CBD Consumers Are Confused AF. That’s Why Your CBD Product Revenue Stinks, For Now

CBD Marketing Company

Table of Contents

If you’re wondering why you’re not selling nearly as much CBD from your website or your retail store, we have the answer, and it’s not your CBD marketing company. In this article, we’ll tell you exactly why your CBD revenue is lower than you expected.

It’s Not Your CBD Marketing Company. It’s Your Customers.

Are you having challenges increasing CBD sales and revenue from your e-commerce site or retail store?

If you’re reading this, you already know that the hemp CBD market is exploding worldwide and may be wondering why you’re not seeing the sales you expect.

You likely have an e-commerce business setup, with an online store and are looking to take it to the next level, or you’re getting ready to launch your hemp-derived CBD company.

If you’re already in the game and are driving qualified potential customers to your CBD e-commerce website, I bet you wonder why your online revenues aren’t growing as fast as your website traffic.

After 2-years worth of marketing and advertising cannabis flower and CBD products online, I finally have that answer for you.

Do you want to know why people aren’t buying your CBD products?
Please keep reading.

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Why Your CBD Sales Are Lower Than You Expected

A recent study from the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) reveals an alarming lack of consumer knowledge, and an equally alarming abundance of consumer ignorance, on what exactly the F is CBD anyway?

This is something I’ve written about many times on this blog, but until now, we didn’t have any hard statistics.

But now, this new data proves the fact that educating your customers must be an essential part of your CBD marketing strategy, from day one. Don’t believe it yet?

The GMAs survey found that six-in-ten Americans (62%) have heard about CBD, but most of these consumers are:

  • Uncertain or mistaken about what CBD actually is?
  • Confused about what CBD does?
  • Curious if CBD can make you feel high?
  • Are all products made with CBD are safe to consume?

In other words, over 60% of people in the United States have no idea what the heck CBD is.

If you’re frustrated with your CBD marketing efforts, take a minute to think about the above stat.

For the past few months, you’re trying to sell something, at $50-$150+ USD$, asap, to people who may have visited your website maybe once in the past if you’re lucky, and 62% of them have no idea what it is you’re selling, or what it does and how it can help them.

How’s that been going for ya?

In this article, we’re going to break down the data from the GMA study and deliver highly relevant CBD marketing insights to help you grow your business.

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The Majority of Americans Still Believe CBD Will Get You High

Out of all Americans, those who are actually familiar with CBD are not as clear about what it is. Nearly four in ten (39%) believe CBD is just another name for marijuana.

The danger of this assumption has led to more than 50% of Americans who believe that CBD has the potential to intoxicate users.

Only 45% of Americans correctly responded that CBD does not intoxicate people who use it. But more than half (51%) believe it can.

More than one-third (33%) said CBD does intoxicate and another 18% believe it could intoxicate if enough of it is consumed. Just 4% admitted they did not know.

Can you see the problem here?

Your customers are confused.

It’s a challenge to sell to a confused customer at the best times, even with simple products. But with CBD being a health and wellness product, customer confusion will no doubt contribute to a lost sale.

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Good News is That 66% of Americans Believe CBD is Safe

The majority of the United States believes that CBD products are safe.

This should be encouraging news for all CBD businesses and should further help entrepreneurs understand that people are super interested in CBD, but they’re not ready to buy just yet.

The study reported that one in three is already using CBD products for their health & wellness management.

The issue here is that there really aren’t any federal regulations and safety controls when it comes to CBD in the USA.

What’s worse is that most (76%) of Americans surveyed incorrectly assume that CBD products are already subject to federal regulations and safety oversight. When informed that there are no such regulations, 82% of Americans expressed alarm.

I hope you’re getting to understand how ignorant and uneducated your customers are about the products you’re trying to sell them asap.

I hope you see that CBD retailers, online stores, and marketing companies need to seriously educate the public about every single aspect of CBD – not just the price, shipping, or simply the health benefits.

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92% of American Consumers Have No Idea If CBD is Federally Regulated

This is one of the most interesting stats in the GMA study because it hints at how important federal regulation is to your target demographic.

It’s clear that the American consumer does not have the information they need to make the best choices for themselves and/or their families.

Look at it like this. The overwhelming majority (92%) incorrectly assume or have no idea if federal consumer protections and safety oversight are in place when they are not.

Why does this matter?

It seems like consumers in the USA need/want clear federal regulation of the CBD market and, if they may be interested in buying CBD products they want the ability to purchase from brands they know and trust.

It’s like that for pretty much all consumer packaged goods – and CBD products are no different.

The issue becomes that today, there is way too much uncertainty, ignorance, and lack of practical knowledge with CBD, and you as a business owner should be concerned and prepared.

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So What Are Some Americans Using CBD For?

One thing I loved about the data in this study is the facts about why Americans are using CBD. Specifically, what ailments and health conditions are they treating/managing with CBD?

