Cannabis and Online Marketing - Branding Bud Live Episode 51

 

THE SUMMARY

In a market where regulations often pose significant challenges, understanding the nuances of online marketing isn't just advantageous; it's crucial. From demystifying compliance hurdles to capitalizing on digital platforms, our discussion will spotlight the role of online marketing strategies in building brand recognition and loyalty. Join Branding Bud Live cohosts David Paleschuck and Adriana Hemans with our guest, Guillermo Bravo, CEO of Ecomara, for an insightful conversation titled “Cannabis And Online Marketing.”

THE CO-HOSTS

David Paleschuck, Adriana Hemans

THE SPECIAL GUESTS

Guillermo Bravo, CEO of Ecomara

THE TRANSCRIPT

DAVID PALESCHUCK

Welcome to Branding Bud Live, the live stream that’s 100% THC and 0% WTF.  Every week we bring business people together to talk about the business of cannabis. I’m David Paleschuck, founder of Branding Bud Consulting Group and author of the first book on cannabis branding, “Branding Bud: The Commercialization of Cannabis.” I’m joined by my co-host and BCF “best cannabis friend,” Adriana Hemans, the Director of Marketing at Green Meadows. Hi Adriana!

ADRIANA HEMANS

Hi David. Thank you for that intro. I’m so excited to co-host the show with you. We’re bringing amazing guests from across the cannabis ecosystem to share their perspectives. My favorite thing about Branding Bud Live is that we focus on building community - and we encourage audience participation. It’s not just about us talking, it’s about all of us building something together. So feel free to drop your questions and/or opinions in the chat, and we’ll share them too.

I’m super excited - and grateful - today for a number of reasons. They are: 

#1. I’m grateful to and for our show sponsor - High Hopes

  • A creative agency that specializes in the cannabis industry. 

  • With over a decade of cannabis experience.

  • High Hopes understands the challenges of our industry and helps its clients

  • With better branding, packaging, website design, SEO, and marketing.

  • I’d like to congratulate them on their recent CLIO Award win

  • Be sure to check them out at: www.ivegothigherhopes.com

#2. We just launched two online courses on cannabis branding and brand development and have received such great feedback, that we’re going to keep offering up more courses! Please check them out and more at cannabis’s best-kept secret www.brandingbud.com/edu. We’ll throw up a direct link shortly.

#3.  Last but not least, our guest today is Guillermo Bravo, CEO of Ecomara, and we’ll be chatting about “Cannabis And Online Marketing.”

Some of the questions we’ll be discussing are:

  • What challenges do cannabis brands face in terms of maintaining consistency?

  • How do regulations impact the branding strategies of cannabis companies?

  • How do these challenges affect product development and innovation?

I’m super excited about all the things that are going on and I’m super excited to chat with Angela today.

ADRIANA HEMANS

Me too!

DAVID PALESCHUCK

Let’s welcome, Guillermo Bravo, CEO of Ecomara, as Welcome, Guillermo.

ADRIANA HEMANS 

Welcome, Guillermo.

GUILLERMO BRAVO

Hello, David. Hey, Adriana. How are you?

ADRIANA HEMANS 

Hi Guillermo. Tell us about yourself. What are you passionate about?

GUILLERMO BRAVO

I'm passionate about three things, marketing, cannabis and music. And he's been in patent. He's had been passions of mine since my teenage years. My journey into the world of music began when I was 14 years old learning to DJ with my uncle. And that really introduced me to marketing. So I leveraged Myspace at that time for event marketing automation to promote my events. So that was my real introduction into marketing. So that dates me a little bit with the Myspace reference. But as far as cannabis, a turning point for me was when a good friend of mine was diagnosed with a brain tumor and given the year to live. And I saw the healing properties of RSO are Rick Simpson oil. And that really just opened my eyes up past the recreational uses of cannabis and more into the medicinal benefits. And, thankfully, she's still with us today. And she is running, helping run a cannabis store in Santa Rosa, my hometown, and I'm just so thankful for that. And that's really brought me to my mission to make cannabis accessible to everyone.

