Marijuana Business Magazine January 2020

Marijuana Business Magazine | January 2020 76 Karli Warner Courtesy Photo Legacy industries such as craft beer and herbal tea are what led Seed & Smith CEO Brooks Lustig to open his off-the-beaten path vertical cannabis business to tours. A native of Boulder, Colorado, Lustig had grown up taking visiting family and friends on tours of the Celestial Seasonings tea factory. Later, craft breweries adopted the tour model for marketing purposes. When Seed & Smith was founded in 2014, Lustig worried about how people would find the dispensary, which is located in an industrial area with little foot traffic. He teamed up with marijuana tour companies, which began bring- ing their customers to see how Seed & Smith operates. While he knew it was risky to share the company’s cultivation and other processes—consultants and competitors have taken advantage of the opportunity to take photos—Lustig said providing the experience has been well worth it because of the knowledge people gain about cannabis. “We’re really pushing (the idea) that cannabis isn’t this scary thing,” he said. KNOWLEDGE IS POWER Demystifying cannabis is one of the outcomes around which women-centric cannabis brand Garden Society has built its marketing program. The Cloverdale, California, company, which recently launched a delivery service, is working with its loyal women customers to host garden parties—casual gatherings of their friends who come to learn about cannabis, get questions answered and purchase products that will be delivered to them. According to Garden Society co- founder Karli Warner, questions women ask at the garden parties range from “Is cannabis going to make me anxious?” to “What if I get too high?” “A lot of women are afraid of edibles, so we do a lot of education around dosing,” Warner said. “We’re really cognizant of talking about not smoking an entire joint at once, and it’s the same with edibles: Cut them into quarters. It’s not the scary drug our culture has deemed it to be. “The fastest-growing segment of cannabis users are baby boomers and women in California,” Warner continued. “Most are not first-time users, and as they get reintroduced to cannabis, it’s imperative they have a positive experience.” In addition to being educational, parties that combine art and music and create memories associated with a brand are a good way to build customer loyalty. Stratos, a Pueblo West, Colorado-based maker of THC- and CBD-infused tinctures, salves and tablets, recently hosted a partners’ massage class designed to promote its CBD-infused salves. Stratos hoped that attending the class would create a memory for participants as well as educate them about the benefits of using CBD salves during massage. During the free class, led by licensed massage therapist Katie Uveges, an instructor at the Colorado School of Healing Arts, couples learned how to use CBD topicals in home massage as well as techniques to improve their partner massage skills. Stratos also provided each couple with a jar of one of its salves, a $40 value. “The CBD market is very crowded, so we knew we had to get creative to stand out,” said Brenda Verghese, Stratos’ vice president of research and development. “We hoped to have a packed room and get people excited about massage and in- corporating CBD in an experiential way. The room was full, and people seemed to be having fun and enjoying themselves.” It’s not the first time Stratos has taken its product to a target market. The company also started Runner’s High Run Club, a weekly running club for cannabis enthusiasts, during which runners met up with Stratos team members for the run and then went to a local restaurant for food and drinks afterward. Members received special discounts at Native Roots, the company’s local dispensary partner. Stratos also has offered educational seminars for residents at a senior living facility—a well-attended event that promoted not only the company’s salves but also its tablets. Indoctrinating the Budtenders Clear Cannabis puts it own spin on experiential marketing by focusing on reaching budtenders—the people who can promote the company’s products through direct interaction with consumers. The company hosts the Clear Euphoria Expo that only budtenders, product buyers or retail owners can attend. The event is designed to indoctrinate those attending into the culture and community of Clear, said Rick Batenburg III, the company’s chief investment officer. “Most people walk into a dispensary, and they don’t know what they want. You have to earn people’s eyes. You have to give people something of value,” Batenburg said. “One of the issues with new users who don’t know what they want is that marketing that you have the best product is irrelevant if you’ve never had the product.” – Margaret Jackson EXPERIENTIAL MARKETING