Respondents to GMA’s survey said that they use CBD for various reasons, but most commonly for:

  • pain management (52%)
  • stress or anxiety reduction (50%)
  • sleep issues (43%)

Based on this insight, I’d highly suggest implementing an educational and informational content strategy focusing on pain, anxiety, and insomnia.

How Do You Strategically Use This Data in Your CBD Marketing?

Step 1 would be to identify which of your products help with each ailment.

Step 2 would be to do your keyword research and making a list of 10-25 short-tail, long-tail, and semantically related keywords to use in this content.

If keyword research tells you many people are searching for information on CBD using a certain set of keyword phrases, it would make good marketing and SEO sense to use semantically related phrases of those keywords in the copy.

Step 3 is to create high-quality, SEO optimized blog content to answer the slew of questions your potential CBD customers have about taking CBD for pain, dosing CBD for anxiety, or what CBD products are best for sleep issues.

Step 4 would be to amplify the reach and impressions of that quality blog content by using native ads/sponsored content ads on popular websites. We do this for our clients using the Outbrain Ad network which allows for CBD advertising.

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Where Are Americans Buying CBD?

So where are Americans buying their CBD products? It varies wildly!

The most common outlets are:

  • Specialty shops (48%)
  • Online CBD retailers (41%)

About 30% of US Citizens have purchased their CBD products from:

  • Grocery stores (30%)
  • Pharmacies (29%)
  • Convenience stores or gas stations (26%)

Less common, though still significant, are US consumers who buy CBD products at:

  • Farmers markets (24%)
  • Miscellaneous chain retailers like Ulta, Urban Outfitters or GNC (21%)
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Click image to see our agency’s Conversion Funnel approach to CBD marketing

So How Can CBD Marketing Help Educate Customers About CBD?

Firstly, it is important to understand that educating the customer involves marketing strategies that target the top of the funnel.

To understand the CBD and cannabis Conversion Funnel, see our approach here.

People in this stage may have a health issue that CBD could help to treat, but they don’t know this yet. They haven’t found a product or service that fits for their solution.

This means these people are not ready to buy. Not even close. Instead, they need information, education, and to build trust with a high-quality CBD brand.

You as a CBD company want to be that brand.

In order to get into that position, you need to implement CBD marketing strategies to create brand awareness and build brand trust.

How do you do this?

We highly recommend customized and hyper-targeted content marketing. For example, informational blog articles and short-video content published on multiple channels including your website, Google search, social media

In addition, you’d want to promote and amplify that content using paid advertising platforms like Google Ads, Native Ads/Sponsored Content, and/or display or video ads.

All of this digital marketing is targeting the top of the funnel. This strategy targets the majority of people interested in CBD in the United States.

How? Simply because we now know that over 60% of people in the United States have no idea what CBD is!

There are way many more people in North America searching for information about CBD than there are people actually looking to buy CBD.

And, of those people looking to buy CBD products for whatever reason/ailment, they have no idea what they need and are still asking:

  • What is the best CBD product category for my specific ailment?
  • Which CBD product do I need to purchase?
  • How much CBD do I take for my specific ailment?
  • Will CBD make me feel high?

The key here is for us entrepreneurs to keep our expectations in check. Remember, we’re targeting top of the funnel people, who aren’t looking to buy CBD, with education and information as the goal. Not sales, yet

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How Do You Measure Success & What KPIs Should You Track?

Instead of focusing on sales in the initial 3-6 months, and the fact that over two-thirds of the US population has no idea what CBD is, you need to measure success outside of revenue.

If you’re using:

  • SEO
  • Blog Content Marketing
  • Google Ads Search Campaigns
  • Sponsored Content/Native Ads

you should measure the success of your CBD marketing campaigns by using key performance indicators like:

  • Total clicks from organic search
  • Total clicks from paid ads/sponsored content & average CPC
  • Average time spent on blog and/or website
  • Average number of website pages viewed per visit/user
  • Bounce rate

These metrics will help you define if the traffic was qualified or unqualified. So, the higher these metrics (except for CPC), the more highly qualified the site visitor.

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We Can Help You Build Your CBD Conversion Funnel!

I hope the information in this article has helped you understand why your revenues and ROI from CBD marketing maybe aren’t as high as you’d like it, for the time being.

I also hope you see that this is actually good news. You’re ahead of the game and we just need to be patient, educate, and build a marketing funnel before we’re able to establish a sales funnel.

You and I and our competitors all understand what CBD is and how it can help many different cohorts maintain better health & wellness.

But, your target market isn’t there, yet. But they will be. And they will buy from the CBD brand they trust the most. You want to be that brand.

If you’re ready to discuss top of the funnel CBD marketing strategy, we can help you.

If you want to target the bottom of the funnel with intent-oriented Google search ads, we’re already doing this for some of our clients and can do the same for you.

Please call us for a free 30-minute phone consult or contact us to request a quote.

We’re Ready To Help You Grow!

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