The cannabis industry has been consistently skyrocketing towards being one of the most profitable of all the wellness industries, and CBD is following soon after. In fact, sources say that the CBD industry will reach $22 Billion in just a few years, and industrial hemp farmers are already struggling to keep up with supply. With the industry rapidly expanding and in such high-demand, now is a great time for entrepreneurs and established brands alike to start buying into CBD. However, the CBD industry is still in its early phase, and smaller startups are at an obvious disadvantage compared to established wellness companies. However, establishing a new brand can have its benefits, as you have the opportunity to provide a unique and useful product that no brand has offered before.
Building a CBD brand isn’t easy, but it definitely has its perks. By taking your time to plan and building your CBD brand accordingly, you can help ensure that you reach a wide customer base and leave a lasting impression that turns into repeat sales. Then, your repeat customers will only be the first sign of success as you watch your profit margin grow. Soon enough, you could be one of the best selling CBD brands in the country, with all thanks to careful planning and the healing power of all-natural CBD.
Of course, not every CBD wellness brand will make it. No, only those who dedicate themselves to careful planning and execution are likely to succeed in an industry based so heavily on quality, both of the product and of the customer service and assistance provided to each and every customer. Luckily, there are several steps you can take to get the upper hand on your competition, like outsourcing to other creative professionals or equipping each and every member on your team with the tools they need to help your brand succeed.
At CBD Nationwide, we are committed to helping other brands manifest their vision into industry leading, best selling CBD products. If you’re looking to build a CBD brand in 2019, you can use the following five tips to help you design a brand that consumers will know, love, and trust.
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Determine Your Target Audience and Niche
Determining your target audience and acknowledging them throughout the manufacturing process is one of the most important steps to gaining customer attention (and retention). Your target audience could be based on age, like products designed only for seniors. Or, you could choose to market to only men or only women, depending on the type of products you’d like to offer. Many CBD brands offer a variety of products that may be useful for a range of adults, regardless of age or gender. Some products may be marketed towards a specific group of wellness product consumers, too. For instance, if you plan to offer a line of CBD products designed to be used as part of an exercise wellness routine, you’re targeting consumers who exercise regularly and use (or will use) workout supplements.
Determining your target audience is important because it helps you line up all of your marketing material, like your product labels, website content, blog, or social pages, to appeal to your target consumers. Consistency across the board is important, including in all marketing material, because it helps consumers establish trust in your brand.
You should also consider the benefits of narrowing your niche. While many brands do offer “general wellness” CBD products that can be used for a variety of reasons, there are definitely perks to narrowing your view to specific types of products or to CBD products designed to meet certain needs. This could mean specializing in edible products or tinctures, designing only CBD product meant to be used for managing pain, focusing on CBD skin care products, or another area the piques your interest.
Narrowing down your area of focus may seem like you’re lowering your chance of having the best product for everyone, but consider the value in having the best product for “someone” instead. By targeting unique needs and creating specialized products, not only will consumers be able to more easily determine if you are the right CBD brand for them, but your expertise will show in all of your marketing.
For instance, if you lend all of your focus to offering a wide variety of high-quality CBD tinctures, consumers will see that tinctures are your specialty. Customers who need tinctures will be able to more easily find you, and many consumers will automatically assume that you know more about tinctures than most of the competition because tinctures are your specialty. While this isn’t the only approach to effectively building and marketing your CBD brand, offering specialized products is a great way to build a long-term relationship with your customer base.
Research the Competition
Part of designing a successful brand in the CBD industry is researching, understanding, and stepping up to the competition. Determine who your top competitors are, whether it’s local competition or digital competition. Competitors are any brand that is fighting for the same space in the industry or has the same target audience as you. However, not all CBD brands will be considered your competition just because they sell CBD products. Competitors only include brands that provide similar products of the same quality as the ones you intend to sale. For instance, if you sell CBD skin care products for women, a brand that cells CBD supplements for sleep isn’t competing for the same customer base.
Understanding your competition allows you to investigate their strengths and weaknesses. Pay attention to what your competition is doing that works for them, whether it be a certain type of advertisement or an innovative web layout. You can use these ideas for inspiration and apply them to your own brand, but it’s important to remain consistent with your brand’s voice. In other words, just because it works for the competition doesn’t mean it will work for your brand.
