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CBD CBD Products CBD Services Insights Marketing/Business

A report by Bigeye, an Audience-Focused, Creative-Driven, Full-Service Advertising Agency devoted to creating CBD marketing campaigns that drive conversions.

The Quick-Takes

  • Millennial women are the most avid CBD fans — and they desire products formulated and sold in a certain way.
  • Follow the lead of caffeine and market a feeling, not an ingredient (think energy drinks).
  • Half of Americans think CBD and cannabis are the same thing, so transparency, education and trust in CBD advertising is essential.
  • Regulations are moving quickly. Pressure is building for national CBD advertising standards as restrictions are slowly slackening.
  • Smart marketers can sidestep these restrictions by advertising on podcasts and other CBD-friendly channels.
  • Most CBD marketing is yawn-inducing. If you want to engage audiences, you need to be bold. Tap into the Zeitgeist by taking what people fear and dislike about the  modern world and position your product as an antidote.
  • Bigeye understands the CBD marketing space in a way that your current agency can’t equal. Don’t believe it? Read on…

CBD is 2021’s Breakout Product

Not only are CBD products flying off retail shelves everywhere, the product has ignited a firestorm of cultural conversation and consumer interest.

If you’re in the CBD advertising business, that’s great news — you’ve got a product that sells itself in many ways. Yet here’s the rub: with rapid growth comes stiff competition. Everyone sees the generational opportunity that hemp-derived products like CBD represent, and they are rushing in to carve out market share.

In order to help you flourish in a crowded space, you need to understand the challenges inherent to CBD marketing, while keeping abreast of all changes in this fast-evolving market.

Let’s take a closer look at some key aspects of CBD advertising and CBD product marketing that you may not have fully considered.

CBD Marketing and Advertising Tips for 2021 and Beyond

There are nearly 4,000 brands within the CBD space in the United States. Given that kind of competition, it’s essential to develop a sophisticated marketing strategy and execute flawlessly. Let’s take a closer look at some tips CBD marketers can follow when creating their next campaign:

  • Differentiate your products through branding. Let’s be honest: There is often very little to differentiate CBD products. Oils, gummies and tinctures are…oils, gummies and tinctures. Differentiation, therefore, needs to occur through branding. Many CBD enterprises have chosen to target the health and wellness market, pitching CBD products as lifestyle enhancers that can help consumers deal with pain, anxiety, insomnia etc. in a natural way. This is a powerful argument, as there is a considerable backlash within society at the moment with regard to overprescription of pharmaceuticals. By pitching your product as an all natural, healthy way to treat common ailments, marketers can target those who use pharmaceuticals while activating a vast market of people who are healthy, but are seeking to use CBD as a life optimization product. 
  • Know your true audience. If we asked you which kind of person has the most interest in CBD, would you say a millennial woman? If not, then your marketing may be off-target. According to a new research report, CBD products hold more attraction for women than men — and women generally prefer “softer” CBD products (such as gummies, infused beverages, beauty products etc.) while men prefer “harder” CBD products such as concentrates, vapes and tinctures. Across all genders, millennials exhibit more interest than any other demographic group, and they are particularly focused on CBD in the wellness context. 
  • Market a feeling, not a product. Given the relatively faceless nature of CBD brands and uniformity of the products they sell, smart marketers should remember that they are marketing a feeling as much as anything else. What does this mean in practical terms? Think about caffeine — nobody markets caffeine directly, although it is consumed in enormous quantities. Instead, companies market the feeling it produces: energy. Brands built an entire product category out of feeling-oriented marketing (energy drinks). Alcohol companies, meanwhile, have build campaign after campaign centered around the social aspects of beer and wine.
  • Focus on trust and transparency in CBD marketing. One of the most significant reasons why people fail to try CBD is because of fear or skepticism about the effects of CBD on the body and the product quality and/or supply chain. This is largely borne from ignorance. Despite its surging popularity, research shows that 60% of people don’t know what CBD is and don’t understand its effects. When a product is this widely unknown — and is also linked closely with psychoactive compounds — it’s hardly surprising that some people are hesitant to put this substance into their bodies. In order to overcome this reticence, CBD product marketing should emphasize trust and transparency with regard to CBD sourcing.
  • Tap the emerging markets. CBD is making waves in a variety of industries, but it is gaining particular traction within the pet industry. Why? The first reason is simple: Dogs suffer from many of the same maladies as their owners, and CBD’s clinical effects can help them manage these symptoms. Second, today’s pet owners are willing to pay almost any premium to provide their animals with the best possible lives — just look at the growth in grain-free dog food.

    Even though science shows that grain-free dog food might be worse for animals than conventional dog food, people buy it anyway because of the general bias against gluten and the fact that it sounds healthier. CBD-infused pet products, however, have been met with positive anecdotal reports and are selling at a brisk clip. In fact, CBD pet products are the fastest growing category within that industry. The beauty industry is also witnessing exceptional sales growth within the CBD category, as consumers seek natural skin treatments.
  • Stay on the right side of regulators. The FDA is busy sending out warning letters to CBD companies that skirt the rules of legal marketing. According to a recent release, the FDA is cracking down on companies that illegally sell “unapproved products containing cannabidiol online with unsubstantiated claims that the products treat teething pain and ear aches in infants, autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), as well as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease, among other conditions or diseases.”

    Given CBD’s clinically established success in treating a variety of significant illnesses, it seems foolhardy to stretch the truth by making unsupported assertions. Not only can you quickly run afoul of FDA regulators, such unethical practices make all firms within the CBD market tainted by association.
  • Consider the FTC as well as the FDA. Additionally, the FDA isn’t the only controlling body that needs to be accounted for. The Federal Trade Commission has its own standard, which makes it “unlawful to advertise that a product can prevent, treat, or cure human disease unless the advertiser possesses competent and reliable scientific evidence, including, when appropriate, well-controlled human clinical studies, substantiating that the claims are true at the time they are made.” That’s a reasonably high bar — and one that all CBD marketers should be familiar with.
  •  Counter widespread misunderstandings. Marketers aren’t immune to the “Curse of Knowledge.” We often get so close to the industry in which we operate that we have a hard time understanding that most people lack even glancing familiarity with the products and services we know so well. In the case of CBD, you may be shocked to learn just how much bad information is circulating.

