Spy on the Competition: Start Using These Cannabis Market Research Tips Today

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hello everybody and welcome to our latest webinar spy on the competition start using these market research tips today how to check prices ads and more today we'll be covering what you should be looking for how to access crucial information about your competitors and why you need to check this data on a regular basis a little background on myself I'm the CEO and founder of foot traffic I come with a 20 years of marketing experience and technology and and working in the space uh in the Cannabis space for about eight years now uh and really just passionate and love everything about advertising and marketing a little bit about foot traffic uh we we are a dispensary advertising and software company uh at any given time we are working with upwards of 400 uh plus dispensaries and delivery services throughout the United States and Canada and Beyond uh so keep an eye out for us in uh Puerto Rico Jamaica and everywhere else that is uh legalized a couple house item housekeeping items uh before we get started cell phones we love them you know they're part of our they're core part of our business uh but they can be distracting so if you don't mind if you can put your cell phone on your desk do not disturb and put it face down uh so that you can dedicate some time to the webinar that would be much appreciated and then also familiar familiarize yourself with zoom uh there is a Q&A function at the bottom you can see different uh Cloud icons next to Q&A and that's where you can ask questions that we will answer at the end we do have moderators so you know they can uh answer any questions there and just make sure you stick around you know we have special offers for attendees that I'll be sharing at the end of the webinar all right well let's get started do you know the competition knowing what the competition is doing is a crucial part of running a business if you want to be at the top then you need to keep an eye on the competitors so you can actively compete with them dispensaries don't work in a vacuum and it's harder than ever to maintain Customer Loyalty if you want to keep com customers coming back to you then you need to set yourself apart from competitors and offer something they won't find elsewhere no we're not advocating for stealing your competitor's ideas or anything like that rather we're all about learning from what others are doing and improving upon it it's like how sports teams tape their games and rewatch The tapes to improve you're going head-to-head with local dispensaries and if you want to come out on top then you need to up your game one way to do this is to know what's going on in the other stores before you can spy on the competition you need to figure out who they are Run a search for dispensaries in your area so you can do market research if you're in a market where there aren't many dispensaries consider widening your search while you won't want to Target customers from dispensaries that are far away it's still useful to know how other vories choose to run their business now you may have looked into competitors when creating a business plan which is great but it's still important to continue to check out the competition so you can stay on top of what's going on in the industry at the moment and adjust your business strategy accordingly products we're going to start with products you stock your product catalog is one part of getting customers to shop with you you have to carry the products they want or they won't come back if you want to make sure that you if you want to make sure that you have a diverse offering and that you're stocking enough products take a look at what your competitors are offering thanks to online menus like duy and Jane it's pretty easy to do this now not everything in store will be on their online menu but you can get a great idea of the brands they carry and how much they charge for them we've seen some dispensaries try to compete with stores that stock many more products or who sell their products for much less this can be really challenging when you carry a wide variety of products then you can appeal to more customers if you choose to carry a smaller variety of products that are tailored to a smaller customer segment then you will need to be sure you can attract those customers and that their purchases will be enough to sustain your business for example you can focus solely on organic products and Market to those who believe that's an important attribute depending on your goals this may wa this may work out great you can carve out your market share and be profitable however if you have a larger goal you want to be the goto dispensary in your area then you'll need then you'll likely need to have a larger product offering and maintain competitive pricing follow them if you AR if you aren't already following your competitors on social media then you should start today you should do this from your own personal account not from your dispensaries account social media posts can show how your compet competition chooses to interact with potential customers what kind of content they are sharing and how much engagement they are getting from their Community where they choose to post and what they choose to post can help you better understand which social media apps may be important for your business and which you shouldn't bother with so if your competition is not getting any engagement on Twitter for example you can probably choose to skip that platform and put your time and energy into another platform that gets more engagement you can also follow their RSS feed for their blog posts with a tool like feedle feed Le lets you input multiple RSS feeds so you can easily go through the blog post the dispensaries in your area have published all in one place if you're a Vine for the same product say customers these feeds can help you showcase your competition's brand voice clue you in on the events they're doing to attract more customers and just generally give you an idea of what they think their customers value when you follow multiple competitors you can get a bird's eye view of the industry in your area plus you can see what what they're doing to educate their customers if they aren't taking the time to talk about how they use their products how to choose different strains or other helpful topics this can be a great opportunity for you to educate customers and increase your audience use alerts Google Alerts are a great way to stay up toate on industry news by setting up an alert you'll be notified of any news items that relate to your competitors this is especially important when it comes to msos right now it seems like there's a merger every other week if you want to know what's happening with the dispensaries near you set an alert so that you'll be notified when they hit the news Google Alerts can show you what your competitors have shared press releases new events product launches as well as any other issues that they're encountering for example if they get in trouble with