • Offer unannounced promotions. Most collectives have taken the time to place ads on the Internet and in magazines about what free gifts will be offered. Surprises, however, often have a long lasting positive impact on the likelihood that a patient will return, in the off chance of getting another unannounced gift. One example for 4/20 would be to give a special gift to the fourth, twentieth, and if you’re really lucky, the four hundred twentieth patient of the day.
  • Don’t forget about 4/19 and 4/21. Christmas has Christmas Eve. In the Mexican culture, All Saints Day is celebrated the day after Halloween. For 4/20, why not offer some specials on 4/19 and/or 4/21?

 

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02
Apr

Do You Know Your Target Market?

Posted by josh

In between timeouts of your favorite athletic event I’m sure you’ve noticed those TV commercials for erectile dysfunction pills. If you’re a guy, don’t pretend like you haven’t considered asking your doctor about them. I’m also quite certain you’ve seen free perfume samples in between the folds of magazines like Glamour and In Style. If you’re a lady, perhaps you have even ripped out the page and rubbed it on your wrists and neck to help out those guys with ED. Those companies that advertise via those outlets know where their audience lies and they advertise toward their target market. The effectiveness of those products marketing strategies would be diminished if placed in opposite arenas, since men don’t use perfume and women don’t use erectile dysfunction medication.

If you own and operate collective it is just as important to have a feel for who your patients are, so that you can tailor your website toward their needs. One factor to consider is the location of where you are based. Since locals are most likely going to be the majority of your patients, are you located in an area with a heavy population that is above 50 years old or under 50 years old? That type of knowledge should affect how you disseminate information on your website. Seniors don’t frequent websites as often as younger individuals. But when they do, information should be easily accessible, since they do not spend as much time on the Internet and probably are not as accustomed to navigating a busy website.

The way information is distributed should also be considered. Younger people will be more apt to click on a video, read a blog, listen to a podcast, or be stimulated by a picture. They will also be more likely to utilize social media like Twitter and Facebook, so your collective should have a presence on those platforms, which link to your website.

Knowing your loyal market is important, but as a business owner you likely continually want to tap into untapped markets. That is especially true of the medical marijuana field, since it is ever growing with new patients, but it is important not to exclude your loyal market.

One factor that can exclude your loyal market is the language you use while trying to pursue a new market. If your loyal market is people later on in life it would not be a good idea to start using slang and jargon tailored toward garnering a younger audience. Your loyal market could be turned off by a perceived new direction that you are heading in, which could cause them to search for a collective that better speaks their language.

420 Web Pros is well versed in tailoring content toward specific markets because you certainly don’t want to place an erectile dysfunction ad in Women’s magazines or advertise perfume in the middle of an athletic event. We can also help diagnose your loyal market, along with coming up with some web strategies to garner new markets without excluding who is loyal to you already.

 

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14
Mar

What Can a Content Management System Do for You?

Posted by josh
Imagine if Best Buy or Target only updated its website once a year. As a patron of those businesses you would think that’s ridiculous, considering their inventory and company is ever changing. The same thought process should be taken into consideration for your medical marijuana collective.

One of the biggest misconceptions about having a website is that it is simply enough just to have one. The only problem is that just like Best Buy and Target, your business is ever changing. Information that you provided on your website during its initial launch can become outdated over time as you change hours of operation, offer new services and products, or even move locations. Having an outdated website can be just as detrimental to your business as not even having a website.

For example, say your website provides a link to a MySpace page, but doesn’t provide a link to a Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube page. That link to an old MySpace page may tell visitors to your website that you don’t update your web presence with the creation of newer forms of social media. That lack of a web presence can have a direct effect on foot traffic to your collective.

Another common misconception is that it is difficult to maintain an informative website, but we at 420 Web Pros can design an efficient Content Management System so your website can maintain a fresh perspective. A CMS allows you to create sub-sections throughout the skeleton of your website in an easily manageable way.

An effective way to keep patrons updated while utilizing a CMS is with the use of a blog. You can provide news and updates directly from your website, rather than utilizing a blog host like Blogger or Tumblr, which will have a different look and feel than your website. Plus, having your blog directly on your website keeps all the information in one place.

420 Web Pros also understands that not everyone is web savvy, so we can design a CMS tailored toward your needs, large and small, and explain it in a user-friendly manner.