    According to new research from the Grocery Manufacturer’s Association, 40% of Americans believe CBD is another name for cannabis. Roughly 51% of Americans believe taking CBD will get them high. Approximately 76% of Americans believe CBD is fully regulated at the federal level. Wrong, wrong and wrong. While the FDA is enforcing CBD ad violations, it is working under outdated statutes governing supplements. There is no CBD-specific set of federal guidelines governing the sale and marketing of CBD. Marketers need to understand just how limited the understanding of CBD is among the general public and take steps to help people learn. 
  • Go against the grain. This is advice we’d give to brands in almost any industry, but we think it applies with special emphasis within the CBD product category. The CBD category is driven largely by millennial and Gen Z consumers, all of whom have grown up in an environment where advertising, whether in hard or soft form, is pervasive. As such, routine campaigns often don’t resonate.

    Cliched 4/20 style product packaging or sedate-and-yawn-inducing wellness branding probably won’t move the needle very far. There are two ways you can avoid falling into this trap: Come up with strikingly original copy and visuals, or tie your marketing into the larger concerns and obsessions of millennials and Gen Z consumers. By this, we don’t simply mean pumping out low quality memes on social media.
  • Get creative. One of our favorite examples of this type of marketing in the CBD space comes from Recess, a CBD beverage brand. The company brands its products as “an antidote to modern times,” tapping into millennial and Gen Z angst about the state of the world they are inheriting. The brand’s narrative is “the world has gone crazy and we all need a recess.” This works because it taps into a widely shared feeling; it’s pulled directly from the millennial Zeitgeist. As such, it’s very powerful. Recess makes this CBD marketing strategy even more potent by using surrealistic designs on its beverage cans. Their cans are personified, dressed in office suits and shown staring wistfully outside windows. It’s a brilliant strategy — but it’s also a strategy that can only be developed by a brand or CBD marketing agency with real creative skill and industry insight.

Creating Effective Digital Marketing in an Often CBD-Unfriendly World

Due to its connection to cannabis and hemp, CBD products have faced significant restrictions in terms of digital marketing. Facebook and Google, who dominate the digital ad space, both made advertising CBD products on their properties verboten. If you run a CBD marketing agency or a brand, this obviously ties your hands and you need to understand the rules for advertising CBD on social media.

Fortunately, times are changing. Facebook has recently loosened its CBD advertising rules, and will now allow a narrow category of digital CBD ads. As CBD grows more mainstream (and becomes fully legal in all state jurisdictions) it’s very likely that restrictions on Facebook and Instagram will be lifted entirely. After all, that’s a very large pot of ad revenue Facebook is forgoing. Snapchat, meanwhile, takes a somewhat more liberal approach to CBD ads, and as a result is one of the most effective social platforms for CBD ads.

Alternative Digital Marketing Options

CBD ads have also faced some resistance from major digital publishers, who have banned CBD product marketing from some of their most popular websites. Third party marketing platforms specially designed for the cannabis and CBD markets have been created to help brands create an effective CBD marketing strategy for the digital channel. These platforms use technology that automatically verifies the ages of browsers and the states in which they are located in order to ensure they remain compliant with all relevant regulations. This is one clever approach that can help CBD brands negotiate the tricky task of staying compliant, while gaining critical access to high authority publishers such as Buzzfeed and USA Today.

Thought Leadership and Education

If direct digital marketing is still largely unavailable, there are some alternate paths for a CBD brand or CBD marketing company to take. One example: Thought leadership and education pieces. These do not fall under the direct advertising designation and there is considerable public appetite for educational content. The CBD space, while growing quickly, is still something of a blank slate to most consumers. Providing them with high-quality educational content is an excellent way to turn “CBD curious consumers” into loyal customers.

Sponsored Content

It’s also important to remember that many publishers and ad platforms do not have these restrictions and are, in fact, happily courting the CBD market. FieldTest is one such platform. The company has negotiated agreements with high level publishers across the Internet to host CBD display ads. Sponsored content/native advertising placed on third-party websites is another path that can be taken, although many of these programs have the same type of limitations in place.

Influencer Marketing

It’s also important to avoid looking the past the value of influencer marketing. In just four years, influencer marketing has grown from a $1.7 billion enterprise to a nearly $7 billion market. Google searches for “influencer marketing” grew by an astonishing 1,500% over the same period. Instagram alone is well on its way to two billion daily users.

Influencers on that platform and others are not subject to the same restrictions found within conventional CBD digital marketing, which makes them a valuable commodity for brands seeking digital traction. Partnering with the right influencers, however, is key. Raw numbers don’t tell the whole story in terms of reach or influence. It’s better to find an influencer with 10k highly engaged followers than partner with someone who has collected (or even purchased) 100k largely random followers.

Podcast Ads

CBD brands can also take a more unorthodox approach and pursue something like podcast advertising. Growth in the podcast market has been exceptional in recent years, and CBD brands are a natural fit for the podcast demographic. While many people are under the mistaken impression that most podcasts are little more than a couple of people in a basement studio, the top podcasts generate millions of listens and downloads. By choosing podcasts with a strong following (and an audience that overlaps in some sense with CBD buyers), a brand or CBD marketing company can generate a surprisingly high ROI.

Finally, affiliate marketing services such as ClickBank offer another avenue into digital marketing for CBD brands.

Creating High-Level CBD Marketing and Advertising with Bigeye

If your CBD marketing campaigns aren’t resonating, it’s time for a switch. At Bigeye, we believe that real results come only when you find a creatively dynamic partner with true domain expertise. 

That’s what we offer our clients. We’ve been working in the CBD space almost since its inception; we’re no late entrant into the field, seeking to capitalize on the latest trend. We keep our pulse on what’s happening in the CBD industry, and we’re always one step ahead of evolving regulations and industry standards. Using that expertise, we create highly compelling CBD campaigns and pair them with the ideal distribution strategy, ensuring that your messages are served to the most relevant audiences possible.

If you’re looking for a creatively inspired CBD marketing campaign that engages audiences on a deeper level and gets them to convert, we urge you to reach out to Bigeye today. We’d love to show you the power of a creatively inspired, tech-supported CBD ad strategy.

Want to learn more about the CBD consumer? Download our National Study of CBD Use.

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CBD CBD Products CBD Services Direct-To-Consumer Health & Wellness

Use our CBD marketing agency tips and tricks to successfully and purposefully break into this growing market rife with opportunity.

According to Market Watch’s 2020 study, the global value for the CBD marketplace will grow to over $1.2 billion by 2024, up from 2019’s value of $311 million. Some optimistic analysts predict even higher growth. Still, a CBD marketing agency would advise any new brands to prepare for challenges. For instance, startup companies need to focus on product differentiation in a competitive marketplace. Also, many consumers still don’t really understand how CBD might benefit them or even exactly what it is.

Consider some informed CBD eCommerce tips to help inspire a robust, effective, and safe marketing plan.

