Online Video Marketing for Cannabis Businesses and Cannabis-Related Businesses

Online video marketing is a must for cannabis businesses and cannabis-related businesses in 2020. As online video watch time continues to increase, brands that get on board now and start producing, publishing, and promoting useful, relevant video content will be in a position to win in the future. Will your brand be one of them?

Online video marketing is essential for all businesses today, including cannabis businesses and cannabis-related businesses. The number of people watching online videos every day continues to rise, and companies that invest in online video marketing are reaping the rewards.

According to research conducted by OptinMonster, video marketers get a 54% increase in brand awareness and 66% more qualified leads each year.

However, online video marketing isn’t just highly successful for brand awareness and lead generation. It’s also proven to be effective for nurturing and converting leads into customers and boosting brand loyalty.

Research by Animoto found that 93% of marketers have landed a new customer thanks to an online video they published.

If your cannabis business or cannabis-related business isn’t already producing and publishing online video content, then you’re missing a valuable opportunity to raise brand awareness, attract leads, nurture those leads, and turn them into loyal customers who share your content and help build your brand and sales through word-of-mouth marketing.

Your cannabis or ancillary business can leverage online video marketing by focusing on three key things: production, publishing, and promotion.

Online Video Production

The first step to using online video marketing to build your brand and business is to set your goals and put together a plan to reach those goals. Online video can help you attract prospective customers and lead them through the marketing funnel until they become paying customers, so develop a strategy to create video content that is relevant for each stage of the marketing funnel.

In addition, you need to produce videos that speak directly to specific niches within your audience. Whether you’re producing a video to raise brand awareness, increase brand engagement, or boost brand sales, the messaging and experience of those videos need to speak to the right people, solve their problems, and make their lives easier or better.

As with all content marketing, the vast majority of your videos should not be self-promotional. Instead, focus on producing educational, entertaining, and useful video content. You don’t need to invest a lot of money into a professional production using high-end cameras and microphones, but you do need to invest in providing quality messaging and experiences.

Online Video Publishing

Once you produce a video, you need to publish it online so people can see it and share it. Sharing is vital to a successful online video marketing strategy. Therefore, it’s a good idea to publish all of your videos on YouTube and then embed them on your website, in your blog posts, in your social media posts, and so on.

Another benefit to publishing your videos on YouTube is that YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world behind Google. Considering that Google owns YouTube, it’s not a big leap to say YouTube can help your search engine optimization efforts. In fact, Google even includes YouTube videos near the top of many search engine results pages.

When you publish your videos on YouTube, make sure you use keyword-rich titles and descriptions, so it’s easy for people to find them. Include captions so people can watch your videos without sound, and always follow YouTube’s rules. Finally, keep in mind that over 70% of YouTube watch time happens on mobile devices, so create content that is optimized for mobile viewing.

Online Video Promotion

Once you publish a video, it’s time to promote it. Online video marketing success relies on your investment into promoting the videos that you create. There are many ways to promote your video content, so start testing which channels of promotion are most effective for you.

You can promote your videos after you’ve published them on YouTube by sharing them on your social media channels and embedding them in blog posts. You can also link to them in your email newsletters and show them at live and virtual events.

Just be sure to follow all of the rules for each social media channel and platform that you use to promote your videos and be mindful of guidelines for cannabis-related content. Follow the links below to learn more about social media marketing, Facebook marketing, Twitter marketing, and Instagram marketing for cannabis and ancillary businesses, and always review the current guidelines for any promotional platform you use before posting your content.

Be creative in your promotion, and whenever possible, track your results in Google Analytics using UTM codes. With the tracking data you collect, you can see which videos are working and which forms of promotion are driving the most brand awareness and engagement. Use that information to modify your online video marketing strategy to maximize your results.

Susan Gunelius, Lead Analyst for Cannabiz Media and author of Marijuana Licensing Reference Guide: 2017 Edition, is also President & CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc., a marketing communications company offering, copywriting, content marketing, email marketing, social media marketing, and strategic branding services.