 

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03
Feb

Leave Your Campaign Woes At the Door

Posted by terence

Okay, you have a slick, well-oiled machine of a website for your medical marijuana virtual collective, maybe some steady hits of existing and potential customers, but now you need a way to rally your troops. You could, potentially, start spamming social networks with “Hey, check us out!” or you can get your e-collective to send well-HTML formatted, eye-catching newsletters and notifications via a planned email campaign. Email marketing could fill in the cracks of your virtual collective’s web presence as well as ensure your members aren’t just a nameless avatar.

Start with ditching your personal e-mail account in favor of an official, more identifiable account. For example, “notification@420webpros.com” just let your customers know about a brand new marijuana strain that helps with certain types of anxiety. They see it ping on their phones while out shopping or at the workplace with your collective’s name on it, and know right away it’s not their cousin Keith with the Phish tattoo. In other words, it gives your cannabis collective a distinct space in people’s inboxes.

420 Web Pros understands that sometimes that same cousin Keith went on a Facebook tagging spree, so now your synched e-mail account is flooded with Facebook notifications. Where is your “notification@420webpros.com” e-mail? Buried? Like any notable publication, your newsletters and notifications should be on time and expected in a regular fashion. We can make your virtual collective’s e-mails look and feel like daily, weekly, or quarterly-released publications as if they were thrown right onto their doorstep by the paperboy (also, sadly, cousin Keith).

Tips: Keep a well-balanced list of e-mails that you regularly send to. Any dead e-mails from unresponsive clients needs to be deleted in order to not be considered spam.

Include sign-up forms on your virtual collective’s website so customers can be aware of your regular notifications instead of scrolling by a random “@420webpros.com” e-mail strewn about your site.

Include incentives for signing up to the newsletter such as give-aways, prizes, or coupons redeemable at your medical marijuana collective.

Your product deserves a regular, consistently updated web service that keeps customers interested and potential customers curious about what your virtual collective has to offer. With a reliable and well-designed email campaign, you can let your members know they’re part of what you’ve built.

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22
Dec

Turn Your Medical Marijuana SOS Into Medical Marijuana SEO

Posted by terence

You wouldn’t be too far off in saying that ad applies to most, if not all of your recent Google searches with even the slightest hint of vagueness. Sure, you’ll probably get the typical unnerving site or two when looking up “vintage hats” or “dry wall repair,” but do you want your online medical marijuana store or virtual online collective popping up the 25 recent midnight showings of “Cheech and Chong’s Up In Smoke” or “My Aunt Edna’s Totally Rad Pot Banana Nut Bread Recipe?” Certainly, that’s not the world the medical marijuana community lives in. It is professional, efficient and ready to serve its medical marijuana patients with the utmost respect and care. With proper the proper tools, Search Overload Syndrome is a thing of fiction.

Nothing related to Kevin Costner has ever rang as true as this: “If you build it, they will come.”

Medical Marijuana SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the highly-strategic practice – excuse me – art of employing phrases and keywords in your website in order to gain the right amount of awareness and specificity the medical cannabis community needs to steer their Google boats in your virtual collective’s direction. At 420 Web Pros, we’ve mastered this art in order to deliver the most advantageous starting point for your medical marijuana marketing campaign. Building your collective with the right tools will not only save your clientele hours from old clips of “Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle,” but give them a seamless experience from using their favorite search engine or social network to finding your virtual collective.

But where does medical marijuana SEO fit into the rest of my campaign? And, please, spare the Costner references.

At 420 Web Pros, we’ve honed, with Batman-like efficiency, the skills to push your online marijuana marketing campaign to its fullest potential. Instead of smoke bombs, Batarangs, and dental floss (okay, maybe dental floss), our utility belt is equipped with such things as impeccable web and print design, a full understanding of point of sale integration, a passion for professional branding and marketing and effective copywriting as it pertains to the ever-growing and ultra-booming medical marijuana industry.

Holy web presence, Batman!

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23
Aug

Medical Marijuana Online Marketing: SEO and Marketing Strategy For The 420 Industry

Posted by Dan
Medical Marijuana SEO

If you want to improve your visibility among people's search results, you have to engage the search engines. It takes time and a strategy, but the payoff can be huge!

Every industry has it’s own unique set of trends and mores, few more so than the Medical Marijuana Industry. In a marketplace that has become overrun with competition it can be difficult to get your message out or draw attention to your organization.  Having a great looking website is a good start, but the coolest website in the world won’t do much for you if noone sees it. If you’re even thinking about taking your 420 organization online, you better have a solid medical marijuana SEO strategy to make it worth your time. If you haven’t considered marijuana marketing, now is the best time to get started!