In regards to marketing, I've been doing SEO since. I mean, for about 16 years now. Got my start into cannabis in the media side. So started a publication to just learn about the different movers and shakers in the space. And then at that point, decided to start a marketing agency called foot traffic, which focus on SEO, and then moved on to paid ads programmatic and then sold that to media gel. And then now I'm here again with my new company Ecomara, which is focused on E commerce marketing. So that's kind of the full circle of everything on my past.

DAVID PALESCHUCK 

Let's, let's jump in. My first question, Guillermo is how crucial How critical is online marketing to a cannabis brand? I'll leave it there. That's a that's a big issue right there.

GUILLERMO BRAVO

Yeah, I'd say it's really crucial. Online marketing allows cannabis brands to, to reach global audiences beyond the traditional geographical boundaries, right? So it can be more cost effective, as some of these digital advertising platforms often allow for precise budget control for reaching and engaging with the right target audience.

It's really important to reach people where they are, and yeah, everyone's on this every day. So making sure that you're present on cell phones, on TV, on tablets, and whatnot, and you're having conversations with people where they are, that's going to be primarily on social media nowadays. So, it's a key component, we'll dive a little bit deeper into the intricacies of online marketing. I would say it's from the start, it's, it's crucial and it's only it only works really, the brand, the product fits and everything just everything has to work for this to be successful. You can't, as they say, Can't put lipstick on a pig, right?

DAVID PALESCHUCK 

I have a quick follow up Adriana and I We often joke about a lot of things. But one of the, one of the terms we often joke about is meeting people where they are meeting customers where they are and that said you picked up your phone. And it's interesting, because yes, that's where people are. But the one thing I'm curious about too, when it comes to online marketing, especially within cannabis, right, because cannabis is very geo specific if there's a brand that is in Seattle, Washington, they can only sell really within Washington unless they're a multi-state operator. I've heard brands say, Hey, we've got a million followers. And my follow up is great, how many of them are in the state that you're actually selling? So can you just talk a moment for that in terms of like, geographic geolocation, and how important that is to maybe use other forms like geo fencing or things like that, which really locks people into a specific geographic location?

GUILLERMO BRAVO

Yeah, I mean, I always like to ask people, would you like to be rich or popular. So it's nice to be popular with the 100,000 followers. But if they're not relevant, and they don't actually convert to customers, they're, I'm pretty much worthless as far as Yeah, besides your ego at that point. So when it comes to reaching the audience, where they are, the first thing is, you should really look at your business. Okay, I'm a cannabis brand in Washington. My first restrictions are the borders of the state. So I shouldn't focus any of my efforts outside of that. With advertising tools, you can choose the demographics. So on Google, you can just say, Washington State only, or just choose a city. So Seattle, or a radius or, or within the borders of your state, you should be fine. The same goes for Facebook, and Instagram, or programmatic advertising, like any advertising channels, you can choose where you're advertising, organically, you can. So those followers are going to come like wherever they see you. They may be in New York, LA Seattle, San Francisco, and they like your brand, and they like your message and what you're about. They might not buy from you today, tomorrow, next year, even. But when I visit Seattle, I want to think about David's brand. And I'm going to seek that when I'm in Seattle. So it's not. You have to think about marketing and like what your goals are. If your goal is just for people to know who you are, that's fantastic. Then social media and green gaining followers is a perfect fit, you just want visibility. But if you're really trying to drive sales, then you need to drive customer action and you can't promote the sale and use of cannabis on social media organically or else they'll shut your profile down. So there's some restrictions you need to take into account when, when engaging these different marketing channels. And yeah, there's that nowadays, it's really easy to choose your audience and choose the targeting. Even if you're not doing digital billboards, if it's a one, one or two miles within the store, it's still effective just has to be in the right place.

ADRIANA HEMANS 

So tell us a little bit more Guillermo about what strategies you have for like optimizing your visibility and driving sales, which I'm sure is something on everybody's mind here who I'm sure our audience is either working for a brand or has their own brand. And this is like probably top of mind every day for them.