Regulators you may be able to see that information if you set in alert up you may also want to set an alert for the name of your State's cannabis regulating agency that will help you stay on top of changes made by the agency and just generally keep you up to date on what they're doing check their reviews wondering what people are saying about the dispensary down the block check their reviews reviews are a great place for seeing how people feel about the service they received at a particular dispensary if people think your competition's prices are too high that their butt tenders are rude or that they don't have enough Variety in product that will all be spelled out in the reviews if people love everything that they're doing if they think that they have the best Promos in town or the most exciting brands in stock you're going to learn learn that from the reviews as well feedback is crucial for any dispensary and you can use the feedback your competitors are getting to assess whether you need to make changes to how you run your dispensary if you keep seeing a particular brand mentioned for example you can see about stocking that in your store if they keep talking about pricing you can take a better look at your pricing structure to see if you can make changes to be more competitive sign up if you want to be the first to hear about the what the competition is doing sign up for their loyalty program you won't want to use your company email address for this because you they may remove you from their list use a general personal email address by signing up for their email or text list you can see how the competition chooses to announce their deals what their deals are if they're running events and how they handle creating Customer Loyalty this last point is really important if you want to steal your competition's customers then you need to know what is keeping them there and offer them something better people aren't as loyal to Brands and stores as they used to be it can be easier to get people to switch dispensaries but they won't do it without an incentive so offer them something to switch not everything the competition does will align with your brand which is fine by monitoring their loyalty program you can pick their brains from AAR you won't be able to see how popular their program is or how many signups or redemptions they're getting on their loyalty program but you'll be able to see how they communicate with their loyalty members what they're sending out and the frequency this can help you better curate your loyalty program so it aligns with your customer needs and brand Mission Google them if you want to see whether your competition is running Google ads run some Google searches using probable keywords that people would use to search for your dispensary if the comp competition is targeting those keywords you should see their ad at the top of the search results page if you run out of keyword ideas scroll to the bottom of the search page there's generally a box there highlighting similar keywords that other people have used try these as well chances are your competition probably isn't running Google ads which means this is a great opportunity for you to get ahead of them with advertising and score that top spot on Google not many dispensaries are taking advantage of Google ads nowadays so if you want to be so if you want to be the first in the area now is the time by starting Google ads before your dispensaries before other dispensaries jump on the bandwagon you'll be able to establish a working strategy before they even bother getting their feet off the ground see their keyword using a tool like ARS orm rush you can see a variety of factors that can help you understand your competition's website and provide some insight into their SEO strategy by plugging in each of your competitors URLs into these research tools you can identify things like how well they rank for certain keywords what keywords are scoring them the most traffic which pages are their most popular what search terms people are using to find them how many backlinks they have and much much more ultimately the keywords your competitors are using to score web traffic are the same ones you want to be ranking for so this is so this will help you find additional keywords Target and create content around you can also run a Content Gap analysis in compare your website to your competitors to see if there are particular holes in your strategy that you need to address a Content Gap analysis points out keywords that your competitors are ranking for that you are not pay them a visit you can do a lot of research online but that neglects to cover the experience of actually visiting their dispensary when you stopped by your competitor's shop you can see how they've chosen to lay out their space what kind of music they're playing how they handle particular regulations like security and more all of this goes towards crafting an exceptional customer experience your Aesthetics May defer but may and maybe you cater to a different audience but visiting the competition can still be an enriching experience just think about the different restaurants you've gone gone to they serve you different food they have different layouts and they maintain different processes maybe you like certain things about one restaurant that you wish other restaurants would incorporate into their business model the same applies for dispensaries by visiting different dispensaries you can better spot opportunities at your own dispensary you can see how others how others deal with particular regulations and rules and use this as a springboard to troubleshoot your own dispensaries challenges so we talked a lot about you know everything that we can do on the research side so now what so you've gathered all this information you're receiving the emails from other dispensaries you know what products they carry and you even know what keywords they're ranking for on Google what do you do with this information let's start with your product research are they carrying more products than you or different products are there price points lower are or higher if they have more available products you should consider whether it's the right move for your dispensary to increase your product catalog and widen your customer base if they're offering lower price points you can consider whether it's feasible for you to adjust prices or whether there's something you can offer in addition to make your higher prices competitive since you signed up for their emails you should also know about the types of Deals they run compare this with your sales data to see if there's specials to see if their specials impact your revenue for example when they run a sale on flower are your sales impacted in any way if you have several competitors in the area there's a chance that one of them has or will run a sale or event that you'd like to do as well of course you shouldn't copy it word by word but you can allow it to spark your own creativity and create a deal or event that is simil that is a similar vein but that is consistent with your brand and Mission