The CBD marketing agency guide for eCommerce

Even though CBD comes from cannabis, it’s not psychoactive, like THC. Also, unlike THC, another cannabis extract, the 2018 Farm Bill made CBD legal federally and in most states. Studies have offered support for claims that it can help relieve a range of health issues, including seizures, migraines, insomnia, inflammation, poor appetite, and anxiety in both people and animals.

With all of these benefits, it’s important to understand that the growing popularity of the product and ease of entering the market have generated plenty of competition and more than a little scrutiny from the government.

Five ways to improve CBD product sales

These five CBD advertising and marketing suggestions can help a new or struggling CBD business meet competition and stay out of trouble with regulators:

1. Define the Product’s Market

It’s impossible to give a one-size-fits-all solution for CBD advertising because businesses might deliver their offers as pharmaceutical, cosmetic, food, pet, or other kinds of products. That’s why it’s important for businesses to map out specific benefits they hope to promote. Then, they can offer this solution to the best audience.

For instance, one company may promote a high-grade pharma product to help reduce seizures. Another brand may have a topical solution to ease skin flareups. Still, another business may offer pet supplements that they promote to help reduce anxiety or joint issues in aging dogs.

Obviously, these very different products will need specific buyer personas and marketing approaches. They may also need to meet different standards for the sorts of claims that can be made to stay within legal restrictions for medical vs. consumer advertising. Mostly, it’s helpful to market to people with problems the product might solve and not just look for consumers with an existing interest in CBD.

2. Explore Alternative Programmatic Advertising for CBD

Programmatic advertising refers to buying ad slots with bids on an automated system. They can benefit marketers because they keep a lot of information about their audience. That allows advertisers to use very specific attributes, like age, location, or even past viewing habits, to select who will see the ads. Obviously, this kind of advertising can offer value to CBD advertisers who understand their market.

Some of the most common platforms that use this kind of bidding platform include Facebook and Google. These are mentioned because they’re familiar to most marketers. At the same time, these and other common  platforms impose restrictions on the way companies can promote any cannabis product, including CBD.

As a note, these kinds of platforms tend to get associated mostly with internet marketing. It’s also possible to find programmatic advertising for TV, radio, and other kinds of media.

Either alone or with the help of a CBD marketing agency, businesses can also explore some programmatic advertising advertising platforms that offer more flexibility for both products and the way companies advertise them. As an example, Cannabis Creative, a marketing agency. mentioned that Facebook and Google account for a large share of total advertising spend on programmatic ad platforms. At the same time, other paid platforms still attract very large audiences can can open up less-restricted promotions on such large and well-known outlets as ESPN, USA Today, and Politico.

3. Remain aware of legal and platform CBD advertising restrictions

Even though CBD doesn’t have the psychoactive effects that some people may associate with cannabis products, it hasn’t been legal in most places for very long. Brands need to take care to conform with marketing regulations, both at the federal and sometimes, at different state or local levels. In order to maintain accounts with various marketing platforms, companies also must take the time to understand the terms of service. And sometimes, these can prove hard to understand because the language isn’t direct.

Avoiding legal problems

According to Bradley, a media law firm, the growth of consumer protection regulations has paralleled the overall expansion of the CBD market. As an example, both the FTC and FDA have sent warning letters to companies that didn’t exercise enough caution when making claims that their products could treat various medical issues.

As a general rule, neither CBD packaging design or advertising should not:

  • Mention specific diseases
  • Cite dubious sources to backup explicit or inferred claims
  • Use words like treat, cure, or prevent
  • Guarantee results

Obviously, marketers need to promote potential benefits in order to attract the attention of customers. Doing this well without attracting negative attention from the government takes some craft and attention to only linking to or mentioning credible studies or professionals. For instance, it’ might be fine to claim that a CBD cream may help soothe skin but not that it cures eczema.

Notice that the page for a pet product called Calming Chews does not feature another mention of that benefit. The list of features simply talks about the product’s purity, that it doesn’t contain THC, and that it was grown organically. It also mentioned that the product was tested in a lab for safety and effectiveness, but it never says what it was tested to be effective for.

Further down, they offer some vague language that says the product combines CBD with some calming herbs. They’re implying their benefits, but they’re probably avoiding a direct statement to remain in compliance. That’s why startups may want to work with experienced marketing agencies and even media lawyers to ensure they understand the dynamic legal environment.

Avoiding service violations on advertising platforms

While businesses need to prioritize staying out of legal trouble with regulatory agencies, they also need to focus on maintaining their advertising accounts. As recently as late in 2019, Huffington post published an article about Facebook’s “secret” CBD ban. Marketers found that Facebook had terminated their advertising accounts for violating terms that were hard to even know existed.

Apparently, Facebook didn’t have any specific, public policy at the time about CBD. At the same time, they apparently did have an internal policy. It’s just that even first-time offenders of this policy had accounts completely terminated. Meanwhile, other advertisers who may have just been lucky at first, found ways to promote landing pages with topical CBD products; however, they didn’t specifically mention CBD in the ads. The pervious statement was not intended as advice but just an example to illustrate the caution.

As a note, the Pinterest terms of service for paid ads specifically prohibit products with CBD. Other platforms, including Instagram, Google, and YouTube, also have complex terms. In any case, before using any marketing platform to promote CBD products with paid advertising, it’s important to do some research or work with an experienced CBD marketing agency to ensure compliance with platform rules that can change at any time, not be well documented, and may even not get enforced exactly the same way each time.

4. Benefit from social and content marketing

The section above mentioned that many advertising platforms for social sites have restrictions or even outright bans on CBD products. These same rules don’t necessarily apply to the kinds of social posts that aren’t promoted via the advertising platform on the site. Social Media Explorer said that many CBD advertisers had managed to fare very well by using content, inbound marketing, and non-promoted social posts.