GUILLERMO BRAVO

Yeah, I mean, it's before we talk a talk about the marketing channels, I'd like to kind of take a step back and really address some of the challenges that cannabis brands have in this space. And the first one is tracking. So having difficulty in tracking and tributing sales across multiple marketing channels has been a challenge and understanding the full customer journey. So making sure that you have the tracking in place before you do anything. And I mean, I don't need to go in until the constraints with factors like taxes to add the slim margins, but you do have to be realistic on the goals of your campaign, the expectation we need to hit a certain return on investment to really make some of these channels worth it. So just being aware of that before you continue then as far as the channels there's a lot of ways that you can get reached for your dispensary and I would start with your website. So your website is your that's your business plan. I mean, that's your that's your business card. Right. So that's how you are presenting yourself online. So ensure that the website you because you do keyword research and ensure that these different keywords like the word dispensary is in your title, tag description and headers, you need to make sure that the website is mobile first and mobile friendly. So everyone's on their phone. It's something like 80% of ecommerce dispensary visitors are on their mobile device. So make sure that you make it fast and easy to use. And then your website also has the most important thing, which is your menu. Right. And when I when I talk about cannabis retail, you really have to think about is ecommerce companies and retail brick and mortar companies. So you have to, you have to position your business that way. And to do so you need to make sure that your website and your menu is indexable. by search engines, you need to provide the most information, pictures, details, ingredients, the strain, the sources, the everything, everything that a customer needs to shop for cannabis, they should be able to see it on your website, they should be able to get that information about the products about the dosing everything. So if you're not doing that, then you're not you're not you're not providing the best experience for customers. Like do you go into a store and shop for clothes? And they don't have the sizes? No, like it's the right colors? No, everything's there front and center. So make it really, really easy for your customers to shop.

And then beyond that, Google business profile has been one of the most effective platforms to advertise a dispensary. It's not even advertising and marketing. So putting your keyword in the description, putting keywords in the different Q&A sections, make sure that you're filling up your profile with pictures, videos of Google 360 view, and just making sure that people can almost get the experience of visiting the store from their phone. So that's, it's really powerful. Just ensure that you have a presence on all the different local directories the Google, Yelp, Bing, weed maps Leafly. And then you can tell you continue to build your trust and authority with Google, but just with your brand. So with the emergence of AI, and the natural language models and kind of how they're processing everything giving credit to creators, you really need to establish, establish yourself as a, as a leader and create unique content that can't be plagiarized. And it's really your unique position on this on this subject. And you need to do the same thing with cannabis. So you need to share your expertise, whether it be the strains, whether it be the usage, compliance, all these factors come into play. And then you want to share all that content on social media. So social media is definitely where customers are, you want to engage with it. You want to grow your followers, but you don't own the platform. So you have to kind of tread lightly. It's the unfortunate position that we're in, in cannabis, where some of these public companies regulate us unfairly due to the federal restrictions or just their own business value.

DAVID PALESCHUCK

We've kind of we've been crossing back and forth between online marketing for brands and dispensaries. You just touched upon dispensaries more with the menu. Is there a different approach, for a brand versus a dispensary?

GUILLERMO BRAVO

Definitely, there's a lot of differences in the campaigns have different goals, right. So a retailer is looking to drive sales in store or online, a brand is looking to increase the awareness and drive demand of their product. So that either you'll visit a store, or you'll visit their website and find a store to purchase it. The retail side is direct to consumer. And I would say that the brand side it is direct to consumer for awareness. But you really need to pair that with being aggressive and really approaching the retailers and making bud tenders your best friend and making them your pastures and really participating in person through vendor days through the community, it's just a different approach. If I were a brand in any state, the first thing I would do is, number one, get into as many stores as possible, and then activate my brand in those stores. So hire people, train them on your language on the usage around your type of product, whether it's a flower product edibles, or vape, etc. and be active there and don't depend on retailers to help you build your brand. So do it yourself, invest in advertising yourself, and build your own customer list. I've been talking about this for five plus years. And I don't understand why brands don't just build their own list. If I was ABC brand, and I I'm in 1000 stores, every time that I participate in a vendor day, I should have an iPad at that store. And I should be building my own list. Because I can use that email, I can use that to import into advertising. If they opt in, I can text message them or send push notifications. So there's, there's so many ways for brands to build their presence in their own community. And there's some great brands that are doing it. But you can really see that X factor when they everything is working together. I mean, you can see it with Jeter or dizzy or any of these brands that just kind of took over the market. And yeah, it's a category.

