DON'T BE A WILLY-NILLY
Start on the right foot
DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND DON'T DESIGN YOUR OWN MARKETING MATERIALS OR WEBSITE.
Invest in your company and hire a real designer that understands your business. This is just plain smart business planning.
There are two distinct marketing approaches used in the cannabis industry, Professional and Willy-Nilly. Of course each of those approaches also has different levels of styles within them, the good, bad and the ugly.
Professional Approach
The Professional approach often displays a variety of cohesive branded materials, visually tasteful and creative designs, unified in appearance and providing useful information along with a clear call to action. The Professional Approach is typically well organized from the start and uses a structured marketing plan. This is to that ensure all materials are exposed to the intended target within a consistent timeline. This consistency will help build trust and create customer loyalty
Willy-Nilly Approach
The Willy-Nilly approach will often display a variety of inconsistently designed materials that are lacking any sort of brand unity. These materials are typically created in-house under the art direction of business management. Often times, unknowingly, more emphasis may be placed on the message rather than good design which causes damage to the brand they are working to create.
The Willy-Nilly approach to creating materials can result in an inconsistent and unprofessional looking brand, unorganized and confusing content, bad graphics and low quality printing which will send the wrong message to your intended target.
Can you image if a car company didn’t use a professional approach?
WORK SMARTER, NOT HARDER
We already know the cannabis industry is crowded with a lot of competition.
And that the main component you need to stand out in the crowd and set you apart from another business offering the same products and services is a strong company brand and professional online presence. The easiest thing to do is just hire me. But you should know your options and what to do and look for in hiring a good designer. Remember just because someone claiming to be a designer has a computer with graphics software does not make someone a designer.
Marketing to a recreational user is very different than marketing to a senior patient.
A creative won’t need to fully understand all the steps of the Cannabis products, service or processing technique, but they should already be aware of the differences in what appeals to the various target markets. There are already too many websites that look great but are designed to appeal more to a hard-core user when the intended target was the newbies and seniors. Talk about missing your mark! That’s why hiring an experienced creative designer is such a vital ingredient to your business's success. A creative is much more qualified to develop a unique, credible and personal brand for your company then anyone on your staff.
You may be tempted to go with a less experienced designer to save a few bucks but in the end it may actually end up costing you more time, money and stress. In some cases the lack of experience may lead to having work redone or pulling a print job from a press run due to unforeseen errors, which can be costly.
You may be tempted to go with a less experienced designer to save a few bucks...
But in the end, it may actually end up costing you more time, money and stress. In some cases the lack of experience may lead to having work redone or pulling a print job from a press run due to unforeseen errors, which can be costly.
An experienced designer will be able to develop a unique, memorable and effective creative brand for your business in a reasonable amount of time for a fair price and will save you many headaches.
But before you hire a designer you need to chill, be ready to let go! Like anything else, you hire a designer for their expertise and their insight. It may be difficult for you but you will need to loosen your grip, let go of how things were done in the past and/or how you think your brand should look. Trust your designer, after all your brand is being created for your intended target market, NOT YOU.
Note: Don’t bully a artist into doing what you think looks good, after all you're not a designer.
Cannabis Carrie Blog