These are some examples of tested tactics to promote within this strategy:

  • Create informational videos: Even with all the buzz about the Farm Bill, lots of people really don’t know the difference between non-psychoactive CBD, THC, and other cannabis substances. Even if some of these consumers do know, they may not realize that CBD might offer a solution for some issue they might have. While it’s still wise to take care when making claims, an informational video that uses credible studies and sources to back up the benefits that some people say they’ve experienced should work well.
  • Brand ambassador programs: Lots of eCommerce platforms create a program that helps reward loyal customers for spreading the word about products they already buy and love. Typically, the brand ambassador will get a unique that they can use if they mention the product, and if somebody else buys, the loyal customer will get rewards the can use for discounts or free gifts. This sort of word-of-mouth advertising generally works very well and can prove much cheaper than paying for ads anyway.
  • Influencer marketing: Social influencer refers to people who already have a targeted audience on various social platforms. Depending upon the product, good influencers might work within the fitness, health, beauty, or even pet care niche. Having them demonstrate or even mention a brand can provide new companies with a lot of name recognition and a boost for their own social platform.
  • Try multiple platforms: With social marketing, it’s not possible to target as precisely as it is with programmatic ads. Still, content and even CBD packaging design can work to attract the right audience. At the same time, it’s probably best to consider the pros and cons of various social sites to see which ones have the most receptive audience. For instance, Twitter users tend to be younger than Facebook users, while Pinterest is known for attracting a lot of women. While short videos may perform well on Instagram and Facebook, YouTube has a reputation for more engaged viewers for longer videos. While it’s important not to get spread too thin, it’s also a good idea to focus on a few platforms to see which combination yields the best results.
  • Build connections: These days, consumers do turn to social platforms both to research products and even to get help with customer service. It might sound trite to say this, but some businesses still ignore comments about their brands or even direct messages. In order to benefit from social media, companies need to engage. In addition to monitoring messages and their own pages, brands can use software that will monitor any mentions of their brands to help them make timely responses.

Develop the best content mix 

After deciding to attract attention with content, it’s also important to select the right mix of content types. The platform, target audience, and many other factors might determine which kind of content works best for each particular situation. Common examples of content for social media, business blogs, and even outreach posts include text, graphics, and videos.

Digging even deeper, some CBD companies have enjoyed success with long-form white papers and even live webinars  and podcasts. Some potential topics might include: 

  • Answers to frequently asked questions
  • A discussion of the difference between CBD and THC
  • The history of CBD use
  • An interview with an authoritative guest

Actually, consider any topic that might interest the target market. While a company may want to avoid associating benefits with any specific medical conditions, exploring that medical condition from another angle should still attract the right sets of eyes. For instance, prudent marketers may never want to suggest that CBD is guaranteed to relieve anxiety.

Still, they might produces sponsored videos with stress-relief meditation, yoga poses, or breathing exercises and then incorporate a call to action that leads to a landing page. They can clearly associate their product with stress relief without guaranteeing results.

It may also help to vary the length and format of various types of content for different purposes. As a simple example, short, to-the-point videos may help engage people on social sites. A long and more thoughtful video might help close sales on a business blog or YouTube.

5. Maximize eCommerce site conversions

The previous tips will help CBD marketers attract a targeted audience to an eCommerce site. Of course, the final ingredient to maximize sales means taking steps that will ensure those site visitors convert into customers. According to BigCommerce, average eCommerce sites expect conversion rates of no more than one to two percent. If the right tactics can increase conversions to better than average, they’ll translate into better marketing returns and of course, increased revenues and profits.

  • Respond to abandoned shopping carts: Automated tools can send emails to people who have signed up but failed to click the buy button. A discount coupon or special promo code for first-time buyers will motivate some of these almost-buyers to return to their cart.
  • State the unique selling proposition on each page: Within the confines of legal verbiage, make sure customers understand the benefits they can expect from the product. Beyond that, it’s a good idea to let customers know about return policies and other considerations that might hold them back.
  • Highlight CBD packaging design: As with marketing messages, CBD packaging design can be tricky. Since all new customers see is a photo of the package, companies need their design to create a great first impression and clearly illustrate what the product is, such as a supplement or beauty product. At the same time, SmashBrand mentioned some potential federal and state legal requirements for packaging. In any case, clear images of a aesthetically pleasing and legal design will help build customer trust.

Selling CBD products in a growing but competitive marketplace

Before engaging in any CBD advertising, businesses need to clearly define potential benefits of their products and in turn, their target market. Once that’s done, the retailer can find the best marketing platforms with both legal and platform restrictions on advertising in mind. While programmatic advertising can rapidly increase exposures and sales, some of these paid advertisers have restrictions on CBD marketing, so it’s important to choose carefully and also consider inbound, content marketing as an alternative to only relying upon paid ads. Finally, make sure to tailor both packaging design and the sales pages to maximize conversions and conform to regulations for cannabis products.

Mostly, CBD businesses have a great opportunity to enter this growing market. By marketing aggressively but safely, marketers can stay out of trouble with regulatory bodies and build trust with an expanding audience.

Categories
CBD CBD Products CBD Services

CBD advertising rules and even laws are evolving, so a CBD marketing plan has to exercise caution. Learn the safe way to market CBD. 

With the passage of the Farm Bill in 2018, the federal and almost all state governments consider CBD legal in at least one form or another. While the government has relaxed its stance on this non-psychoactive component of cannabis, some social sites have remained unfriendly to products that contain CBD. As a CBD marketing agency or business, you must navigate some tricky rules for CBD advertising on social sites.

Rules for CBD advertising on social media sites

According to Search Engine Journal, CBD products will generate billions in revenue while remaining extremely profitable over the next few years. Despite the apparent legality and profitability of this sector, most social networks have either restricted or forbidden advertising. This includes such large players as Snapchat, Google, Instagram, and even Facebook.

Can you run CBD advertising on Facebook, Twitter, and other big social media sites?

Even though Facebook’s policies didn’t specifically mention CBD as banned from the site, some advertisers have reported warnings and even account terminations over their promoted posts and feed ads. At first, these restrictions even applied to ads that didn’t mention CBD but pointed to landing pages with these products.

According to Digiday, Facebook may have relaxed this restriction on topical products or any ads that point to landing pages with either topical or ingestible CBD products. Even so, at least one legal firm in the CBD industry, Harris Bricken, says that it’s probably wise to confirm this with your Facebook account rep as even Digiday reported getting this information from an inside source. According to these legal CBD experts, no business or CBD marketing agency can afford to lose their investment in growing a social presence by having their account abruptly closed.

Harris Bricken also mentioned that Twitter has published somewhat more straightforward policies, though they’re still fairly restrictive. Basically, they advise advertisers to get advance authorization before running ads, which is what the law firm advised Facebook marketers to do. In general, advertisers also must only promote topical products. Twitter will also forbid ads targeting a handful of CBD-unfriendly states and anybody under 21.

It looks like social site policies for CBD advertising are still evolving and typically murky. Other platforms, like Google and Instagram, also have restrictions. As a general rule, do your homework before setting up any advertising campaigns to ensure you don’t waste time and worse, risk losing your valuable account.

General rules for CBD product marketing

While you may want to tread carefully to comply with an advertising platform’s terms of service, you particularly don’t want your CBD product marketing to run afoul of the law. For example, South Dakota has not yet legalized CBD at all, and some other states impose restrictions on the percentage of THC that might be found in any legal CBD products. Selling illegal products in these states could potentially result in felony charges. As with various ad platform’s terms of service, state laws might change rapidly too, so your wise to stay updated.

