How To Advertise Cannabis-Related Products: Cannabis Marketing

It's important to note that the legal landscape surrounding cannabis changes rapidly, and advertising restrictions evolve all the time. So, if you are able to, it's essential to seek advice from legal experts who might know your local cannabis laws to keep abreast of any new developments, helping you to understand the current challenges and opportunities for advertising weed merchandise.

Familiarize yourself with the specific laws and regulations concerning cannabis and its derivatives in your country, state, or region, and always adhere strictly to these guidelines to avoid any potential legal consequences worse than a ban. Knowledge is power!

Choose advertising platforms that allow cannabis-related promotions or are known to be more lenient in their policies. Some social media platforms (like good old Facebook and Instagram - now known as Meta) may have very strict restrictions on cannabis-related content, while others (like Twitter and YouTube sometimes, or Reddit) might be a bit more permissive with their policies. Besides that, still being social media platforms available to the general public they might give a warning to your account if you post photos with cannabis on it or even use words related to it. This is the reason why many companies started using the word “herb” instead of “weed” making their content more “social-friendly” or socially acceptable.

Always think about your needs as a brand and from the perspective of a cannabis consumer. We recommend you focus your content marketing strategy on providing educational content related to cannabis to the readers (choose important and common topics that people might search online very often, such as: Why should I grind my weed?) 

Take the most out our your website's domain! Having a blog section on your website's domain would generate organic traffic coming from Google to your site, this is also known as SEO. Optimizing your domain for search engines is a hard, slow but very successful marketing strategy in the long term. Generating educational articles related to cannabis and linking them with your products would have a greater impact on readers that just promoting the products directly.

SEO is a must marketing practice for all of these complicated industries out there such as the cannabis industry, in which making SEM (Paid Google Ads) campaigns are still very prohibited. This approach, which is the key to HØJ’s success, is a 100% acceptable practice and less likely to raise red flags than trying to promote on social media platforms.

This is a big one. If your thing is advertising edibles, or cannabis strains directly, ensure that the ones you're promoting online don't contain psychoactive compounds, like THC. Ensure you highlight that it just includes legal compounds and “not addictive” such as CBD.

During the last few years, we have seen a huge acceptance of products that mention “CBD-only” and the ones that have THC on them are still not legally accepted in some places. Having said this, try to advertise only your CBD products which are more widely accepted in many places and are less likely to get you a ban. However make sure to check each advertising platform's policies first, some of them don't accept CBD products either.

Clearly state the nature of the product and its legal status, especially if you're targeting an international audience with varying regulations. That way, you let consumers choose if they want to engage with your brand, leading to fewer reports on your account. People that follow closely the cannabis industry really appreciate honesty and quality, so be sure you communicate the quality of your products effectively. Users also appreciate human contact, so don't forget the importance of providing a good customer service supported by knowledgeable people in the industry and your brand.

On the more ethical side, refrain from making unsubstantiated health claims about cannabis products. Stick to verifiable information and avoid medical or therapeutic promises. After all, most of our clients are here for fun, and the medical side should be handled by their personal physicians. Always use a clear disclaimers to avoid any issues with what's written in your articles or social media. Try to refer the reader to a medical professional when talking about medical-related topics. Make sure your information is well supported or written by a certificated person in the industry.

Whenever you have the chance to do some paid ads, ensure that your ads are only shown to users who are of legal age to purchase cannabis-related products in their respective regions. For example +21 years old in the US and +18 in most European countries. This may hurt your audience reach a bit, but not only is this the ethical stance to take, but it also makes it less likely for your account to be terminated. Having an age gate on your website is a must when it comes to direct online traffic. The website visits should be tracked by cookies and users should accept they are over the legal age in the company's region.

This may be easier said than done, but it’s important to seek out advertising networks or platforms that specialize in herb accessories and have experience navigating the associated advertising restrictions. There aren’t many to go around, especially in social media, but it never hurts to ask before hurting your brand's presence online. More than social media you can look for magazines or newsletters online that focus their content on cannabis and CBD news, such as HighTimes, Herb.co, CannabisNow, and more! Besides advertising in news websites also getting backlinks from high authority domains is a good SEO strategy, just make sure this comes from cannabis-related sites to increase conversion.

Concentrate on building a strong brand presence and community engagement, which can indirectly promote your products without violating advertising policies. This is the smart strategy if your platform of choice seems to be ambivalent towards cannabis, so cover your bases.