The Importance of Consumer Education

An educated customer base is likely to become the key to the longevity and profitability for cannabis businesses. An educated customer offers value to cannabis businesses in several ways. Here is a look at what constitutes an educated customer and what they bring to a cannabis business.

What is an Educated Customer?

An educated customer or consumer is an informed one. This person will know something about the products they use or need. They may know:

• How the product came into being
• What the product includes
• How to use the product properly
• How to learn more about the product if they need to

An educated customer becomes one when they consume informational marketing materials or do research on a product or service. Customer education can happen right on the floor of a dispensary or other establishment.

What Makes an Educated Customer Valuable in the Cannabis Industry?

When you educate your customers and prospects, several benefits become quickly apparent. Some of those benefits include:

• An increase in customer trust
• A reduction in customer complaints
• An increase in customer loyalty
• An increase in satisfied customers

Educating your customers and potential customers also shows that your business cares about them, their health, their wellbeing, and their comfort.

What Pain Points Hinder a Cannabis Company from Having Educated Customers?

A customer who doesn’t understand the products and services your business offers can become someone who actively works against your business and its goals:

• What happens when someone purchases the wrong thing because they thought it was something it wasn’t?
• What happens when they write long reviews discrediting your business or service?
• What happens if they become sick and attempt to place the blame on your business?

Education helps to curtail these and other eventualities. So, it’s not just about the customer experience, it’s about protecting your business as well.

Customer-Facing Staff Should Also Have the Right Level of Education

That need for customer education also means there’s an equal need for people with a very good working knowledge of the industry to do the actual educating. One major pain point is what a customer learns at one place may not match what they learned at another. Customers with preconceived notions that no one dissuades them from can also become a problem.

Equally, your staff should also know what they’re talking about when they tell a customer something about cannabis or a cannabis product. A major issue is that not all staff will have the same level of knowledge.

A customer who comes to a dispensary one day may receive wildly different information when they visit the next time. If there’s always a rotating staff or frequent turnovers, the customer may never receive the type of information they require to make them an informed customer.

However, an educated customer, who has a confidence about what they know, can often navigate beyond erroneous information. A customer that knows what they want and why they want it will also help dispensaries figure out where they need to place their inventory dollars.

How Can Cannabis Companies Educate Their Customers?

Customer education requires a plan. Education-based marketing represents an excellent start to creating an educated customer base. That plan starts with knowing your customer:

• Do you know who visits your dispensaries and why they chose yours out of the bunch?
• Are there many people who show up for a singular purpose or from a specific source?
• Do you market the right products to the right people?

Embrace Educational Marketing

You can create marketing and marketing messages that center on giving your customers and prospects all the relevant information they would need to make an informed decision.

For example, digital marketing can include content exploring how a resin comes to be or how to distinguish quality CBD products from the thousands that are out there. These marketing messages can come as videos, pictures, infographics, blog posts, social media posts, and various other ways.

In this way, you will educate customers and prospects by giving them ways to answer their own questions and solve problems they may have. You will also position your business as one consisting of experts in the field people can trust.

Some cannabis companies find digital marketing difficult. However, there are many groups that can help any cannabis business get its message out effectively. If in doubt, seek a marketing agency that specializes in cannabis industry marketing to help get you started on creating a profitable and educated customer base.