Besides state laws, the FDA has published fairly clear restrictions about the types of advertising they allow, and apparently, these rules are in a state a flux as well. The Broadcast Law Blog issued some commentary about recent updates to CBD advertising rules that my provide some clarity:

  • Don’t make any specific health claims in CBD advertising.
  • Don’t advertise to children or in states where your product might be illegal.
  • Unless you’re marketing an FDA-approved medication, be specifically wary about advertising ingested products.

With all these CBD advertising restrictions, how can you market?

If you’re starting a CBD brand, all of the restrictions on social media posts and other ads can prove quite restrictive. Still, plenty of CBD companies have found channels to help improve awareness of CBD, their products, and their businesses. Big Commerce studied some CBD marketing experts to determine which tactics that have been proven most effective and safe:

  • Generate plenty of content: While you need to tread carefully when making an specific medical claims about CBD that haven’t been approved by the FDA, you can certainly produce content that relies upon medical studies or testimonials to help educate consumers about your product’s benefits. This sort of content can help raise awareness of both your product and your brand.
  • Focus on organic reach: Since you’re developing content, you might as well use it to your benefit. Some social sites may disallow paid CBD ads, but they might not impose such restrictions upon non-promoted posts on your page. Good keyword research to use in your content can also help you craft articles, graphics, and videos that will be likely to rank organically in search engines.
  • Conduct old-fashioned, in-person social outreach: Even though digital marketers tend to think of digital social networking, trade show marketing still provides an important source of marketing to many companies. You’ll have the chance to engage in word-of-mouth marketing, generate buzz, hand out samples, and of course, take some orders.
  • Consider affiliate marketing: If you have an affiliate program, you can offer some percentage of sales to other marketers in exchange for their contribution to your revenue and attention. Some affiliates may already have the kinds of websites, social platforms, and blogs that will work well with your product.
  • Rely upon influencers: By having influencers spotlight your products, you have a chance to greatly increase awareness of your brand. Even though you might hesitate to tell people your CBD cream helps relieve pain, influencers in the wellness or fitness category can provide their own testimonials.
  • Start a subscriber list: You can offer discounts, samples, or other promotional offers to attract subscribers to your email or text messaging list. If these subscribers find their subscriptions valuable, you’re likely to retain them and even encourage them to pass along your message.

The future of CBD marketing

Right now, social media rules, laws, and even interpretations are still in flux. With this kind of marketing, you’re wise to do your research and make careful plans to err on the side of caution. Still, you have plenty of ways to let consumers know about your products and your business. Because of the boom in interest, it’s still a good time for starting a CBD brand.

Categories
CBD CBD Products CBD Services

Cannabidiol has become one of the hottest product categories in years. Geo-fencing can be a powerful tool to help you gain market share in a crowded space.

Few recent products have captured the world’s imagination like CBD. In just a few short years, CBD has gone from largely unheard-of to a staple of retailers across North America. Consumers can buy CBD oils and gummies, or have their food and beverages (or even their pet treats) infused with CBD. 

With extraordinary growth comes significant competition, however. One of the core challenges for any CBD brand is competitive differentiation. Marketing, of course, is one of the most tried-and-true methods for differentiating your brand and acquiring new business.

There’s another tool in the modern marketing arsenal that can pay significant dividends for CBD brands: Geo-fencing. Let’s take a closer look at what geo-fencing is, how it works and why geo-fencing for CBD can be a game-changer for your brand.

A Crash Course in Geo-fencing Technology

CBD may be the buzziest product category in years, but mobile technology is certainly no stranger to world-shaking hype and impact. Geo-fencing takes mobile marketing to the next level. It allows businesses to advertise to customers within a pre-defined geographic boundary by harnessing GPS satellite data and radio frequencies.

GPS satellites communicate with Bluetooth-enabled mobile devices. These devices contain computer chips that use radio waves to connect. When a potential customer enters a pre-defined area (within one mile from a shop, for example), her precise location is pegged via communication between her smartphone and orbiting GPS satellites.

Once this occurs, and a prospective consumer is within range, push notifications and tailored ads can be transmitted to that user’s device.

The Benefits of Geo-fencing

Geo-fencing allows for hyper-targeted marketing messages delivered to consumers who are in proximity to the businesses targeting them. Because of this, it is a highly effective tool, and one that can drive an enormous amount of foot traffic when deployed properly.

In addition to boosting foot traffic and sales, geo-fencing helps brands develop more personalized marketing messages, engage with consumers when they are ready to buy and derive key analytical insights. Geo-fencing data can reveal who enters your business, how long they spend inside, their sales, how often they visit and other important metrics.

One tip: Brands should remember to keep their geo-fending boundaries fairly limited (no more than a five-minute travel radius). The effectiveness of this technique drops the further out the boundary is drawn, for obvious reasons.

Why Geo-fencing for CBD Brands is a Natural Fit

Because CBD sales were only made legal in 2018, many CBD brands are still very small and may not have vast resources available for marketing and advertising. Fortunately, the barrier to entry for geo-fencing is quite low, both in terms of financials and required expertise. This makes it a strong fit for many CBD firms still in the bootstrapping phase.

Additionally, as mentioned above, CBD is a fragmented market. There has not been enough time for consumer loyalty to truly develop, which means that market share is very up for grabs. Given the power of geo-fencing to create personalized and relevant content and drive foot traffic and sales, it serves as an ideal tool for CBD companies seeking to establish early market positioning, grab market share and start building consumer loyalty.

Finding the Right CBD Marketing Partner

At Bigeye, we have a sophisticated understanding of how to apply geo-fencing for CBD brands, and we have the tools to help you develop your next great marketing campaign. Don’t hesitate to contact us today to learn more about how we can help you develop a cutting-edge geo-fencing for CBD campaign. 

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CBD CBD Products CBD Services

Have you recently started a CBD beauty brand? Here are a few things you need to consider for your next CBD cosmetic marketing campaign.

The CBD beauty business is booming, projected to reach $1.8 million by 2025 — not bad for an industry that is still in its infancy. With great opportunity comes tough competition, however. Every day, it seems like several new CBD beauty brands pop up, ready to take their slice of the pie. Fortunately, we’re here to help you send the competition home hungry by delivering some smart CBD cosmetic marketing tips.

Tip One: Take Advantage of Digital Marketing

For more than a year, CBD products were persona non grata on Facebook. The social giant had what amounted to an informal blanket ban on CBD products. That, however, has recently changed — Facebook has relaxed its restrictions and now allows certain hemp/CBD brands to advertise under a narrow list of qualifying conditions. 

