Recreational cannabis gains prominence in early 2020 by gaining a business eclipse of about 20 billion dollars. Its business industry comprises a broad range of opportunities where one can succeed in starting legalized micro business using contemplated strategies.
The essential elements to kick start a marijuana microbusiness include communication tactics, license, insurance plan, accounting and marketing schemes. Traditional supply chain of marijuana comprises of few steps:
- Cultivating plant (Cultivators)
- Refining plant into product form (Manufacturers)
- Further selling it to market (Dispensaries)
Types of Marijuana Businesses
Setting up marijuana business is much more complex than the simple traditional cycle described above. This encompasses two broad categories i.e.
Plant touching business
Entrepreneurs must acquire a license to operate this kind of business. Which vary from country to country. Key entities that bring about this business type constitutes
- Breeders: Responsible for providing seeds to cultivators and escalating new marijuana strains from existing ones by using breeding techniques
- Cultivators: Manage task of growing healthy plants using various cultivation schemes in indoor environments (warehouses), to export it to dispensaries.
- Manufacturers: They make sure to fill dispensary shelves with end products made from harvested marijuana flowers. Products can be edibles/topicals.
- Dispensaries: These are sale points to distribute products by maintaining a chain of staff to act as a guide for customers for making decisions on what product to buy.
- Transportation Network: Logistics play a major role in moving plants to preparation units, products to seller points and equipment to carry out manufacturing operations.
Ancillary Business
This business works in line with plant touching since it works on arranging machinery and packaging units as well as a team of professionals/lawyers to smoothen the plant touching development. Ancillary business play key part in provision of following components:
- Equipment: Manufacturers require multiple extraction and preservation machines to carry out plant touching tasks.
- Packaging: Appealing branding for business is what attracts customers and boosts business. Packaging segment barely gets in touch with plants but instead focuses on regulating business considerations.
- Professionals: Skillful experts of the cannabis industry (lawyers and marketers) are crucial in streamlining the business with added expertise.
- Security: the risk of robbery and other practical reasons, a security system is needed for regular monitoring of dispensary and manufacturing facilities to avoid unfavorable circumstances.
- Investment: VCs (Venture capitalists and other angel investors) are also joining the race of funding this business. Plant touching category goes through a hectic application process and thus requires substantial sponsorship from investors as a backbone.
Microbusiness
One must adhere to laws, regulations and limitations imposed by the state to govern a business. These law orders vary for every state, for example, in California it is compulsory for a person to engage in three to four commercial activities to become a cannabis licensee.
Fundamental steps where you should take a start to form a microbusiness are described in three divisions.
Characterize your brand
Once you have command on marijuana business essentials and market trends, brand building activity is the next step where you find a suitable name for your company. This denotation must be unique as it gets displayed on a website you use in future to reach out to customers. A website with a peculiar logo is a good measure since it will help customers to know your brand. The website acts as a communication ecosystem so make sure to hire professional branding assistance to fulfill this task effectively.
Formulate Communication Plan
Microbusiness owners may find it complex to derive a communication plan. Without a proper plan, all strategies can fall into a random and unclear place. Merely displaying billboards or growing social pages is not sufficient to get you growing in business.
- First step to begin with is to draw up a business tactic plan with set of defined goals
- Then you develop business objectives and define audience for accomplishing them
- Moreover, you set down your business key message and a strategy statement
- Further you create budget constraints and set up a timeline.
All above steps help you to regulate hectic processes when you are ready to get in the market and boost your communication protocols.
Apply PESO Technique
After formulating a plan, the next step is to follow the PESO roadmap to structure your strategies. Paid, Earned, Social, Owned are four unit elements in this sense. Paid stands for paid advertising and sponsorship. Earned refers to hard work you put in building public relations to get your content in the news. Social represents social media work done for marketing and Owned corresponds to a website that you own as a brand owner.
Improved Marketing
In the era of online trends, it is compulsory to reach out to people via online channels to market your image in the form of digital media. It is necessary to raise awareness among people so that they know your business presence. Marijuana based Ad networks, SEO, Blog Post, Website, Online Shop, Local/Event marketing and social media accounts are notable approaches you can use for your company to accomplish improved marketing goals.
To Sum Up
You can create a significant image in the market in a shorter time span by overcoming marketing and financial challenges on the way to establish your brand. Significant consultation services are available to help beginners understand the terms and tactics of marijuana business. So conduct your own research and then reach out to build a team of experts to work under regulatory circumstances for growing microbusiness.