Maybe you haven’t thought much about what it means, perhaps you haven’t thought about it at all but medical marijuana online marketing is every bit as important for an organization’s web presence as it’s website or it’s Facebook account.  Every time you do a search on Google, Bing or Yahoo you get millions upon millions of search results in a fraction of a second.  Most people will not look past the first page of results, and those that do will likely never go past five or six pages worth of results before getting discouraged and trying a new search.  So even if you’re website is 100% relative to a person’s search query, if you come up on page 13 or 250 or 10,000 nobody is ever going to find you.  If you want to be found, you’ve got to get in to those first few pages.  If you want to be a big player, you’ve got to get on page one. In order to do so you’ve got to identify the search terms that are most applicable to your organization and really go for it.

But once you’ve figured out the keywords and phrases that best describe your organization, how in world do improve your search engine ranking?  Therein lies the delicate and ever evolving art of Search Engine Optimization or SEO.  SEO is the practice of expanding the awareness of a website among search engines by employing numerous tactics in order to build strong associations between a website and certain keywords.  When all the right seeds have been planted, search engines in their unending crawl across the Internet will come across these seeds and begin to build associations.  The different tactics that SEO providers use in order to plant these seeds are tightly held secrets, and are constantly evolving in order to be compatible with search engines that are constantly growing and changing their search algorithms.  It’s is both an art and a science and at 420 Web Pros we excel at both ends of the spectrum.

A marijuana SEO account with 420 Web Pros will allow your organization (collective, dispensary, delivery service, grow house, ect.) to attract the attention it needs to grow and flourish. Patients in your community will be able to find you on Google, collectives in your area will discover your farm when they search for growers and like minded supporters will know about your event when they surf the web looking for activities in their community. The Internet is the greatest informational tool in the history of mankind but it doesn’t help much if people can’t find the information about you! Can you afford to be without a marijuana SEO strategy when so many of your competitors are listed ahead of you?

Didn’t think so.

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12
Jul

The Most Important Ingredient in a Successful Medical Marijuana Venture is “Why?”

Posted by Dan
Why How What

"Why" is the key to success. Why dictates the How and the What that will deliver results.

There is a certain something that sets really great organizations apart from everyone else. Something that can turn “good” into “great” simply by recognizing it. It’s not a person or a place or a thing . . . it’s a reason.

Today’s medical marijuana marketplace consists of thousands of vendors and hundreds of thousands of patients. It can be very overwhelming to a new or struggling organization trying to establish itself among all the clamor. There is so much competition that even the most prominent of providers face hurdles maintaining a high level of visibility and interaction among the community. This fierce competition validates the need for a greater understanding of how success works, and the key elements to achieving a notable and lasting presence.

There are a thousand books defining success and at least as many strategies claiming to outline the path to greatness, unfortunately most of them miss the most important element, the element that makes everything else fall into place: Why. Why do you do what you do? It seems like a pretty elementary question, but you’d be surprised just how many people don’t have an answer. For the vast majority of the working public, their job is nothing more than a paycheck, which is ultimately a result and not a reason. Marketing guru turned activist Simon Sinek has made quite a bit of noise preaching the virtues of “Why?” and the natural consequences that follow it. In September of 2009 Simon addressed the TED conference and spoke about the great titans of industry and society such as Apple and Martin Luther King Jr. and made the argument that Why they did what they did is what makes them special. Why something is done will dictate how it is done and ultimately what the end result of that is. And the more a person or organization believes in that why, the more profound the results will be for everything that comes as a result of it.

This truth does not apply only to computer companies and social rights activists, it is every bit as relevant to the medical marijuana industry as any other. People might pay attention to you for a bit if you lure them and plead with them, but it won’t last long and doesn’t leave a lasting impression. The way to really attract the attention of people and convert them into loyal members or consumers is to appeal to their sense of why. When you appeal to a person’s sense of why, you create in that individual the association that they are interacting with you not because you asked them to via advertising or promotions, but because they want to due to a shared interest. If you’re Apple computers the reason you’re in business is because you are passionate about design and technology, and as a result your products reflect that and naturally appeal to hundreds of millions of people who are also passionate about design and technology. If you’re a collective owner, you should be passionate about organic medicine and the many positive ways it can affect peoples lives, as a result your organization will naturally attract people who feel the same and you will create a fundamental loyalty that no advertising campaign on earth can compete with. This is what separates ”the great ones”, what allows people to achieve extraordinary results: Doing something because they believe in it. If you’re doing what you’re doing because you’re passionate and you believe in it, you will achieve results beyond that of others who are simply in it for the results.