ADRIANA HEMANS 

We're going to throw up the first question: The percentage of cannabis consumers who say budtender recommendations influence their purchase decisions has increased or decreased since 2020?

Some folks also share a little bit of frustration with getting censored on social media platforms. So I want to read a couple of comments because I think they're amazing. Tik Tok is the worst. And Tory said, we use the term a weed spelled OUID. I love that. If you have other funny terms, or interesting terms or ways to get around the sensors that you use on social media, please drop them in because I really want to talk about that and or steal your ideas. Sorry, I want to show a really quick just a photo before we jump into our audience participation. This was pulled obviously from just a regular Google search, but it shows that your post has been deleted, which I laugh about this when I saw it. This is such a common thing that we're always seeing, like when we're on an Instagram account. Typically, this happens to me all the time, our accounts are getting flagged, our posts are getting deleted. It's just so frustrating. So I love what you were just saying about building your own list and going directly after consumers yourself versus relying on platforms, although, obviously, we still have to do a little bit of that too.

I'm going to just go into our audience participation and maybe just zoom all the way out really, because we're talking about how consumers make decision ultimately, right? It's about what are we going to listen to? Where are we going to go where we're going to find information? So this question sort of gets at that question from another angle. And the question is the percentage of cannabis consumers who say budtender recommendations, influence their purchase decisions has increased or decreased since 2020. And this came from our friends at brightfield This was their I want to say quarterly survey of 1000s of cannabis consumers they do both Canada and the US. And they graciously allowed us to share this stat with you all, which I think is really telling and really interesting. So I means feel free to take a guess. Do you think that the percentage of cannabis consumers This is us who say that they rely on bud tender recommendations or that bud tender recommendations influence their purchasing increased or decreased in the last three years? Daniels guessing increased?

DAVID PALESCHUCK

Yeah, and it's interesting, too. You alluded to this you need to make your in store opportunities as strong as they can. And typically, bud tenders are on the front lines. So it's really important to focus on bartenders and your relationship with them.

GUILLERMO BRAVO

Exactly. Exactly. And it's changing I would say, My guess would be probably decrease on this. Just with the emergence of alternative educational methods, content, people are doing their own research, and then some of these states are taking an active approach to educate customers too. So it's a combined effort.

DAVID PALESCHUCK

Shall we jump to the answer? Yeah, let's do it.

ADRIANA HEMANS

keeping everyone in suspense, who is decreased? Eddie and Susan, nice job. You both got it. Right. It has decreased from 13% in 2020, to 9% in 2023.

GUILLERMO BRAVO

So I have a question, do you think that's a good thing or a bad thing?

ADRIANA HEMANS

I think there's a lot more content just out in the world about cannabis. I think that we're sort of more going in the way of like Yelp reviews, whereas people weren't talking about cannabis online, because most people are not anonymous when they're posting on social apps. So they're not necessarily wanting to be completely out there in public with reviewing products. But I think now there's just more, there's just more cannabis content to look at. So they're getting information from sources other than retail.

DAVID PALESCHUCK

What's interesting here, too, relative to the question we just asked, is, it's tied to cannabis consumers. So even though bud tenders are more often than not consumers as well. I think there's a lot to be said here for when brands and dispensaries or primarily brands, in this case, promote their product, they're also promoting it to, to bud tenders. Right. So the influence is not only on the cannabis consumer, it's also on the bud tender. But I think what Daniel calls out is true when a bud tender wants to sell it, it sells because a lot of folks come in, and either they don't know what they want, or they're looking for something new, I know my shopping habits or get my old favorite, and try something new. Right? So I rely on bud tenders all the time to learn more about what's new in this store, or what they recommend.

ADRIANA HEMANS

Some are checking out Reddit, which I love and read. It's anonymous. So I feel like that would have some really honest responses. There was a funny post on Reddit recently about how cannabis marketing is like, basically stuck in the 90s. I have to dig that up and share it. It's pretty interesting. I'll send it to you here.

