Looking to bring more people into your dispensary? While ramping up your dispensary marketing efforts may produce the results you’re looking for, there may be an easier, less costly way to bring them in. How? Google My Business. Google My Business is an essential digital marketing asset that can take your marketing strategy to the next level.
Generally, how do most people find information about businesses they are interested in visiting? Google. This goes for dispensaries as well, which is why managing your Google My Business account (GMB) is crucial to bringing in as many customers as possible.
Having a well-put-together and comprehensive GMB page is crucial to making the right impression on those customers finding your business on Google, which is why in this article we’ll be talking about how to properly manage your GMB account.
Let’s jump right in and talk briefly about setting up your GMB page.
Setting up your dispensaries Google My Business account
Setting up your GMB page is easy. Just go to Google My Business and start creating your page. Once you’ve done this, you’ll either be able to search for your business on Google and claim it, or if your business doesn’t show up, you’ll be able to create a listing for it and claim it in that way.
All you have to do after that is activate your GMB account, which is typically done by verifying your business via postcard, phone, or bulk verification (for multiple locations). Once this is done, you’ll be ready to start optimizing your GMB account!
How to Optimize your GMB Page
Push for reviews!
One of the most important things to do when optimizing your GMB account: Get reviews and ratings. Don’t be bashful when asking for them either, because these reviews and ratings will be one of the first things people look at when they search for your dispensary on Google.
A business will little to no reviews, bad ratings, or not enough ratings doesn’t look quite as good as a business with tons of reviews and high ratings. It’s going to take a while to get to that point, which is why it’s best to start as soon as possible.
How do you encourage customers to leave reviews? With deals of course. For example, when you send your customers a message after their first visit (which you should be doing), ask them to rate your business 5 stars on Google and leave a review in exchange for 20% off their next visit!
Add Photos
Similar to how reviews will have a big impact on the first impression customers get from your GMB page, so will the photos on your page.
Having low-quality photos, or no photos at all, on your GMB page is another turn off for customers and may come across as unprofessional to some of your potential customers. Your customers want to know what to expect when they get to your dispensary, so uploading pictures is a must.
When uploading pictures, upload things that customers would want to see. That means uploading pictures of the outside of your store, the inside of your store, employees, and things like COVID-19 procedures among other things.
Choose the correct category for your business
Now that your business is looking good on GMB, you have to make sure that you’re doing the right things on your end to give your business the best chance of being put in front of your customers when they are searching for dispensaries.
The category you choose for your business will directly affect your rankings, which is why this is so important. As a cannabis dispensary or any cannabis business for that matter, you’ll want to choose “cannabis store,” which is the only cannabis-related option you’ll have.
If you want to better your chances of being found, especially now during the COVID-19 pandemic, then you can choose to have your secondary business category be “delivery service” if you offer delivery so that your business comes up towards the top of the search results for those searching for “cannabis delivery.”
Make sure your location marker is accurate
The next thing you’ll want to do: Make sure your location marker is accurate. While this is a small step, it can be the difference between your customers pulling into your dispensary’s parking lot and them pulling into the parking lot of the sandwich shop behind your building.
In doing this, you want to make sure that the marker is set right in front of your dispensary. Not to the side or on top, as this could lead some people to the wrong place or to the back of the building. This goes for stand-alone locations and locations attached to other businesses.
Make sure your page is up-to-date
Last but not least, you’ll want to consistently check on and update your dispensary’s Google My Business profile.
That means you’ll want to make sure that your hours of operation are up-to-date, you’re responding to reviews or questions, your location is current, your phone number is current, and that there are no duplicate listings of your dispensary among other things.
Making this a routine will be crucial because you could be doing everything right but when a customer shows up at your dispensary when your GMB page says it’s open and it’s instead closed… that might make a bad impression.
Want more cannabis dispensary marketing tips? Check out our blog here!