Alternatively, pay close attention to your competition’s weaknesses. Are these areas where you already excel? If not, can you do anything to excel in these areas? Determining your competition’s weak areas gives you an idea of where you can easily gain the upper hand.
Determine Your Strengths and Sell Them
After taking an in-depth look at your competition, you should be able to more easily identify your brand’s strengths. Understanding your strengths gives you a unique opportunity to play on them and beat out your competition in those areas. Plus, understanding your strengths also gives you a unique perspective on your weaknesses, allowing you the opportunity to formulate a plan to improve every area of your brand’s marketing technique.
Once you’ve identified your strengths and the things that set you apart from the competition, market them. Tell your audience who you are, why you are different, and what you do best. Establishing genuine confidence in yourself and your brand will allow you to display your products confidently, too. Displaying your strengths and the way you outweigh your competitors also helps you market your products as unique, one-of-a-kind CBD products that consumers can’t get anywhere else. This helps drive sales and increases customer retention and boost’s buyer’s confidence. Remember, word of mouth is a huge seller in the cannabidiol industry, so you want to sure of yourself, and that you can provide the same unique, high-quality products that you market.
Get Help Establishing Your Brand’s Voice and Logo
If you’re a bit muddled at the mention of your company’s “voice” or aren’t an experienced designer yourself, that’s okay. Most brands outsource to a graphic designer or another marketing expert for help designing their CBD brand’s logo and establishing tagline. This is one defining part of the brand building process, so you’ll need to take a long, introspective look at your company’s core values. Since you’ve already established your strengths, you can easily determine exactly what your brand will deliver. Often, this is a great first step towards designing a tag line that is unique to your brand.
Then, determine where your values lie. What’s your brand’s mission? This information is important, and it helps consumers get an idea of who you are, where you came from, and why you do what you do. These values, as well as your brand’s base morals, will need to be carefully considered when establishing your brand’s “voice.”
A marketing expert can help you apply these unique characteristics and values when designing your brand’s logo, too. A logo should be unique, eye-catching, and capture the same tone you’d like your products to emit. A great logo is often simple, easy to resize, and leaves a lasting impression on consumers, which helps increase brand recognition in the future.
Utilize CBD Education Programs for All Employees
Perhaps the most overlooked detail necessary for building a strong, successful brand of CBD products is ensuring that the company is firm from within. One important factor is how well each member of your team understands cannabidiol products, how they work, and the legal confines of the CBD market. This is important for every employee you hire, not just those handling customer service. Even marketing professionals, web designers, and retailers need to have a firm understanding of each product in order to market it effectively and efficiently across the board. Failure to equip every employee with the knowledge they need will reflect badly on the brand as a whole. Plus, a failure to comply with current legislation can result in pretty serious consequences for you and your company.
One core reason that CBD Nationwide is able to help so many companies reach the top is because of our firm grounding in science. By ensuring that each member of our team is educated on the topic of cannabinoids and CBD, we can further ensure the premium quality of every product we produce, as well as our ability to assist small companies in their journey to the top of the market. We support CannaCertified for its ability to provide high-quality, in-depth cannabinoid-based education to those who need it. For this reason, we suggest that all CBD startups and entrepreneurs complete the course and offer it to all employee as well. By requiring each employee that you hire to complete the courses provided by CannaCertified, you can ensure that every member on your team has a solid foundation in cannabinoid education that will carry through to your brand’s voice in everything that you do.
Private Labelling Makes it Easy to Build a CBD Brand
Aside from following these five steps to effectively building and marketing your CBD brand, you should carefully choose your CBD manufacturer. At CBD Nationwide, we have years of quality experience and a foundation rooted in science and understanding. By paying close attention to the details, we are able to produce the best wholesale CBD products on the market. We offer a convenient option for new brands to private label their own line of cannabidiol products, with total control over the formula, packaging, and label.
By outsourcing your manufacturing needs to the experts at CBD Nationwide, you’ll be able to focus more on branding and marketing, and we’ll ensure that each organic, premium CBD product we create aligns with your brand’s vision. Plus, by utilizing the benefits of economies of scale, you’ll pay great prices to have your line designed, produced, and shipped to your store.
Buying into the CBD industry is the most popular way to enter the cannabinoid market, and CBD is one of the most profitable sectors of the entire wellness industry. Partnering with CBD Nationwide for your private label CBD needs and utilizing these expert tips for building a CBD brand is the best way to get your foot in the door, and the quickest way to get two steps ahead of the competition.