It’s likely that your brand doesn’t meet these conditions. Yet the odds are even better that your brand will have broader access to the Facebook platform in the near-term future. Many observers feel Facebook’s tentative move toward looser restrictions is a harbinger of much more significant moves to come. After all, CBD is one of the most lucrative and fastest-growing product spaces, and it’s a natural for digital ads. It’s unlikely that Facebook will cede this ground to its rivals long-term.

With that in mind, be prepared for the inevitable shift — and move in with force once you have the opportunity. 

Tip Two: Ensure Your CBD Cosmetic Marketing Takes an Inclusive Approach

Does your marketing reflect every possible buyer of your product? Are you using models that the whole spectrum of your audience can identify with and relate to? If not, it’s important to make an effort to be more inclusive.

Inclusivity within the beauty space also includes showing a diversity of body tapes, including those that do not conform to traditional standards of beauty. For the broadest possible impact, CBD cosmetic marketing should be calibrated to resonate with the broadest possible audience.

Tip Three: Highlight the Evidence

Those marketing CBD beauty products have an ace in the hole: There is significant research that attests to the efficacy of CBD within cosmetics. When used within products for the skin, CBD has been shown to lessen inflammation and breakouts, smooth pores and help reduce redness. CBD oils and other cosmetic products are also full of essential oils, which can help stimulate collagen production and keep skin glowing and healthy.

These are all critically important attributes for consumers seeking beauty products. As such, they should be a key area of focus when creating CBD cosmetic marketing. Outline these powerful benefits, show examples of how they work in action and emphasize the specific advantages that CBD cosmetics bring to bear relative to conventional beauty merchandise.

Tip Four: Ask for a Premium

All of those benefits we just discussed are a significant value add for consumers. As such, CBD cosmetics brands can be positioned as premium products that return higher market prices. When creating marketing content, be explicit about the key differentiators between CBD-infused products and traditional cosmetics. Make the case that these differentiators justify a premium brand position and, possibly, higher margins.

Given CBD’s explosive popularity within the beauty market, premium differentiation can play an important role in allowing your brand to carve out a significant slice of market share.

Tip Five: Segment Your Audience

CBD cosmetic product marketing is most effective when brands segment their market. First, identify who buys your products, in terms of demographics and attributes — the usual brand persona process. For greater impact, however, it makes sense to really drill down on your customer identification.

For example, a smart brand might create targeted marketing content that is calibrated specifically for people who already use CBD in one aspect of their lives (dog treats, wellness etc.), and may be open to trying it within the context of beauty products. Such consumers generally already have built in goodwill for CBD products and are easily persuadable.

Finding the Right CBD Cosmetic Agency

At Bigeye we’ve got the knowledge and experience to help your CBD beauty brand create its next great marketing campaign. Contact us today for more information and learn what Bigeye can do for you.

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CBD CBD Products CBD Services Pet Pet Health & Wellness Pet Supplies

Today’s pet owners are willing to go to extraordinary lengths — and spend staggering amounts of money — for their animals. This presents a significant opportunity for those who can market CBD pet products in the right way.

Pet owners are still learning the ropes when it comes to CBD-infused animal products — “ways to use CBD on my pet” is one of the most common search queries within the industry.

So how can CBD brands take that curiosity and transform it into a loyal customer base who loves their products almost as much as they love their pets? It all starts with well-executed advertising and marketing.

With that in mind, let’s look at four tips for your next CBD pet product campaign.

Emphasize the Cost Benefits

People are incredibly passionate about their animals. Yet millions of those pet lovers can’t afford to pay for their own medical insurance, let alone foot the bill for frequent vet trips. Even the most tenderhearted dog or cat lover might be forced to skip regular vet visits if their budget simply won’t stretch.

Given that CBD pet products are relatively inexpensive and can be purchased without any need for a veterinary prescription, they present an intriguing option for consumers without sufficient spending power. And that’s a broad category — currently 76% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck; 50% of Americans earn fewer than $30k annually and 38% earn fewer than $20k annually.

By creating marketing messages that emphasizing the reasonable cost of most CBD products, consumers will be more inclined to use them as a supplement to regular animal care under a vet’s supervision.

Segment Your Pet CBD Audience

Audience segmentation is critical for virtually all brands, and it can be practiced in a way within the CBD space that allows you to target specific breed owners. For example, bulldogs and Dalmatians are genetically pre-disposed to suffer from the painful condition of hip dysplasia. 

CBD products have been demonstrated to help with hip and joint issues — the kind of serious issues that often plague purebred puppies. CBD products can also be targeted toward owners of breeds that tend toward anxiety, and of course older dogs and cats who suffer from a range of common maladies.

By segmenting your audience in this fashion, you can deliver more relevant messages and generate a higher ROI.

Emphasize Quality Control 

Pet owners have become as concerned about what they put into their animals’ bodies as they are about what they put into their own. This is doubly so for newer products such as CBD, without an extensive track record to examine.

In order to reassure consumers about the naturalness and quality of your CBD pet products, it’s important to stress that your brand uses top quality raw materials and (ideally) operates on a farm to shelf basis.

Offer a Real World Window Into Common CBD Uses for Pets

A pit bull might be the most fearsome looking family protector on his block, but one stray thunderstorm can have him quivering in the corner. It’s a funny image, but it also speaks to something every pet owner understands: Even the most loyal, brave and protective animals still need human love, care and attention.

Pet products for CBD curious buyers can help provide that nurturing care. A marketing campaign that shows real world examples of CBD pet products alleviating thunderstorm stress is a compelling way to illustrate how CBD can help improve an animal’s mental state. That same campaign could also show older dogs and cats benefiting from the pain-relief and inflammation effects offered through CBD ingestion.

The idea is simple: Provide an authentic, unmediated look at how CBD pet products are helping real animals live better lives. There’s also one more advantage to taking a documentary approach: Pets don’t exhibit the placebo effect or show off for camera lenses, so they make fairly credible case studies — even though they don’t have much to say.

Working With the Right CBD Pet Product Marketing Agency

At Bigeye, we’ve established ourselves as one of North America’s leading creative agencies for CBD brands. Few of our competitors have the domain expertise needed to create credible, compelling and strategically executed CBD pet products campaigns.

If you need help with CBD pet marketing, we urge you to reach out to Bigeye today.

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Branding CBD CBD Products CBD Services

Cannabidiol use is booming, and brands that can reach the “CBD curious” audience are in the best position to profit. Let’s take a closer look at how your CBD branding can appeal to new consumers.

