Instagram has become an excellent source of marketing for any dispensary out there. With an estimated amount of one billion Instagram users, it would make sense for any business that wishes to make it big to market their store on the platform. Instagram has become one of the most popular social media platforms for dispensaries to market their store by far. The platform is entirely free to use and is an excellent place for your customers to follow you.
Customers will be able to keep up to date with the latest updates happening in your dispensary, from new products to promotional deals and what goes on behind the scenes. With the ads developed through Facebook’s robust Ad manager to the introduction of an algorithmic feed, and the addition of new apps to directly integrate with Instagram, the platform has become a crucial part of dispensary marketing strategies.
However, for your Instagram dispensary marketing strategy to be successful, the content you publish must be engaging and interactive than other competitive dispensaries. In the past years, Instagram has introduced many features and tools for users that have made it an effective marketing tool. In fact, one of its most popular features, Instagram Stories, is used by 500 million people each day. Instagram grants its users plenty of ways to get creative with their content to attract the attention of their target audience. For this reason, we are going to tell you the best practices to market your dispensary on Instagram.
Engage with your audience
Remaining engaged with your audience is a crucial part of making this marketing strategy work for your dispensary. No matter how many people you’re engaging with, the important thing is that you are engaging with them to generate more sales. A well-done engagement with 100 customers will generate far more sales than having an audience of 1000 people who are not interested in the content you are providing them. Make sure you are making it a daily practice to engage with your audience.
The more you provide for your customers, the more likely they will reciprocate those endeavors. Furthermore, it’s crucial to be aware that if your page receives barely any engagement, Instagram will automatically show your post to fewer people. So make sure that your community is constantly engaged with the audience to prevent this from occurring.
One way to pull this off is by using the Instagram Stories feature to drive engagement with your customers. Some people tend to only post a photo of their dispensary on Instagram and not see any likes or comments from their followers. Sure they may be using the appropriate amount of hashtags to get the post seen by the target audience, but they are still not receiving the engagement they wished for.
The best way to drive traffic to your profile is by using Instagram stories to do so. It’s been proven that Instagram Stories is capable of doubling your profiles engagement by using this strategy. Just because you have posted your daily content on the Instagram feed doesn’t mean you should stop there. You can also use a Story to drive the correct traffic to your Instagram profile feed. The best part of all is that Instagram Stories is easy to use and will not take you long to set up a post for it.
Once you have posted your daily content onto your feed, select the “Share” button on the post, then click on “Add Post to Your Story.” When you tap that, you can include a unique copy of your post, a call to action, and any other feature that is available on Instagram Stories, such as hashtags, videos, and images. All you need to do is wait and see all of the engagement you’ll receive and watch as your content drives the target audience to your Instagram profile.
Use Hashtags
Hashtags are one of the many ways that people can find the content they enjoy on Instagram, so you must include a wide range of popular and less popular hashtags on your posts. Best of all, Instagram allows you to use up to 30 hashtags in each Instagram post, so you can spread out your content quite far if executed accurately. Whenever someone decides to search for those particular hashtags you’ve used, they will see your post included in the search results.
Of course, it can be challenging to have your content rank at the top of a post under multiple hashtags. The difficulty of this will increase if you are only relying on using broader hashtags such as #cannabis, #weed, and so on. Using more niches hashtags alongside the broader ones, such as #medibles, #cannabislifestyle, #Infushed, and so forth, is required to maximize your chances of getting your content to become a top post.
If you want to find out how you can differentiate the competitive hashtags from the niche ones, just head over to Instagram and type in the preferred hashtags. That should give you insight into the number of total posts ranked under it. Additionally, arrange all of your hashtags according to the size, from less competitive to the most popular ones. If you take the time to research the hashtags, you can successfully increase the presence of your posts.
Give shoutouts
Another excellent way to ensure your profile manages to engage your flowers is by reaching out to other brands, followers, influencers, and any other member of the cannabis community. But you should not just shout out someone with a mention in a comment or a DM. No, you need to go even further and shout to them in other ways, such as Instagram Stories or video posts. Doing so will enhance your dispensary’s Instagram marketing strategy.
To pull this off, you should use a mention sticker to shout out the people relevant to your post. Not only will this help increase engagement and help you connect with your followers, along with the rest of the industry, but offer you an excellent opportunity to expand your influence.
Plus, using a mention also allows you to share user-generated content. If you ask a customer to tag you onto their stories, that can provide you with enough content to share on your Instagram feed.
Share educational content
If you’re one of the many dispensaries that are using educational content as part of your marketing strategy, then you have the opportunity to share your content. There are tons of people out there looking for high-quality content that provides them with insight into the various uses and benefits of cannabis. The more your target audience becomes aware of the uses and benefits of the cannabis products you sell in your dispensary, the better chances you have at converting them from a follower into returning customers.
Best of all, this practice is easy to use in your Instagram marketing plan. All you have to do is include a call to action asking the users to DM their email addresses to you. A short message like “Send me a DM of your email if you are interested in our ebook,” should suffice.
If you’re managing an Instagram-based campaign, you could go with something like, “If you want the ebook, DM me, and I’ll send you the link.” Of course, there are other ways to pull this off, such as referring the customer to a link in the bio or asking them to swipe up and send them to a landing page. However, using this approach gives you an excellent opportunity to develop a relationship with them. Exchanging direct messages with your customers makes it feel far more personal. Compare that to sending them to a landing page to download the eBook.
Go live
Instagram Live is another feature that provides you with an assortment of opportunities to further connect with your followers in a real-time way. There are many strategies you can implement when it comes to going Live on Instagram. For example, you could host a live Q&A session with your customers. That provides you with a way to inform them about the various products you sell and what’s going on with your dispensary. You could even use it to show off what happens behind the scenes, such as the seeds you use to grow the cannabis, or how the products are stocked, and so forth. If possible, you could even invite someone in the industry to guest on the live stream and speak about the current happenings in the cannabis industry.
Have followers tap more to increase engagement
Chances are you’ve seen your followers tap through your post. However, there is a good chance you may not consider that a positive thing since it means they’re ignoring your content. A recent study reveals that 70% of the people who look at your posts and stories are tapping through them. If anything, you could use that to your advantage by creating an interaction that gets your followers engaged with your content.
For instance, you can come up with a game where your followers tap through the posts or watch a stop-motion story. To see if this strategy works for you, check out the “Taps Forward” metric to see if they were successful compared to other posts in the past. If you’re planning to use this as part of your Instagram marketing strategy, then you should stick with making at least 6 to 8 slides at a minimum. That provides you with enough length and content to develop an engaging story.
Furthermore, you can also use the tap for more methods to your advantage by setting up a story slide that entices them with the information. Ask viewers a question that will catch their attention, so they focus on the slides to find out the answer.
Conclusion
Instagram provides an excellent platform for dispensaries to market their brand to a community of people who are interested in their products. The amount of people that post here each day is at an all-time high. That number is expected to continue growing as the years go by, so make sure to create an Instagram account and start gathering followers. Remember to follow the guidelines and use the information we have provided to your advantage. You’ll be seeing a growth in your dispensary in no time.