GUILLERMO BRAVO

Like you said, it's a combination education, I think it's a good thing. Customers are getting more sophisticated with their product choices with their education. It's the evolution of the industry. Like we're not, we're now seeing people choose, and stick to the products that they like, on a regular basis. So if you look at the point of sale data and consumers, you see trends, and you can any, if you see that they're out of trend, you can remind them like, Hey, you forgot that drink that you always buy every week or that joint that you buy every week. So it's no, it's great. And I like green flower media, Weedmaps Leafly. I mean, they're all these different big platforms. They're all doing their part to educate customers in their own way. Whether it's, whether it's more of the compliance side, or if it's, it's just looking at what strains are the best right now are the highest THC, which is another topic of conversation.

DAVID PALESCHUCK 

Jim makes a really great, whew. It depends on the market. Right. So more markets where people have more time involved, I think, I think has a lot to do with it. Let’s jump to the next question in light of time, we purchase brands, because we're products because we believe in the brands and the behind them that how important is content marketing and backstories and, and all of those components relative to cannabis marketing.

GUILLERMO BRAVO

Yeah. And in regards to influencer marketing it proves to be an impactful channel despite the regulations. So influencers contribute to educational advocacy, help stigmatize through education, through personal narratives, help navigate some of these compliance challenges. So leveraging social media on that side to help build communities, provide product reviews and advocate for policy changes, it's all part of this collaboration of brands and community. Offering different content opportunities while building trust and credibility through your experiences. Despite the constraints, influencer, marketing is still been a valuable tool for resale reshaping perceptions and fostering informed discussions around the legal framework of cannabis. Now we continue to create content to distribute that and, and to ensure that people are educated on their, on their path towards using cannabis.

ADRIANA HEMANS

Eddie dropped a great question that I want to lob over to you, Guillermo, where's the gap with these platforms? Between standard socials, we're talking about Reddit and Tik Tok a little bit, and the Leafly and Weedmaps.

GUILLERMO BRAVO

Yeah, so Reddit is one of my favorite platforms personally just because it's, it is a free speech platform, You can say anything  within reason. Tik Tok is the opposite. I don't use it that much just because I just personal choice, but the cannabis regulations make it really, really challenging to use. Let's see, Facebook and Instagram, I would say are the best channels for organic and just getting awareness with cannabis consumers. Just getting your traditional content out there. We've met some Leafly. So it just depends on the market. So if you're on the West Coast, weed maps is probably a decent challenge to look at. There's different ways to use weed maps, you can do the listings, you can do paid advertising, you can upload your brand there. It just depends if you're on the retail or brand side. Leafly is bigger on education. Anything strange, specific product brand specific, I would really push on that platform to make sure that your reputation and reviews are being responded to on that platform. And I wouldn't forget Jane as well, that's a huge e commerce marketplace. That does allow for reviews and user generated content as well.

DAVID PALESCHUCK

Leafly and Weedmaps are platforms that that brands and dispensaries more brands than anything really, beyond. And then. And then they geo locate, if you will, where somebody says, hey, where can I find a product that's close to me, and it drives people to find that product in a specific dispensary? So it seems to be about brand awareness, it seems to be more like there's one is a passive mode one, and the other is inactive mode … I'm looking to consume, or I'm looking to purchase. Now where should I go purchase this?

GUILLERMO BRAVO

That's a great, great way to put it. When I'm, you have to look at the customer intent. So if they're at the top of the marketing funnel, and they're just looking for products there, they may look on Weedmaps Leafly, and a bunch of other platforms. And then just kind of just kind of looking around. And in most cases, you have to interrupt people to advertising if you're a brand to get their attention, right. They're not really seeking you. But then when customers are ready to buy, the number one place they go is Google so they're going to go to Google, where do I buy weed? Where's the nearest dispensary because we've trained customers to go into a retail store and buy. It wasn't until COVID. Where the delivery percentage went from 20% of orders to close Like 50% comes from pre orders and delivery. We're watching this evolution not live and really the last three years that completely changed the industry. The e-commerce menus have all stepped up to accommodate that we, whether it be the curbside tribe, tribe by pickup, they've adjusted to accommodate that. it's just top of funnel is traditional advertising, Facebook, Instagram, advertise advertising you can do in cannabis, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pornhub, Traffic Junkies, another one that Weedmaps is advertising on. So that's one if you're comfortable position your brand. You can, yeah. And then where you can't advertise, I mean, you can do on Google, if you depending on which product type you are like CBD Delta 9, those you can advertise. And you may be able to get around some of the restrictions in Google to advertise a retail store, but it's quite limited. And it's a little more, it's more expensive nowadays. So if I'm a retailer, I'll just I'll try to keep it concise here. If I'm a retailer, I would invest in marketing through SEO as my number one. And then I would look at some of these other channels, like programmatic advertising, Weedmaps, Pornhub, Facebook and Instagram. And if I'm going to burn off a brand, you can kind of use the same channels. But you may want to look at some direct to consumer product advertising. So as a brand, I would want to advertise on retail menus. So I know Jane Does that where I can stay busy. I can advertise on ABC dispensary. So I can show up at the top of their menu. I'm sure that she's going to come up with something like that soon. And Weedmaps the leaf we already have that. It's really, really be specific and precise with where you're like with your goals and how you're going to achieve those goals.

