Cannabis Creative Group is an award-winning, full-service digital marketing agency with more than a decade of experience serving the cannabis and hemp industries. The team of more than thirty marketers, designers, developers, and strategists takes a collaborative approach to the entire marketing funnel, from brand identity, packaging, and messaging to website design and development, search-engine optimization, content creation, social media strategy, email and SMS marketing, and native e-commerce solutions.
“We share one mission: to make cannabis brands unforgettable by working side by side with our clients to turn their vision into measurable success,” said Dan Serard, senior vice-president for business development and marketing. “Our goal is to teach you along the way, because we believe there’s nothing to gain from isolating you from your own business. We bring you into the process, jargon-free and headache-free. If you want to learn, we’ll teach you. And if you’d rather be hands-off, we’ve got you covered.”
Resetting expectations around marketing and PR
What’s the biggest misconception businesses have about public relations or marketing?
The biggest misconception we encounter, especially in the cannabis space, is the belief that “going viral” is a strategy. Many executives expect a single press release or one social media post to resolve all their sales or branding challenges instantly. The reality is that effective cannabis marketing and PR require sustained, compliant, and strategic effort. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. The key is to build a consistent, trustworthy presence that respects regulatory boundaries while establishing authority and a loyal customer base over time.
Align sales and marketing to unlock momentum
What’s one simple thing companies can do internally to get more out of their campaigns?
To get the most out of campaigns, make sure the sales and marketing/PR teams are working in sync. In cannabis, compliance is often a bottleneck. When sales knows exactly what marketing campaigns are running, and vice versa, they can use the current brand narrative, press mentions, or content in their sales pitches. Moreover, they can provide immediate feedback on what’s resonating with partners or customers, which marketing can then use to optimize the next round of content.
What makes a brand story actually work
What makes for a strong brand story?
A strong cannabis brand story moves beyond the product’s THC content or beautiful packaging. It’s built on four foundational pillars:
- Who (the main character): Who is the hero of your story? This is the key element that lays the groundwork for any compelling story, including your brand story. What type of people are you helping? Don’t be afraid to alienate the wrong audience; they’re not the main character here.
- Why (the mission): Why does this company exist beyond making money? Is it dedicated to social equity, pioneering sustainable cultivation, focused on a specific medical condition? This is what gives your story an emotional foundation to stand on.
- What (the plot): Tie your mission and your customer together: What are you helping them achieve in a practical way? This is where narratives around your cultivation practices, menu curation, and/or product development come in. A narrative that acknowledges and integrates into the specific community and regulatory environment it serves creates stronger resonance. Cannabis is highly localized; the best brands own their local identity.
- How (the journey): Showing how your brand puts this mission into action builds trust. For instance, demonstrating commitment to industry integrity and safe consumer use through testing practices or sharing your lab standards means much more to consumers than simply telling them your operation is “compliant.”
The overlooked growth lever: local search and GBP
What’s the most overlooked opportunity brands should be paying attention to right now?
The most overlooked opportunity is optimizing for local search or Google Business Profiles (GBP). Because national digital advertising is largely restricted, the local search “map pack” and a fully optimized GBP are often the first (and best!) places consumers find a dispensary or delivery service. Brands are pouring money into flashy websites but ignoring the foundational, geo-fenced marketing that actually drives foot traffic and online orders in a compliant manner.
Consumers are smarter, so marketing has to be, too
What trends in consumer behavior should cannabis companies be paying attention to?
Cannabis is no longer the new kid on the block, and that means consumers are more intelligent than when the market first opened. Now, they’re informed and have specific demands related to their individual goals.
Cannabis companies should be paying attention to these new personas and tailoring their messaging and product decisions accordingly.
For instance, consumers are past focusing solely on THC percentage; they are increasingly interested in the minor cannabinoids (CBD, CBG, CBN, etc.), terpenes, and the effects they produce. Marketing needs to be more educational, detailed, and science-backed.
The rise of microdosing, edibles, and tinctures for specific uses, such as sleep, focus, anxiety reduction, and pain means marketing should position products not just for recreation, but also as a tool for achieving a specific outcome.
Email and SMS: the compliant conversion engine
What’s one channel or tactic that’s delivering surprising results right now?
Compliant, highly-segmented email and SMS marketing are seeing surprising traction. While social media is a compliance minefield, direct-to-consumer communication methods are safe, compliant, and highly effective for driving immediate sales. When utilized correctly, these channels allow brands to segment audiences based on purchase history, loyalty tiers, and product interest, leading to incredibly high conversion rates for promotions and new-product announcements. We’ve seen results in the tens of thousands of dollars per month for our clients’ email and text-messaging campaigns.