As seen with many markets that were once of questionable legality, CBD brands must convert skeptical or ill-informed consumers in order to flourish. While many of these consumers are “CBD curious,” they often need a push to fully commit. That push comes in the form of highly persuasive CBD branding and advertising that still plays by today’s CBD marketing rules.

Let’s review some of the most crucial things to know when designing a CBD marketing campaign designed to hit all the right notes with new audiences.

1. Develop proper branding and product design

Because CBD is an emerging product in a once-illegal market, there is still a lot of misinformation circulating among the public. Some consumers mistakenly believe CBD is intoxicating; others believe it has no established medical value, and some can’t distinguish it from cannabis.

Smart CBD branding and CBD packaging can help minimize such confusion. Brands, in many cases, will want to avoid any branding or package elements that tie in too closely with the cliched “420” culture elements so often seen with cannabis branding. Instead, it’s often a better idea to opt for a more refined aesthetic. Use neutral and elevated packaging designs and position your brand not as something to be enjoyed, but rather something that helps you feel better.

2. Position your CBD product as a tool for self-care and optimization

Do you know what’s even more popular than CBD products right now? The concepts of self-care and optimization. Consumers are feverishly trying to optimize their sleep, diets and workouts and using products to help relax and take better care of their bodies. It’s a multi-billion dollar business.

Fortunately, these concepts dovetail perfectly with CBD products. Smart marketers should emphasize the ways by which their CBD products can help new consumers. These include:

  • Optimize their sleep by reducing insomnia
  • Optimize performance and facilitate self-care through the reduction of anxiety
  • Improve their appearance by using CBD-enriched skin care products

These are merely three examples of the myriad ways CBD branding and marketing can highlight and surface the optimization and self-care properties of products within the space.

3. Reassure new consumers with regard to legality

Remember how we discussed the misinformation floating in the air with regard to CBD products? Many consumers still believe that CBD is illegal, and that belief persists because of a confusing patchwork of statewide regulations governing the sale of CBD products.

Most consumers won’t give a new product a chance unless they are convinced that it’s legal. While state regulations regarding commercial use may vary, CBD has been legal to manufacture on a federal level since 2018. Your marketing should help clear up any lingering confusion for new consumers. 

4. Convince new consumers it isn’t an empty trend

When something attains the cultural status of “gluten-free” or “zero carb,” pushback is inevitable. Consumers who aren’t participating in the newest trends will often dismiss them as being driven by a herd mentality — or they will have doubts about the underlying value of the products that are generating such immense consumer interest.

CBD marketers should anticipate this and answer these doubts with the most compelling thing in their arsenal: Proven research that establishes the value of CBD in a clinical setting. While the average person may not feel many benefits from eliminating gluten, CBD products have a near-universal range of benefits and applications. By focusing on the data that attests to the efficacy of the product — and mixing in real-world anecdotal examples — CBD branding and marketing pros can overcome the natural skepticism that accompanies new products and intensely popular products.

Why Work With Bigeye?

At Bigeye, we have more expertise and experience with the CBD industry than any agency that is remotely close to our size. We’ve been at the forefront of this emerging trend, and we can use our experience to help you create CBD branding and marketing that connects with new consumers.

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CBD CBD Products CBD Services Pet Pet Health & Wellness

If you want to move CBD-infused pet products, you need to get inside the heads of pet owners. Here are a few ideas for you to consider when creating your next CBD pet product marketing push.

The days of a Milkbone and a pat on the head are long gone for today’s pets, who are now being treated like pampered and beloved family members. This transition is underscored within the cannabidiol industry, with CBD-infused pet treats booming in popularity. It’s estimated that CBD pet products will become a $1.16 billion market by 2022.

So how do you create CBD pet product marketing that gets the ears of pet parents to perk up? Let’s take a closer look at a few our of our favorite tricks.

Focus on Downstream Effects When Targeting CBD Pet Owners

Great advertising and marketing activates an emotional response — and people get highly emotional about their pets. So, when marketing to pet owners, it’s a smart idea to focus on the impact your CBD product can have on the underlying issues that many pets struggle with.

One example: Dogs who exhibit amazing bravery when protecting the family from strangers are often end up cowering in the corner as soon as a thunderstorm strikes. The sound of storms can be overwhelming — and dogs simply don’t understand what’s happening.

By creating marketing content that underlines how CBD can be effective in the treatment of storm-related anxiety, you provide a powerful use case — and an emotionally resonant experience — for pet owners to chew on.

Stress the Anecdotal

Research may not be the plural of anecdote, but for those engaged in CBD pet product marketing, that’s all we really have. While there is considerable scientific literature on the impact of CBD on the human body, research on CBD in dogs, cats and other animals is scant.

Given this paucity of scientific data, CBD pet product marketing is better focused on anecdotal experiences. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; anecdotes can be quite powerful, given the shared experiences of pet owners. A marketing video with four or five pet owners who have administered CBD pet products to their animals is one strategy you can employ to help audiences connect with your campaign. 

Stress the Safety and Naturalness of Your CBD Product

Pet owners today are nothing like the pet owners of a generation or two ago, many of whom wouldn’t dream of checking the ingredient list in their pet’s can of Alpo. Today, you can set pet owners scanning pet food ingredients with the same intensity they’d show when signing mortgage documents. In other words, healthy, clean and natural ingredients are very important to today’s pet owners.

This, of course, extends to CBD consumables as well. Pet owners will want to be reassured that the CBD-based dog treats won’t feature elevated levels of THC or anything that might cause their beloved pet to have an adverse reaction. This means that CBD pet product marketers should make an effort to emphasize the natural and safe status of their products. Before pet owners will trust you to help their animals feel better, they need to be convinced that the product will do no harm.

Emphasize the Quality

It’s a widely accepted fact that quality can be somewhat variable in the cannabidiol industry. Pet owners, once again, are demanding the best for their animals. If they are willing to spend $80 on a bag of grain-free dog food that has boar meat as the first ingredient, they are also going to be willing to pay more for the highest quality CBD pet products they can find. 

This means that marketers should position their products as premium if possible, and take pains to reassure consumers that quality is standardized and not subject to the industry’s checkered record of variance.

How BIGEYE Helps CBD Pet Marketers

At Bigeye, we have the domain expertise to help you create a CBD pet marketing campaign that truly resonates with pet owners. Contact us today for more information about how we can help. 

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CBD CBD Products CBD Services

If you’ve never had a client question the legality or the psychoactivity of CBD products, consider yourself fortunate. Here’s why CBD education should be the first step with clients.

When you work in an industry, you often acquire the “curse of knowledge.” This means that because you spend all day knee-deep in the ins and out of your business, you often begin to assume that people know much more about your industry than they actually do. The CBD business is not immune to this, and it’s something that often adversely affects CBD marketing.