DAVID PALESCHUCK

No, I think I think the last thing you just said is really important. Because when you think about are you a brand Are you a dispensary? Are you THC only are you seeing e are you delta nine where now people are purchasing products DTC direct to consumer you go to their website, you order it, it gets mailed and shipped directly to you. So I think it behooves everybody in the business of cannabis marketing to one take a look at their products and question what their products are and where they fall. And then to what are their goals? Are they driving people to a dispensary? Are they looking for brand awareness? These things are super important. But that said, why don't we jump to and in light of time? Why don't we have done audience? Number two participation? We've touched upon this a little bit. What percentage of us cannabis consumers say they have no preference for the quantity of THC content in products they? This is this is quite interesting. I'm curious to see where the audience, this audience, it's your chance to shine it every week. Guillermo, any thoughts on this?

Audience, this is your time to shine!

GUILLERMO BRAVO

I would say on the higher side probably like the 18. When you talk to people outside the cannabis industry, they're not they don't care about the THC as much. But that's only for one category. Right? That's only for flour.

DAVID PALESCHUCK

You're absolutely right. I think that's the follow up question to this. What form factor are we talking about? Because if it's, if it's a beverage, typically those are microdose. So that's, that's a nuance to this question that most people don't get this cut.

ADRIANA HEMANS

This covers all product categories. Okay.

GUILLERMO BRAVO

Now I'll lower to 13%. My guess is C.

DAVID PALESCHUCK

Should we jump to it? Let's answer it. I'm ready. Let's do it. The answer is C.

ADRIANA HEMANS

You killed it.

GUILLERMO BRAVO

Oh nice.

DAVID PALESCHUCK

So 30% say they have no preference for the quantity of THC content in the product. So on the last visit to dispensary did you look at the THC levels or not?

ADRIANA HEMANS

I actually don't think That's the only I don't think it's the only thing to look at. But yeah, I mean, if you're going to be like, hey, I want to take an edible tonight, you want to know if you're going to outer space.

GUILLERMO BRAVO

I mean, I've kind of know what I like to use that as pretty much like pre rolls and certain type of pre rolls. And yeah, they are higher potency, because they're infused. But yeah, it just depends on the mood too, right? Like, if you are going to, if you're going to be active, like a music festival, we might not want to do as a high THC product.

ADRIANA HEMANS

I think you're going to see the opposite. Forming or DJing, you need to stay level headed.

GUILLERMO BRAVO

Yeah, I mean, it's finding the right balance, right, you get you can get here. But if you pass that threshold, then you might not be an efficient human being.

DAVID PALESCHUCK

It’s the terpenes that I'm looking for.

GUILLERMO BRAVO

Flavor. Yeah!

DAVID PALESCHUCK

Well, Guillermo, what innovative digital marketing approaches have you seen worked? Well, I mean, is there anything that as we come to the end of the show, is there anything that you would leave our audience with that they might focus on a little bit more?

