Win at Hyperlocal Marketing with Events

Hyperlocal Marketing: Benefits of Participating in Local Events

Hyperlocal marketing is all about honing in on a specific area. For stand-alone dispensaries, this can be the physical city in which you’re located or surrounding areas from which you’d like to draw customers. You may even want to focus on a more specific area, like a particular radius around your dispensary.

So why bother limiting your focus? Well, if you’re located in Portland, Oregon, you want to ensure your marketing is enticing your target audience within Portland to stop by your awesome dispensary.

Doing so through local events allows you to:

• Build your reputation as a cannabis thought leader and trusted authority in your local community
• Get to know your community
• Build local brand awareness
• Promote brand affinity and a loyal customer following
• Enhance word-of-mouth marketing
• Establish and nurture relationships with local partners

This is far from an exhaustive list. Another under-appreciated benefit is that by participating in local events, you’re often able to secure links to your website. This, in turn, can provide a huge boost to your local SEO.

Further, your local involvement may help facilitate being featured or interviewed by local media, which not only helps your SEO but enhances your visibility in the local community.

What’s the Most Effective Type of Event?

As we outlined above, there are numerous ways to leverage local event marketing. Of those, one of the most (if not the most effective) event formats is hosting an educational event, whether for patients or lifestyle users.

Events for Medical Cannabis Patients

Looking to get started? Here are some ideas and potential topics for hosting patient events:

How to Qualify to Become a Patient

• What is the process of becoming a qualified patient?
• What are your state’s qualifying conditions?
• Where can a patient obtain a recommendation?
• What documentation do they need to provide a medical cannabis doctor?

The Role of Caregivers

• What is a caregiver?
• Who can qualify to become a caregiver?
• What’s the process to become a caregiver?
• What are the benefits of having (or being) a caregiver?

How to Find the Right Products to Treat Specific Conditions

• What types of products should patients consider?
• What are the differences -- including the pros and cons -- of each type of intake method (smoking, vaping, edibles, tinctures, etc.)
• What are the potential side effects?
• How can a patient minimize potential undesirable side-effects like anxiety or paranoia (e.g., high-CBD products)?
• What does the latest research say about [chronic pain, PTSD, etc.]?

Events for Recreational Cannabis Patients

Here are some ideas and potential topics for hosting events for lifestyle and recreational cannabis consumers:

• What’s the difference between indica, sativa, and hybrid strains?
• What are terpenes, why are they important, and what effects do they have?
• What are the benefits of CBD for recreational users?
• What are the pros and cons of various intake methods?
• Edibles safety: How can a consumer make sure they have a safe and fun edibles experience?

Topics and Questions for Both Recreational and Medical-Focused Events

• What is the “entourage effect” and why is it important?
• What’s the endocannabinoid system and why is it important?
• What is “micro-dosing” and how can it benefit patients and consumers?
• What are your most popular products and why?

Whether you’re hosting an educational event for patients or recreational users, try to bring in a medical professional or cannabis experts to field questions and present parts of the presentation.