It’s no coincidence that as soon as states began legalizing/easing restrictions on medical marijuana sales, an influx of shops and dispensaries began to appear throughout the country. In fact, cannabis-related products have become so mainstream that, according to Forbes, the World Health Organization recently declassified cannabis as a Schedule IV drug. And just as soon as these cannabis shops and dispensaries opened for business, media reps from wide and far flooded our inboxes at BuzzBoard with the following question: When will BuzzBoard add the Cannabis category into its search results?
After a lot of work from our team, we’re pleased to announce that BuzzBoard has added Cannabis-related businesses to its growing database. Users can now prospect for specific business names, URLs, and Categories. You’ll want to make sure that you use either Cannabis Store or Alternative Medicine as your category search. We offer everything you need to start selling to cannabis stores!
So if you’re using BuzzBoard and want to find cannabis-related businesses in a 50-mile radius of Denver, Colorado, your search results will look like this:
You can also use Alternative Medicine as a category (cannabis stores and dispensaries would be included along with acupuncture, meditation, and other similar types of businesses).
Understanding the Cannabis Category
As more cannabis-related stores open across the country, it’s important to take a more in-depth look into the category itself. Here’s a look inside the numbers for the US according to BuzzBoard data:
- 17,745 – the number of cannabis-related businesses
- $13.6B – (Yes, that’s a B for billion) – Revenue generated from cannabis-related businesses
- $766.4 – thousand – Average Annual Sales Per Business
- $500 – $2,500 – the amount of annual spending by most consumers is in the $500 to $2,500 range
As more and more states begin to approve some form of medical marijuana program – 33 states along with DC, Puerto Rico, and Guam have such programs – and public sentiment for the legalization of marijuana has increased. The opportunities to sell into this category continue to increase.
Globally, the opportunities mirror the US growth trend in the category. According to Grand View Research, legal marijuana’s market size is expected to reach $73.6 billion globally by 2027.
According to Grand View Research, legal marijuana’s market size is expected to reach $73.6 billion globally by 2027.
Further adding to the opportunity that the Cannabis category provides media sales reps is the consumer behavior of adults purchasing the product. According to Marijuana Business Daily, sales of marijuana in key states (California, Nevada, California, and Washington State) have remained steady during the pandemic – even after a $ 600 weekly unemployment benefit expired at the end of July.
In other words, businesses in the category have remained solvent, and the need to advertise and promote themselves would continue to be a priority as the total market continues to grow. From a prospecting perspective, BuzzBoard provides the businesses in the geography and category while also allowing you to segment them by signal type.
For example, in Los Angeles County, BuzzBoard lists 206 cannabis stores:
Filtering the search to find those running Google Ads, we get 16 businesses:
This means that there are approximately 190 businesses in the geography that could use some help – just by showing them that other cannabis stores are growing their businesses through digital marketing efforts. For those already advertising, it’s time to start finding upselling and cross-selling opportunities. The bottom line: BuzzBoard shows you who to go after and helps you with the engagement!
Alicia Jernigan, a media strategist on the West Coast, has already found some success using BuzzBoard to prospect in the Cannabis Store category. Thanks to the Competition report in BuzzBoard, Jernigan recently scored a deep-dive analysis with a San Jose-based dispensary and uncovered some interesting insights.
“Dispensary owners are a close-knit group, but they are a closed-off group, so information on competitors is new to them,” she said.
Jernigan quickly showed the prospect how some of its competitors were lagging with keyword traffic, an aspect in which she could help her prospect stand out. And as the business is looking to add another location in San Francisco, her opportunity to secure more business is, well, high.
“If I compare this to other deals (that she has secured in the past) I’d say that this could be between $5000 and $10,000 a month!”
If you have any questions, need help customizing your BuzzBoard filters to fit your new strategies, or want insight on closing a deal, you can reach me at phillip@buzzboard.com.
