Your cannabis brand is fantastic. Great packaging, colors, typography, vibe, and essence are great...at least in your eyes. However, does your audience agree? Let's ask them. There's a way to learn whether your brand and packaging are connecting with them or not. If you are passionate about improving cannabis sales through a deep understanding of your audience, continue reading.

Customer Reviews

There are many ways to gauge the success of your branding efforts, and there's no better place to start than customer reviews. With so many products on the market and so many more coming, knowing how your brand holds up against the competition is vital. Customer reviews are among the best ways to get an objective view of how others perceive your brand and how it stacks up against the competition. Not only can they tell you if people like or dislike your product, but they also give you insight into why they feel that way. Reviews are also the first impression customers get from your company, which means they can make a lasting impact on their perception of your brand. Writing reviews is a good way for potential customers to get acquainted with your brand and products without engaging directly with you. Among all other factors, this is one of the most important aspects of branding that deserves our attention.

Customer Surveys

It's essential to keep an open dialogue with your customers and potential customers. One way to do this is by conducting market research, which can be beneficial for several reasons. You can get outside your bubble by using customer surveys and determining if your brand is hitting the mark. Treat every interaction as a chance to learn something about your company and its place in the market. It could be as simple as asking what people like or dislike about your product. Or it might be sending out a survey to get a larger picture of brand perception. Whatever form it takes, getting feedback will give you insight into how you're doing in the market and more information on improving things. How to go about it: There are three main ways to do this: in-person focus groups, personal interviews, or online questionnaires. The latter is much easier, cheaper, and less time-consuming than the former, but it also has some limitations in gathering accurate data.

Personal Interviews

Over the past year, I've had the pleasure of working with a leading cannabis company. They have a beautiful suite of products and a loyal customer base. Still, they were facing a challenge that many cannabis businesses are coming to meet…how do you know if your company resonates with your customers? This question is crucial to finding success in an industry that's still very new and has no existing benchmarks to measure against. There are plenty of best practices for branding, but these don't translate well into an emerging market. Most marketing strategies fail when applied to cannabis simply because laws and regulations change so quickly that what worked last year may not be as effective this year. To better understand how their customers view their brand, we conducted a series of customer interviews where they talked about their experiences with the company. We then asked them for feedback on a few different brand elements, such as - Identity - Packaging - Marketing material - Sales process. From there, we were able to gain insight into how people were receiving the company's image, which helped guide design decisions moving forward. And guess what? The results were positive overall. Even the handful of not-so-positive results felt appreciated that they were being asked their opinions that their sentiment towards the brand began a shift.

Focus Groups

When it comes to the cannabis industry, branding can be hard to nail down. After all, who's to say what's hip and what isn't in terms of a cannabis brand? It can be hard to gauge whether or not you're moving in the right direction. You might think your brand is fantastic, but how do you know if others feel the same? Focus groups are a great way to get feedback on your product. They're also helpful for gauging where you stand with consumers interested in your product and who are likely to purchase it. Here's everything you need to know about cannabis focus groups: What is a focus group? A focus group of 6-8 people was brought together for about an hour or more for discussion. A moderator leads the discussion and asks different questions, getting feedback from participants about your product. Focus groups can give you information about everything from public perception of your product to consumer preferences or reactions to new features. Focus groups are typically reasonably informal, although they're often conducted in professional spaces like conference rooms with projectors and screens. The most important thing is that everyone has comfortable seating and that distractions are limited so participants can give their full attention to the process.

Wrapping up

Your brand should be helpful, appealing, and relevant...it's a challenge for any business, even cannabis. The good news is that you can do something about it. Make your customers feel like stakeholders and take advantage of customer research to drive awareness for your brand. You might turn some customers into loyal advocates.