Why do you do what you do? It’s the question that inspired us to create 420 Web Pros and has led us to the point we’re at today, the industry’s #1 creative firm for web, print and branding! We started doing this because we felt passionate about the medical cannabis movement and the need for a re-branding of the whole industry. We felt that it was time for the world to take notice and recognize the legitimacy of marijuana as a medicine and an economic opportunity. Part of achieving that goal was recognizing and addressing the desperate need for professional design and branding in order to showcase how far cannabis has come since the days of Woodstock and VW buses. Marijuana producers and collectives have become a vibrant element of our local communities that are respected and embraced, and the branding surrounding these organizations should reflect the hard won legitimacy they have earned. Because we started with this philosophy as the backbone of our organization we’ve had a tremendous response from the medical marijuana industry, meeting people and gaining clients from all walks of life across the country. Even we didn’t anticipate the overwhelmingly positive and inviting nature of the reception we’ve received, which stands as a testament to the power of why! Like minded individuals and organizations have flocked toward our unique approach to medical marijuana marketing and medical marijuana web design and have joined our crusade to elevate the medical cannabis industry.

You can always tell the difference between someone who is involved for the results versus someone who is involved for the cause. A person who believes in what they’re doing will try harder, reach farther and dig deeper than any person who is simply being compensated to achieve, no matter the compensation. It is why grass-roots movements work, it’s how small companies achieve what multi-million dollar corporation are unable to do. It’s why two groups who do the same thing can have vastly different results. At 420 Web Pros, we are driven by why. It’s the reason we got in to this business and it’s the reason we’re #1.

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03
Jun

The Secret to a Winning Cannabis Website is a Sweet Design. Say No To Templates!!

Posted by Dan
Templates Are For Cookies

Templates are great for making cookies, but will do more harm than good when applied to building websites!

For any organization looking into the design and development of a new website, the temptation to purchase a cheap template and be done with it can be very strong.  It can save a lot of time and some templates can be purchased for very cheap, but before you enter your credit card and buy a canned marijuana web template, ask yourself a few important questions: If our website is the most important piece of marketing and customer relations in our arsenal, what is the advantage of a generic, pre-fabricated design that will ensure our site blends in with the crowd? Isn’t the reason we’re shopping for a new website because we want to improve our online status, not the opposite? Template thinking is more than a bit counter-intuitive.

These questions illuminate two very important points that anyone, and especially businesses and organizations in the 420 industry, need to be conscious of.

  1. There is a lot of competition. It’s very unlikely that you’re the only one in your market, which means that you’re competing for the attention of your members or customers. You wouldn’t describe your product or services as common and forgettable, so it’s vitally important that your marketing reflects that same attitude.
  2. If you’re going to spend even $1, spend it correctly. There are a lot of template websites online and you’ve probably noticed them.  They don’t look very specific, the design isn’t captivating and they don’t seem very well thought out.  That’s because they aren’t, it’s a cookie cutter solution to a problem of marketing which never works.  If you don’t remember seeing any template websites, it’s because they’re extremely forgettable. The purpose of any marketing campaign is to draw attention, not blend in with the crowd.  When it comes to web design, you’re better off with no website than a completely forgettable one that gets lost among the masses.

Everyone in the Medical Marijuana industry is clambering over each other to win the attention and patronage of a limited number of consumers. Granted, it’s a large number and it’s growing every day but so is the competition. Marijuana web templates may seem like a great way to jump start your business by taking you from nothing to website in the swipe of a credit card, but the unspoken message of a cannabis website template can be lethal. At 420 Web Pros, we’ve made it our personal mission to re-brand and bring a face of professionalism and legitimacy to the Medical Marijuana movement, and we’ve done so by producing some of the best and most cutting edge Medical Marijuana Web Design ever seen. Our design and strategy sets every one of our clients apart from their competitors and the success our clients experience comes as no surprise. We strive to make each of our clients a unique, personally branded cannabis website that gives an impression of professionalism and strength, the exact opposite of what you get with a cannabis web template.

