How to Target New Audiences in Pre-Roll Marketing

Who is the target customer for your pre-rolls?
Most cannabis operators believe that everyone who smokes weed is their target audience – big mistake.

If you’re going to invest in operational efficiency – such as Hefestus pre-roll automation – you also need to invest in demand generation on the marketing side.

Cannabis consumers come from all walks of life – from weekend warriors, to artists, entrepreneurs, health & wellness enthusiasts, etc.

If you want to get strategic about this, you’ve got to choose where you’ll play and where you won’t play in regard to customer segments.

Keeping your options open seems intuitive, but it will only dilute your business activity and marketing efforts.

And yet making a choice here is scary, and that’s why so many people are intimidated by strategy because it involves things they can’t control – the behavior of their potential customers.

Fortunately, there are simple, low-hanging fruit ways to test different target audiences for your pre-roll brand without breaking the bank.

 

Embrace Landing Pages

You’ve probably come across more than a few landing pages yourself, whether it was for an event, a sign-up form, a free download, etc.

But what does this have to do with pre-rolls and target audiences?

The homepage of your website is for your primary target audience.

Landing pages meanwhile are a great way to test specific, more nuanced messaging.

Let’s say you want to run a test for people who are trying to quit cigarettes as a potential secondary audience. Maybe cannabis pre-rolls can help them quit nicotine.

So you create a landing page just for them, the messaging, the design, the call to action … just for them.

 

Positioning Your Landing Page

This landing page needs to do a couple things right.

Positioning comes first. How are you going to quickly hook your specific target audience? How are you going to resonate with them and ultimately inspire action?

All while keeping everything clear and concise.

Let’s continue with our example of people who want to quit cigarettes as a secondary target audience.

Before you write out any messaging or copy – consider actually talking to some of these people.

A lot of marketers overlook this step at their own peril. You’ve got to know your audience. Always.

For instance, what are the big pain points? Is it health concerns? The cost of cigarettes?

Why do they want to quit? What methods have they tried?

What would it mean for them if they quit cigarettes?

Also, what is their experience with cannabis?

And what might happen if they tried your product? In this case pre-rolls?

Always position your target audience as the hero and your product/service as the guide.

 

Your Call to Action and Capturing Emails

The storytelling on your landing page will need to lead to some sort of call to action where ideally you capture their email.

In marketing, we call this a lead magnet. It could be a PDF download, a short video series, a special offer … the possibilities are nearly endless.

Sticking with our example – these desperate cigarette smokers – what would inspire them to not only part with their email address but to immediately check out whatever the free thing is.

Maybe it’s a video of a medical cannabis specialist talking about how to replace cigs with cannabis.

Or maybe it’s a series of videos with people sharing their personal stories of how cannabis help them quit smoking.

Whatever you choose, don’t make it boring. Delight your target audience.

But also keep it simple. You don’t want to invest a whole lot into this secondary audience until you can prove their interest in your pre-rolls.

 

The Automated Email Nurture Sequence

Let’s say you drive relevant traffic to your landing page, and these people sign up.

Don’t forget to actually respond to these new leads!

This is where an automated email sequence comes into play, with the first email triggering immediately upon sign-up.

Email #2 ought to come a couple days later, email #3 maybe four days later, email #4 a couple days after, and then email #5 should be the last email of the automated sequence.

But don’t get too salesy too fast with your email sequence. You’ve got to nurture and add value in some way for the first few emails. You can use a “PS” for a soft sell at the end of the emails but save the hard sell for email #5 in the sequence.

Remember, the target audience is the hero, and your product/service is the guide.

 

Don’t Forget to Segment Your New Email Contacts

Don’t forget to segment the leads you capture from that specific audience.

Imagine you really did run this landing page for cigarette smokers who want to quit.

Even after the automation sequence runs its course, you can still communicate with this specific group of contacts in a nuanced way using segmentation.

 

Driving Traffic to Your Landing Page

This might be the hardest part for cannabis marketers because they’re cut off from so many of the same paid advertising services that other industries utilize.

And that’s the beautiful thing about testing secondary audiences. It’s less about the product and more about the audience.

So why not a targeted Facebook ad with something like: “Ready to quit Big Tobacco for good? Check this out.”

Or you could target completely different audiences for your whole campaign.

“This wellness product changes how I exercise”

“Quality time with my partner changed for the better after we tried this.”

With or without paid advertising, you also want to consider creating top-of-funnel content – like that video series of people sharing their personal stories.

If the content is fun and engaging and gets in front of the right people, you’ll drive plenty of traffic to your landing page.

 

Double Check Your Local Regulations

Obviously you’ll want to double-check your marketing & advertising regulations.

Depending on your marketing, focusing on the needs of your secondary target audience rather than your product could be a brilliant way to navigate social media restrictions.

 

Be Ready to Meet Demand

This marketing effort is a total waste if your production and inventory aren’t 100 percent dialed in.

You don’t want to hype a product and then have people struggle to find it.

In the case of pre-roll production, packaging and automation, this is where Hefestus partners with operators to ensure operational efficiency ready to meet rising demands.

 

Ready to take your pre-roll business to the next level? Check out the Hefestus brochure!