We live in a world where brand recognition and brand awareness is key. Huge corporations like Amazon have stamped even their smirking logo into the minds of hundreds of millions of people, which is part of what has made Jeff Bezos the richest person in the world. While your goal might not be to be the richest person in the world, spreading brand awareness can help grow your business and reach your business goals.
From traditional, local cannabis product marketing tactics such as advertising on billboards or via flyers, to more modern advertising tactics such as native advertising or text message marketing, there are tons of ways to spread brand awareness. But there is one tactic that is severely underutilized in the cannabis industry: branded merchandise.
Branded merch is great for your business and your customers. It allows you to spread brand awareness and create an additional revenue source for yourself while also being able to be rewarded to loyalty members and foster a community around your dispensary.
According to recent studies, promotional products can have a big impact: 90% of people who receive a promotional product can recall the name of the brand, and that promotional product can have on average 344 impressions per month. On top of this, 60% of customers keep promotional products for 2 years or longer, which translates to thousands of impressions over time. Now think about if you were to give out a thousand T-shirts, how many impressions would that get your dispensary?
In this article, we will be discussing how branded merch can serve as an extremely effective cannabis product marketing strategy and help your dispensary grow. Specifically, we will look at how branded merch can serve as an additional revenue source, its ability to promote brand awareness, its versatility as a reward for customers, and its ability to foster a community around your business. First, let’s discuss its ability to generate revenue.
Branded merch as an additional revenue source
Branded merch is a great way to bring in additional revenue to your dispensary, especially if the products you are selling are in high demand. But how do you know what is in high demand? Well, the best way to find out what your customers want is to ask. To do this, simply survey your customers. This can easily be done through springbig’s integration with Budtender, one of the industry’s leading customer experience platforms.
In doing this, you’ll likely find that your customers would be interested in things like branded grinders, glass pieces, T-shirts, hoodies, etc. What is important here is to make sure that you have more than one product for your customers to buy or to reward your customers with.
By doing this, you enable your brand to become so much more than a dispensary. You could begin your own cannabis-themed fashion line, begin your own line of grinders and rolling trays, and more. This way you ensure that if one area of your business is slacking, it can be picked up by another area of your business.
Branded merch and brand awareness
Probably the biggest benefit of branded merch is its ability to spread brand awareness. Without brand awareness, your business will lack the legitimacy of bigger dispensaries that are household names in your community.
Like we said above, just one piece of branded merchandise can have on average 344 impressions per month. So just imagine if you were to give a free shirt to each member of your loyalty program: what would that do for your business?
Not only can it raise awareness by your customers wearing it, but it can also raise brand awareness as a piece of content online. You can blog about your latest content drop, post about it on your social media, change up the theme in your store to fit it, and more. This gives you a chance to get creative and really shape your dispensary’s image. This kind of cannabis product marketing is what is required today if you want to stick out from the competitors.
Rewarding your customers with merch
Not only can merch bring in revenue and spread your brand awareness, but it is also a great way to reward your customers and incentivize them. Branded merch paired with a loyalty program is a recipe for success when it comes to customer retention.
Everybody loves a free shirt or a free grinder, so rewarding your new loyalty members with these instantly gives them a good impression of your dispensary. Not only that, but it could also incentivize their friends or family to also join the loyalty program in order to get a free piece of merch.
Once they’ve joined the loyalty program, you will be able to market to them and keep them in the loop at your dispensary. Not only that, but with their new merch and status as a loyalty member, they are joining your community.
Fostering a community with merch
One of the most important things when it comes to customer retention is making sure that your customers feel like your dispensary is more than just a dispensary. Merch can do that. In creating exclusive merch for loyalty members, and in having merch in general, each of your customers who see another customer repping your brand will instantly have something in common which is great for fostering that community feel in your dispensary and creating a connection between each of your customers.
There is a reason why football teams have jerseys: because it lets others know whose team they are on. The same goes for dispeansay’s: give your customers the ability to signify that they are on your team, and you’ll surely see a community forming around your dispensary.
How to make the most out of your merch
While all of these benefits of branded merch are great, in order for it to be as effective as it can be you can’t just throw a shirt together and call it good. Instead, you should be investing adequate time into both the design of the merch and finding a quality base product to put your brand’s name on.
According to recent studies, 72% of customers believe that the quality of a promotional product is directly related to the reputation of the company. That means that in order to make sure that your merch isn’t counterproductive, you should be investing in the quality of your merchandise.
A great way to do this is to hire an artist to design the merchandise and to even pick the products that the designs will be printed on. Whether it is a shirt or a water bottle, you want to make sure that it is high quality as to speak to the reputation of your brand and make a good impression on those who see your merch.
Clearly if you are looking for an extra revenue source that dubs as a great cannabis product marketing tool, then branded merch is for you. With a variety of quality merch, you’ll be able to give customers a product they will be proud to use or wear all while repping your brand and spreading brand awareness.
CEO and Co-founder of springbig
Jeffrey Harris