In the world of Medical Marijuana Web Development, you get what you pay for like any other industry. Running a Medical Marijuana Collective is no different from running a nightclub or a restaurant when it comes to marketing: If it looks cheap, people will assume it’s cheap, and then assume you are cheap. Period.

In the year 2011, your website can no longer be a crudely pieced together template of a few images and some text that would have passed the bar ten years ago. In the US alone there are 255 million internet users and over 70 million smartphones. 80% of the population is online and that number grows every day. The internet has become the #1 resource for information around the world and with hundreds of millions of websites filling the web with data, standing out has become a tricky task.  In today’s world, if you’re not making a conscious effort to create a unique approach to your organization’s online strategy including a custom cannabis website, you’re wasting your time. Spending $50 on a generic marijuana web template is a waste of $50, you’re better off taking yourself out for a nice lunch. If you want to grab the attention of your users you need to treat your website like any other vitally important piece of marketing and create a well thought out, custom tailored solution that will impress and inform visitors and ultimately convert them into members or clients.

On average, when searching for something specific, internet users will spend between 7-30 seconds looking at a website before navigating away to another site.  This means you’ve got only a brief moment to make an impression on users before you lose them to another website. What impression do you think a pre-fabricated cannabis web template makes? In those precious seconds that a user may be browsing your website do you really want your message to be: “Hey, our organization is so credible that we spent $15 on our website!”

Of course you don’t.

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24
May

We’ve Turned On The Lights! How Are You Taking Advantage Of The 420 Boom?

Posted by Dan
Looking Bright

A bright new era is dawning on the Medical Marijuana Industry, and we're celebrating with a bright new design!

Currently in the United States, there are 16 states with Medical Marijuana laws that allow individuals with a recommendation or license to posses and use Medical Marijuana for the management of their symptoms. In addition, there are ten more states voting on Medical Marijuana legislation this year meaning that by the end of 2011, half the country could be Medical Marijuana friendly. Many of the states voting to approve Medical Marijuana like New York, Massachusetts and Illinois have very large populations and when added to California, Colorado, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon and Washington and the rest, the number of people living under Medical Marijuana laws is booming in a massive way. Even traditionally conservative states like Florida and Texas are voting on legislation this year that is moving them toward Medical Marijuana legalization. All of this activity surrounding Medical Marijuana in 2011 points to one obvious question: What are you doing to take advantage of the Medical Marijuana boom?

In preparation for the Medical Marijuana boom, we began designing out our new site last year and are launching in the coming days. We’ve brightened up our appearance and added a ton of new features to our website in order to better inform and inspire our clients about everything we can do for them to optimize their web presence. We’re launching a new Marijuana Marketing campaign in order to get the word out about just how valuable Cannabis Marketing and Medical Marijuana SEO are to your organization! Our new design represents the bright outlook of the Medical Marijuana Industry and the fresh new face we’re bringing to Medical Marijuana Web Design and Medical Marijuana Branding!

Our never ending effort to re-brand Medical Marijuana and bring a face of legitimacy and confidence to this vital health industry are what have led us to introduce revolutionary tools such as the Virtual Online Collective and become an essential partner in record-breaking Medical Cannabis Promotion events such as HempCon. We’ve helped countless dispensaries, collectives, delivery services and growers alike (check the portfolios, you know you want to) promote awareness of their organizations by combining fresh, contemporary design with the latest and most effective practices in Marijuana Search Engine Optimization and a well planned and executed Medical Marijuana Marketing campaign. As the Medical Cannabis boom spreads across the country in 2011, encompassing another 10 states and countless millions of Americans, the industry will continue to get more and more competitive, making it even more essential to have excellent branding and a promotional campaign that will separate your organization from the rest.

More than anything, our new design reflects the nature of our company and our constantly updating approach to providing the absolute best in Medical Marijuana Branding. As with marketing or design for any industry, a company is only as valuable as it’s ability to predict and fulfill the needs of it’s clients. We’re proud to say that every one of our clients stand out among their competition and they’ll be the first ones to tell you how important proper branding, SEO and Marijuana Marketing has been to the success of their organization. 420 Web Pros makes sure that every one of our clients is optimally positioned to take advantage of the Medical Marijuana boom that is happening as we speak. Whether you’re a collective, delivery service, grower or promoter the stakes are the same: Lead or get left behind. In order to avoid the latter of those two options, it’s time to start asking yourself the question of the year. What are you doing to take advantage of the Medical Marijuana boom?

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