Here’s the truth: Most consumers know much less about CBD products that you may imagine. By at least one recent estimate, 35% of men and 49% of women interviewed said they had less than “some” familiarity with CBD. Another 15% reported never having heard of CBD.

Those numbers should give pause to anyone involved with CBD marketing. Why? Because those numbers mean about 50 million Americans have yet to even hear about CBD products, while another 125 million or so are relatively clueless about CBD. Many confuse it with cannabis, think it is illegal or are unaware of its benefits and applications.

Smart marketers aren’t going to simply sit back and wait for these consumers to type “CBD legal” or “CBD law” into their search engines. Instead, they will take an active role in addressing client education.

Why Client Education is Crucial

An absence of knowledge isn’t the only reason why education is critical — the other key factor is the nature of the product. The cannabis industry has taken an extremely aggressive approach in terms of providing potential customers with education about their products. Today’s cannabis dispensaries hire qualified “budtenders” who gently walk new consumers through the various strains of their products and the effects they have on the human body. Consumers can also scan bar codes from packages into kiosks to get self-serve educational information.

While CBD and cannabis are distinct products retailed in different contexts, education should also play a key role within this category. Though CBD is not psychoactive, many consumers do not know this. Many others don’t believe it entirely, until they’ve experienced it themselves. The association with cannabis remains at the front of their mind.

By taking an equally aggressive approach to product education via marketing and branding, it’s possible to put the minds of the “CBD curious” at ease and convince them to try products in this space for the first time. It’s also important, however, to proceed with all due caution, given the state of CBD marketing rules.

What to Know About CBD Marketing and Educational Awareness

When using CBD product marketing or branding to educate consumers, it’s essential to do this in a manner that comports with all relevant laws and regulations. One key example: Brands cannot advertise their products in a way that makes illegal health claims. The FDA has cracked down on dozens of CBD brands that have made unsupported health claims when marketing their products.

It’s more than possible to educate and market while remaining on the right side of federal regulators, as there is a plethora of valid scientific data available that attests to the clinical performance of CBD. Brands should reference this data and carefully outline educational information that is supported by the scientific literature, rather than making hyperbolic health claims that have no basis in medically established fact.

A well-designed and smartly executed educational component that stays on the right side of existing rules can be a powerful marketing tool, as it will resolve many of the lingering doubts CBD curious consumers may have. Once these consumers understand that CBD is non-intoxicating, federally legal in 50 states and comes with a variety of medically validated benefits, any hesitance to try CBD products may quickly dry up.

Why Bigeye is the Preferred CBD Marketing Agency

At Bigeye, we were developing compelling cannabidiol marketing campaigns before most other agencies had even heard the letters “CBD.” If you’d like to work with true domain experts, we encourage you to reach out to Bigeye today.

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CBD CBD Products CBD Services

The CBD gold rush is in full effect, with new businesses and new uses appearing for the compound. Read where CBD products are gaining the most traction.

Say “CBD” to average consumers, and they’ll probably tell you about tinctures, balms, and gummies — and maybe the CBD-infused beverages they see retailed at the local gas station or pharmacy. That’s a massive leap over just a year or two ago, when the letters CBD would likely just elicit a puzzled stare. Today, CBD products are being developed in a variety of new verticals. If you’re the owner of a company in this space, it pays to know which sectors are transforming into true CBD industries. 

Let’s take a closer look at some of the newest industries where CBD products are beginning to reach critical mass, and how the right CBD product agency can help your brand take advantage.

CBD and the Pet Industry

The rate of growth of CBD-infused products in the pet industry is nothing short of staggering, surging from virtually nothing in 2017 to $125 million in 2018. The industry is projected to reach $1 billion by 2022 recording compound annual growth of roughly 57%. 

Today, CBD-infused pet products are omnipresent and marketed to address some of the most common problems that plague pets (anxiety, pain and inflammation, etc.). This makes the pet industry a perfect match for CBD products, as pet owners who suffer from many of these same issues may choose to treat their pets with CBD after finding success with it in their own lives.

CBD and the Beauty Industry 

The beauty and cosmetics space is a natural home for CBD brands. The reason why is simple: CBD oil has a variety of benefits in terms of skin care; it reduces swelling and inflammation and promotes healthier skin by facilitating collagen production. Reducing inflammation is critical in terms of good skin care, as inflammation is one of the key processes involved with acne breakouts and other skin issues.

Given these benefits, it’s hardly surprising that beauty is one of the most popular new CBD industries. The CBD cosmetics market is projected to reach $1.7 billion by 2025, outpacing even the CBD pet market.

The CBD Beverage Market

Drinks infused with CBD have taken the market by storm over the last year. In total, CBD-infused beverages are projected to reach $1.4 billion in annual value by 2023, a figure nearly 20x higher than the market’s value in 2017. CBD is being infused in beer, wine, soda, coffee, tea and many other beverages, giving this space the potential to be among the most lucrative and largest of all CBD industries.

Beverages are popular because they are one of the easiest forms by which to consume CBD. People who do not wish to apply or inhale CBD can simply ingest it by ordering one of the many popular new CBD beverages.

Drinking your CBD has a few added benefits:

  • The dosing is more precise when dealing with water-soluble CBD, as most cannabinoids are absorbed by the body
  • Soft drinks are retailed almost everywhere, making them convenient
  • There is some evidence that CBD can counteract the effects of caffeine if you’re over-stimulated

CBD and the Restaurant Industry

While CBD within prepared dishes isn’t as popular as CBD infused into common beverages, it is a fast-growing trend. Many higher-end eateries are experimenting with adding CBD to popular recipes. In fact, a National Restaurant Association survey found that three-in-four chefs believe CBD will be among the top new restaurant trends in the near-term future.

While some municipalities have outlawed the addition of CBD into plated dishes, the practice has been widely adopted in places such as Colorado and California.

CBD Tampons and Other Wellness Products

Given its reported ability to staunch the flow of common body pain, it’s unsurprising that CBD is finding its way into feminine care products. CBD tampons are being marketed as a “20-minute cure” for the cramps that often accompany menstruation.

CBD protein powders, muscle rubs, and other wellness products are also taking the industry by storm, becoming a popular option for people seeking pain and inflammation relief without having to resort to pharmaceuticals.

Why Bigeye is the Leading CBD Marketing Agency

You can’t market effectively if you don’t understand the industry. At Bigeye, we’ve been creating compelling CBD marketing campaigns for CBD industries nearly as long as the market has existed.

Contact us today to learn what Bigeye can do for your CBD brand.