your inore visit gave you an opportunity to see how everything from the competition handles their security their furnishings and Decor what music they play how well their Bud tenders are trained how they display their products and more were there things that seem to make the process of buying cannabis more enjoyable for example did they use certain technology that you could incorporate to make life easier for your customers like ordering kiosks or possibly TV menus did they have information available to customers in an entice way did it spark any ideas that you want to implement for example maybe they group items that are frequently purchased together into unique displays so it's easier to cross sell or perhaps their butt tenders had a particular way of approaching or speaking to customers that you liked consider which aspects of what you saw would work with your unique vision and give it your own twist boost your SEO now let's talk about the digital aspect of spine on the competition when looking at their website and seeing how well they rank did you notice any opportunities to outrank them or to otherwise improve your own Google rankings SEO is often neglected is often a neglected part of advertising because it isn't always understood however however search traffic is the biggest driver of online sales if you want to boost your e-commerce sales then you need to make sure that you have an SEO strategy that is helping you surpass your competitors there's a lot to consider when it comes to SEO we've helped dispensers outrank the competition for over five years now while it take time to gain momentum your SEO strategy is a key part of getting more people to your website and to your menu Beyond SEO you may want to consider changes to your website in general when looking at your competitor's websites maybe you saw something you liked a live chat function perhaps or or how easy their website was to navigate these ideas can help you springboard board to a better site with a user experience that converts more of your website visitors to paying customers run those ads ads help you stay top of mind with your competitor with your customers and they can also help you set yourself apart from the competition now that you have a better understanding of who you're up against you can create ads that are better targeted to your ideal audience and you can Target your competitor's customers by showcasing the things that you do better for example using geot targeted display ads you can show off that you carry more brands or that you offer better discounts and convince some of your competitors's customers to shop with you instead you can also do this for Google ads by targeting their brand keywords and offering discounts to new customers let us help we know our clients don't operate in the vacuum while we create ad campaigns and SEO strategies to help them Drive sales we also keep an eye on what the competitors are doing we even have specific ad campaigns to help Target your competitors's customers so they buy from you instead whether you're in a market with 10 dispensaries or just one knowing that other stores are doing knowing what other stores are doing can help you maintain your hold on the market share and provide you with a path towards increasing your market dominance if you want to grow your business then it's necessary it's a necessary strategy that you need to be engaging in let us help you carve out more market share and increase your sales as a cannabis advertising agency foot traffic has helped over 400 dispensaries across the United States and Canada increase their sales and score more customers we've done this by helping get their messaging in front of customers through display ads direct mailers Google ads social ads SEO and much much more if you're ready to blow past the competition let's talk let's talk and get you set up with the services that will help you succeed all right that was a lot to digest in a short short period of time so we're gonna you know give the last five minutes here for questions all right here's a great question can you run Google ads targeting your competitor's brand name so that question is asking if I own a medmen if I own a let's say a shop one and I want to bid on medmen's terms can I do that you absolutely can there's no restrictions on bidding on brand names of your competitors one thing to note here is when bidding on your competitor's brand names this can be uh a quite costly uh cost per click or bid on Google ads since it's not your name uh and they have all the authority associated with that brand name it could be quite expensive but yes you can show show up at the top above their website when people are searching for the dispensary it's a great question uh there is some there is some ethical things to consider there if it's a really a good route to Target competitors like that and you're really opening up a Pandora's Box as soon as you start to Target your competitors's names they may do the same so you really want to be careful when you go down this path all right another question here how long would it take to outrank my competition on Google so on the SEO side there's no concrete answer for that I really we really need to know what your competitor has done in the past so we can evaluate where we stand uh when competing with them so we'll look at their domain Authority we'll look at their reviews we look at their backlink portfolio we'll look at uh how well their website performs and all these are factors in what Google uses to rank websites if you are if you're an impatient and you don't want to wait for SEO rankings and you really just want to skip to the top that's where Google ads comes in there is no delay in outranking your competitors when it comes to Google ads we can get those launched today and you can see your ads live in about four days based on Google's approval process so to answer your question once again it's really depends on the competition I would at least set aside 90 days to to do a proper audit of your competition uh to engage in a an SEO strategy and to measure results uh depending on how much the competitor has invested in their own SEO strategy it may take a little longer to to compete with them all right any more questions anybodys all right I'm going to end with that with that uh question today you know feel free to reach out to us anytime thank you so much for spending time with us today we really appreciate it we know that everyone is busy with life and uh you know it's really uh it's really our pleasure to host you today and then also for sticking with us you've qualified for a free Yeti uh so if you'd like to to get this beautiful Yeti uh it's foot traffic branded you know please reach out to us and schedule a call with foot traffic the URL is foot tr. mechat once you provide your shipping information we'll be more than happy to send you a Yeti and potentially other swag along in that package so keep an eye out for that and you know we really really want to thank you again for attending the webinar today truly appreciated uh cheers hope everyone's safe take care ]