GUILLERMO BRAVO

Yeah, I mean, leveraging the sense of exclusivity through limited product drops, I would say is works,  jungle boys and cookies, they create anticipation and drive demand that way. So building a community around the brand, incorporating maybe some celebrity endorsements, emphasizing product quality, and then leveraging social media, especially for the “strain porn” Instagram, Facebook, Instagram specifically, is a great way to showcase your products, engage with the audience. And then exploring those partnerships with influencers as well that align with your brand. And then once you do that product drop, I wouldn't leave it there. I would add on retargeting campaigns, I mentioned this about building your own customer list. So one list you can build is you pixel them on your website, and then you can retarget them with ads. Another list you can build is email, SMS, and push notification list. So built all of this, because that hype is going to die. And I've spoken with some of these brands before, and they're like, Yeah, we see a huge lift when Berner post and if there's a line around the block, but then a month later, two months later, it starts to die down. And you start you need to start leveraging real customer reviews on SEO on Google. So you can get that long term benefit. So blending that short term popularity and long term retention strategies is key.

DAVID PALESCHUCK 

Guillermo, thank you so much for joining us. I'm sad in some ways that this went so fast. I feel like I could talk to you all day. So much knowledge. We thank you for sharing.

ADRIANA HEMANS 

Thank you for your time, Guillermo. We really appreciate it. Where can people find you?

GUILLERMO BRAVO

Thank you for having me. I can be found on LinkedIn, Instagram, and at my website, www.ecomara.com

DAVID PALESCHUCK

Thank you, Guillermo. That’s our show for today. As always, that was the fastest 45 minutes of my week!  We’ll be back next Thursday, December 14th with Patrick Toste and Thomas Warinner, Co-Founders of Highopes and we’ll be chatting about “Cannabis And E-Commerce.”

We’ve recently released two online courses that have received rave reviews. “The 14 Cannabis Brand Archetypes” and “Creating A Meaningful Cannabis Brand” can be found on our site at www.brandingbud.com/edu - and you find the link right now in the chat. Remember to use our exclusive 25% discount code BBEDU25 for our LinkedIn listeners.

Again, we’d like to thank our sponsor, High Hopes – a boutique agency with over 10 years in the cannabis space specializing in branding, packaging, SEO & marketing. Be sure to check them out at www.highopes.co.

ADRIANA HEMANS

Hit that button to register so you don’t miss it. If you miss us in the meantime, you can re-watch today’s episode, or any of our previous episodes, on our LinkedIn page, Branding Bud Live, or on our YouTube channel. Please give us a follow on LinkedIn to stay on top of everything Branding Bud Live.

DAVID PALESCHUCK

And you can listen to our podcast on most podcast platforms including Apple, Google, Amazon, and Spotify. And of course, don’t forget to check out cannabis’s best-kept secret at www.brandingbud.com

Thank you everybody!

ADRIANA HEMANS

Thank you. Bye!

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https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy9kZTJkOTQ4Yy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw

CastBox: 
https://castbox.fm/app/castbox/player/id5462736

Linktree: 
https://linktr.ee/brandingbudlive


Branding Bud Live – weekly productive distractions for the cannabis industry, where business people come to talk about the business of cannabis. 

🌿Find out more about the best-kept secret in cannabis at👇

www.brandingbud.com

LinkedIn | YouTube

David Paleschuck, MBA, CLS | Author & Cannabis Brand Expert

With over twenty years of product development, brand-building, and consumer marketing experience serving American Express, MasterCard, PepsiCo, and Microsoft–and over ten years in the legal cannabis space at Dope Magazine and as a consultant to the industry’s top national manufacturers, Paleschuck has played a part in developing many of today’s best-known cannabis brands. As Founder of BRANDING BUD CONSULTING, LLC, David consults within the legal cannabis industry on product development, branding & brand licensing, positioning, packaging and promotions. His writings on cannabis branding and marketing have been featured in Dope Magazine, High Times, PROHBTD, Cannabis Dispensary Magazine, The Cannabis Industry Journal, New Cannabis Ventures, among others. His work has been noted and quoted in Forbes, Kiplingers, The Brookings Institution as well as interviewed by Wharton School Of Business Entrepreneur Radio; CannabisRadio; among others. David’s book, “Branding Bud: The Commercialization of Cannabis” – the first book written on cannabis branding – is set to release in April 2021.

To purchase his book and/or find out more about his work, contact him at david@brandingbud.com or visit brandingbud.com.

https://brandingbud.com/
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Cannabis and E-Commerce - Branding Bud Live Episode 52

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Cannabis and Consistency - Branding Bud Live Episode 50