There are many ways to market your cannabis business. Affiliate programs offer a unique solution that relies on people already familiar with your brand. In essence, they’re a form of word-of-mouth marketing. And with 97% of people reading online reviews and more than 80% saying they seek recommendations from friends and family before making a purchasing decision, that word of mouth can be very beneficial.
Despite the potential benefits, many business owners wonder if cannabis affiliate programs are worth it. They can be lucrative, but successful programs require time and ongoing effort to maintain.
How Does an Affiliate Program Work?
With an affiliate program, you recruit people to promote your brand in exchange for financial incentives or other rewards. Affiliates talk about your products in their blogs or on social media and include links that lead back to your website. When members of their audience make a purchase (or perform another desired action), they earn a commission.
Pros and Cons of Cannabis Affiliate Programs
The benefits of creating an affiliate program include:
- Increase visibility: Affiliates put your brand in front of their followers, extending reach.
- Boost brand awareness: Affiliates drive potential customers to your website, where they can become more familiar with your brand.
- Generate more sales: Recommendations from affiliates help increase trust, which can lead to more sales.
- Cost-effective: You only pay affiliates for the sales they generate.
Drawbacks to consider include:
- Slow build: It takes time to find and recruit good affiliates.
- Hard work: Even after you find affiliates, you have to work to keep them active and maintain a successful program.
- Lack of control: You have little control over what your affiliates say or do, which could lead to inconsistent brand messaging.
- Risk of fraud: Scammers could try to take advantage of your affiliate program, potentially costing you a lot of money and damaging your brand’s reputation.
Is It Worth It to Create an Affiliate Program for Your Cannabis Brand?
Ultimately, it’s up to you to determine if an affiliate program is right for your cannabis brand. While it can help attract new customers and increase your revenue, it requires a lot of time and effort. Additionally, smaller businesses may not have the budget to devote to the cost of building a program or the marketing resources to promote and maintain it.
Quick Tips for Getting Started
If you’re considering an affiliate program for your cannabis business, here are a few tips to get you started:
Determine Your Goals
Setting measurable goals, such as how much money you want to generate through affiliate sales, will help you track your progress and make changes to your program to boost its success.
Decide on a Commission Structure
Will you pay your affiliates a percentage of each sale or a set amount? How much? Will you offer additional rewards for your top performers?
Figure Out How You’ll Recruit and Manage Affiliates
Market your affiliate program on your website. Use your email list to tell your subscribers about it and encourage them to check it out. Announce it on social media. Make sure anyone who applies is a good fit for your brand before accepting them into your program.
Once you recruit affiliates, you’ll need to provide them with everything they need to promote your brand and ensure success. Affiliate marketing software can be helpful here. These solutions offer a variety of tools to help you track the progress of your affiliates, enable communication, automate payments, and more.
Consider Other Options
Before you build out a whole affiliate program, consider other options for marketing your cannabis business. For instance, you could establish a referral rewards program, offering your loyal customers discounts or other rewards for bringing in new business.
Quality digital marketing with an experienced partner is another solution. As experts in all things cannabis marketing, Highopes works with you to increase brand awareness, stand out from the competition, attract more customers, and grow your business.
Should You Implement a Cannabis Affiliate Program?
An affiliate program can be an effective way to grow cannabis businesses. Weighing the pros and cons, assessing your budget, and considering the work it will require to manage it will help you decide if it’s the right solution for your brand.Are you looking to grow your cannabis brand? Highopes works with businesses like yours to create one-of-a-kind marketing solutions that drive results. Check us out online or contact us to learn more about our services today.
