One Way For Your CBD Brand to Stand Out? Make It Personal
In the CBD space it can seem like there are an infinite number of brands vying for customers and it can sometimes feel difficult for new brands to make an impact. One of the most common things we hear from new CBD clients is that they are struggling to break out from the crowd. This is understandable, but we find that there are fairly easy ways to cut through the noise. We firmly believe that all of our CBD clients can succeed, but it requires a unique and personal perspective that will separate you from the competition. That might sound like a lot, but if you break it out a bit you’ll find that really it’s not too hard to achieve. Today we’ll talk about the ways that you can personalize your CBD brand and settle into your own successful nook in the CBD space with a personalized approach.
Your brand is your voice, make it stand out from the crowd
You’ve heard about the importance of first impressions, this applies to more than meeting the in-laws. Your branding and website design are your first impression to your new customers and if your brand blends in with the competition it’s going to be difficult to convince them to pick you out from the crowd. Deciding on a brand identity can feel like a huge decision but it doesn’t have to be all that intimidating. Just ask yourself, who is your core audience and what role do you want your CBD products to play in their lives?
Many brands attempt to be all things to all people, the irony being that in doing so they end up not being able to be anything to anyone. This is because many CBD brands miss an important fundamental step - choosing one corner of the market to appeal to. In doing this you free yourself up to focus all of your energy on appealing to your chosen cohort. While it would be nice to be able to corner athletes who use CBD to relieve aching joints and muscles, professionals who drop a CBD bath bomb after a long day and college students who take CBD gummies before a fun night out, you’ll find yourself in a much better position to market yourself if you decide early who you are going after and stick with them. For example if you’re going after the athlete crowd try to build a website with darker, sportier colors and images of athletes training. If you’re cornering afterwork CBD wine moms then go with something lighter that evokes the feeling of a high end spa treatment. If you make these decisions early you’ll be even better prepared to market effectively down the line, giving you an edge on your competition.
Reflect your brand message in your content
Now that you’ve decided the corner of the market you’d like to approach it’s time to really drive it home and create some personalized content. We just covered how your branding and website should look and feel, but don’t forget to make sure to pay attention to how your messaging sounds as well. Your brand needs to be tailored to the taste of your audience and this means that every part of your site should be written in a way that will pique their interest and build consumer confidence. For example: to resonate with your athletic audience, instead of centering the relaxing feeling of CBD maybe focus on the benefits for pain relief and recovery.
Every webstore should have a blog to publish content on but now that you’ve landed on a specific group you want to market to you can really focus in on content that reaches out to them. This is where your early work will really start to pay off in dividends as you no longer need to make tough decisions about what message you want to send to what customers. No hard decisions need to be made here - you already know your customers’ interests and how to approach them.
Let’s say you decided to stick with the athlete group we discussed earlier, your content should center how CBD can help them recover from training, focus during workouts, and provide relief from daily muscle and joint pains from an active lifestyle. You can also seek out athlete endorsements and use them as further confidence factors for your potential customers. By doing this you’ll not only become a trusted source of CBD products for your customers but you’ll become a trusted source of information for people who want to inform themselves - putting you at the forefront of the space and giving you the potential to become leaders.
Promote your content to the right intenders
You’ve decided your market and you’ve created content that will resonate with them, now all that’s left is to find your customers where they browse and deliver your brand to them. This is where the FieldTest platform comes in. We’ve built our digital ad platform with ease of use in mind, allowing you to build, target and publish beautiful digital ads in minutes.
We’ve written in-depth about how to use our platform to build an effective ad campaign, but let’s talk about how to use your work earlier in this guide to build something personalized that will make those customers. First you’ll want to make sure that you’re starting with a full-funnel strategy. That means using your best product shots and enticing headlines up top, your custom content and earned media in the mid-funnel, and product discounts at the bottom of the funnel. The next important thing to remember is to build out your custom audiences using all of the personalization decisions you made in the previous steps. Again, by choosing a more narrow path you've made it easier to get creative with your audience targeting. For example, by sticking with the athletic crowd you’re free to choose intenders based on interest in sports, gym activity, biking, running, active lifestyle - the list goes on.
It should be becoming clear now how your personalized message ultimately creates a more positive ad experience for your target audience. Deploying a blog post about how athletes can use CBD cream to recover from an intense workout would likely not resonate well with video game playing 20-somethings, but middle aged avid runners would likely love to engage with that content. By leveraging early content personalization with your custom audiences and FieldTest editorial ads you create an ad experience that will lead your chosen intenders to become repeat customers.
Make it personal
We know it can feel difficult to break out from the crowd but if you keep these points in mind we think you’ll be prepared to cut through the noise and form your own dedicated customer base. Remember, in the CBD game it’s all about connecting with customers using your personal voice. This means that every interaction your customer has with your brand must be intentional, and most of all personal. With this knowledge and the FieldTest digital ad platform we’re confident you’ll be up and running with a high performing digital ad campaign in no time!