Influencer marketing has become essential for cannabis brands. Partnering with influencers allows companies to leverage their audiences, credibility and content skills for greater visibility, traffic, and sales. Cannabis influencer campaigns offer benefits for growth, especially when optimized for SEO and ROI.
Major cannabis influencers like The Canna Life (500K followers) and Best Buds (1.2M subscribers) have built highly engaged audiences of cannabis consumers by sharing their passion and knowledge over many years. Rather than having to build niche communities from scratch, partnering with established cannabis influencers provides brands immediate access to groups that already know, trust and value their opinions as experts in the industry.
For example, cannabis subscription box company Cannabox capitalized on micro-influencers in the cannabis space to promote their monthly boxes to targeted subscriber groups. Working with select influencers who shared their same values and vision in a more personalized way, Cannabox was able to gain 5,000 new monthly subscribers in under a year through an influencer campaign optimized for conversions. The influencers motivated their followers by offering special discount codes and deals exclusive to their communities.
In contrast, a general social media influencer or celebrity with a large following may not have the same effect as those hyper-focused on a specific niche. While their reach may be greater, their ability to directly influence buying decisions within that niche is less certain. Cannabis brands seeking real impact must consider an influencer’s relevance to and knowledge about their precise products, services and mission.
Micro-Influencers for Macro Impact: Cannabox Case Study
As evidenced in Cannabox’s influencer marketing success, while mega-influencers (500K+ followers) have more reach, micro-influencers (10K to 100K followers) often have higher engagement rates and the strongest ability to influence niche communities.
They have built a highly-engaged trust and personal connection with their followers that translates to a higher percentage of action or sales. Micro-influencers in the cannabis space become trusted personal weed guides to their followers, able to move their opinions and behavior in a way larger influencers cannot match.
For cannabis brands, this means considering a mix of influencers both large and small in scale. While the biggest names raise awareness and visibility, the smaller influencers drive the highest in-group motivation through a sense of shared interest and values with their followers.
Cannabox clearly understood this dynamic, leveraging the power of multiple micro-influencers over a short time period to achieve a macro impact on brand growth at an efficient cost. Their strategic influencer campaign helped to quickly establish them as an authority in the subscription cannabis box space through key partnerships.
Ranking Power: Influencer Mentions Improve SEO
When influential social media profiles, blogs, YouTube channels, and websites mention cannabis brands by name and include links back to their website, it signals to Google that these brands are important and authoritative. The more authoritative and higher-ranking the influencer’s domain, the bigger impact their link will have. Over time, consistent influencer mentions and backlinks drive exponential organic growth by boosting search rankings and visibility.
For example, after popular cannabis YouTuber customgrow420 posted a review of the Pax 3 vaporizer, featuring multiple mentions of Pax Labs and a link to their product page, Pax saw a huge surge in traffic and sales. The single influencer video received over 300,000 views, exposing the Pax brand to customgrow’s loyal subscribers and ranking them higher in search results for queries like “best portable vaporizer.”
Influencer Trust Drives Action: Cookies Cannabis x Berner
Influencers are able to drive desired customer actions and conversions at high rates thanks to the relationships of trust they have built with their followers. When an influencer recommends or features products and services to their audience, they are significantly more likely to respond and convert compared to most other marketing strategies. This is evidenced in Cookies Cannabis Co.’s partnership with rapper and cannabis entrepreneur Berner, who has a massive reach of over 4 million followers.
By leveraging Berner’s influential platform to help promote their new cannabis strains to his loyal fanbase, Cookies Cannabis was able to gain major social buzz and a high volume of direct sales. Berner’s recommendation and co-sign of their products translated quickly into customer action due to the credibility he has established as not just an entertainer but a leader in the cannabis space. His reputation and personal brand ultimately transferred to quick wins and high conversion rates for the cannabis company he featured.
Influencer Education Motivates Engagement: Eaze x 420 Chef
Similarly, cannabis delivery brand Eaze tapped cannabis chef and educator Andrew Freedman, known as “420 Chef,” to create video content around edibles for their followers and subscribers. By having 420 Chef develop entertaining yet informative explainers on cannabis infusions, proper dosing, and recipe ideas, Eaze was able to motivate their target customers with value beyond just their products and services.
Loyalty: Continued Engagement Leads to Retention
MedMen’s Long-Term Partnership with Bryant Jackson Built Loyalty
One of the most impactful cannabis influencer collaborations has been ongoing sponsorship of cannabis lifestyle photographer Bryant Jackson by leading cannabis retailer MedMen. Since 2016, MedMen has continued to partner with Jackson to curate gallery shows of his work aimed at promoting greater acceptance and understanding of cannabis culture.
MedMen’s initial decision to sponsor Jackson’s first solo gallery exhibit, New Normal, was a risk that ultimately paid off through the widespread press coverage and media highlights they received as a result, with many praising MedMen for their support of the arts. However, the true success of their influencer relationship emerged through long-term vision and consistency.
Rather than ending their work with Jackson after the first successful campaign, MedMen chose to stick with the influential photographer as a brand ambassador and partner for future projects. Audiences grew accustomed to seeing the cannabis photographer’s name and work alongside MedMen’s brand, coming to associate them as natural partners working toward a shared goal of destigmatizing cannabis in society.
Over years of co-promotion and community engagement, including more gallery shows, behind-the-scenes content creation, and social media cross-promotion, MedMen and Bryant Jackson have built up a competitive advantage that is hard to replicate. They have established a loyal base of advocates and customers responsive to their continued collaborations and invested in the culture they have built together through strategic influencer marketing.
The longevity of their partnership has allowed MedMen to motivate and retain customers through ongoing immersive experiences with their now familiar brand ambassador. Bryant Jackson’s followers have become MedMen advocates, while MedMen’s community engages more with their influencer partnership content than any other. They have leveraged each other’s audiences and built new shared ones through a relationship that feels authentic because it has truly stood the test of time.
Continually engaging with influential partners over months and years leads to the highest-impact campaigns with maximum returns. When done strategically, long-term influencer relationships become partnerships that build unparalleled brand loyalty based on shared experiences and values. MedMen’s pioneering decision to stick with Bryant Jackson as their influencer for the long haul has made them an industry leader in retention-focused marketing. The case for maintaining lasting partnerships is clear in their proven success.