Measuring what matters: attribution, POS, and ROI
How can companies connect PR and marketing to business outcomes?
Data is king! Wherever possible, set up attribution models and tracking to understand which PR and marketing activities are generating business results. The key is to leverage technology and internal operations to make this seamless.
For instance, use unique trackable codes or links for specific marketing campaigns in print ads, email blasts, and social media. For dispensaries, this means directly connecting point-of-sale (POS) data to the original marketing source to prove return on investment (ROI).
Ensure all marketing activities, from email signups to loyalty program enrollment, feed into a robust customer relationship management system that, allowing for measurement of marketing-qualified leads that convert into paying customers.
When you can accurately track results by key marketing metrics and by dollar value — whether that be ROI or revenue — you can see all the opportunities to optimize the allocation of time or money based on business outcome.
What role does data play in shaping effective campaigns?
Data is the non-negotiable foundation of effective cannabis campaigns. It plays a role in:
- Audience targeting and compliance: Data dictates what we can say and where we can say it, ensuring we are not targeting underage audiences or non-legal states or jurisdictions.
- Product development and messaging: POS data shows what is selling, helping inform which products to promote and what benefits to highlight. Audience demographics can provide insight on how to refine the tone and channels used.
- Campaign optimization: Real-time data on conversion rates, cost per acquisition (CPA), and click-through rates (CTR) allows marketers to pivot ad spend and messaging instantly, preventing budget waste and maximizing impact.
Choosing partners without losing control
What advice would you give a company choosing an outside partner for the first time?
When you’re trusting an outside partner for the first time, you have to know they have your back. Compliance is tricky; it changes all the time, and what worked yesterday might get shut down today. Therefore, it’s important to select a partner that feels like they’re part of the team and on board with your mission.
That means:
- Don’t accept general experience. A partner must understand the differences between regulated markets — California vs. Massachusetts vs. a non-legal state, for example — and how these rules impact every piece of creative and copy. General marketing experience is not enough; specialization in highly regulated markets is essential.
- Do your homework. Know the goals you need to hit, and make sure their success can be measured against the real business impact you’re after. Research the agency’s experience, team, and track record. The last thing you want is your business’s reputation to be outsourced to faceless contractors.
- Ensure you have control. Avoid agencies that own your assets. You need full access to what’s yours, including your performance data and website. Remember: it’s your business, and you’re still in the driver’s seat.
Stop discounting your brand into the ground
What’s one mistake cannabis companies often make in PR or marketing?
A very common mistake is prioritizing short-term sales tactics over long-term brand building. Many companies jump from promotion to promotion, offer discount after discount, and in the process they erode their brand value and consumer loyalty. The focus should be on creating high-value educational content and establishing brand trust, which pays dividends long after the latest flash sale is over.
How can companies make sure their marketing stands out in a crowded market?
- Branding: Invest in a professional brand that tells a clear story of who you are, what you do, and why you do what you do. Make sure the brand is cohesive across all channels and platforms including social, email, packaging design, and website.
- Transparency: In a crowded market, consumers trust the brand that is most transparent about its sourcing, testing, and processing. Showcase the cultivation process, the team, and the mission.
- Advocacy: Stand out by taking a clear, public stance on social equity, legalization, or environmental practices. This creates an emotional connection with consumers who want their purchases to align with their values.
What’s next: tech, federal movement, and mainstream competition
How do you see cannabis marketing and PR evolving over the next two years?
Evolution will center on three key areas:
- Data and technology: The rise of robust, compliant marketing technology platforms and artificial intelligence tools will allow for true, multichannel attribution and personalized marketing, similar to what is available in non-regulated consumer packaged goods.
- Federal movement and media access: Even small federal movements — rescheduling, for example — will open up access to national media and less-restricted digital ad inventory, forcing brands to be ready to scale their campaigns quickly.
- Mainstream acceptance: Marketing will become less about educating on what cannabis is and more about positioning the brand against mainstream alternatives like alcohol or wellness products, requiring a higher level of creative sophistication.
Brands should prepare by investing in a strong marketing tech stack now and creating content pillars that speak to mainstream, function-based consumption.
What’s the one piece of advice you think every business leader should know?
In the cannabis industry, the businesses that master the intricate regulatory landscape and operate with total integrity are the ones that survive, scale, and attract the best investment. Your compliance strategy should be integral to your marketing and operations. It’s what builds the long-term trust and reliability necessary to dominate this challenging, yet lucrative, market.
