Planning your company’s 2024 PR marketing budget is essential in the new year. Cannabis industry professionals predict that 2024 will be a big year for cannabis, so you need to make sure your company is ready to keep up. A robust public relations strategy is one of the best ways to ensure your company remains competitive in this exciting market. From the United States’ oldest cannabis PR agency, here are three things we advise our clients to remember when planning their PR strategy and budget.
1. Clarify Your PR Goals for 2024
First and foremost, you’ll need to clarify your goals for pursuing PR opportunities in 2024.
PR to Build Brand Awareness
PR tactics are excellent for increasing the public’s awareness of your brand. Getting your name out there will help you make an impression on clients, consumers, and fellow industry professionals.
PR to Foster Industry Connections
Standing out in your sector is a great way to catch the eye of other major players in your industry. To solidify those connections, you’ll need to actively capitalize on your public relations traction by attending cannabis events, taking speaking opportunities, and connecting one-on-one with other cannabis industry business leaders. They will already be aware of your brand through the PR work you’ve done, so making connections — and potentially even lucrative business deals — will become easier with the help of PR.
Increase Sales with PR and Other Strategies
It’s a common misconception that your PR strategy will directly help increase sales and generate new leads. While brand awareness through PR is one of the critical steps in attracting new customers, you’ll need to employ other strategies, like SEO and more direct marketing, to see an increase in traffic. However, PR provides an indispensable foundation to build on when working to grow your company.
2. Get Creative and Diversify Your PR Marketing Campaigns
Cannabis is a growing industry, but that also means it’s getting more and more competitive. To excel, you’ll need to build upon basic PR strategies. An experienced PR company like NisonCo, which has been in the industry since before the first legal cannabis sale, can help.
Think Beyond Press Release Distribution
Releasing articles through typical channels like NewsWire is still essential in maintaining a consistent brand image and catching the eye of others in the industry. Straightforward releases like these often attract the attention of other publications and be syndicated or lead to more in-depth features. However, to help your cannabusiness stand out, you’ll need to work with a PR agency that can help you expand your press release horizons.
Weigh the Pros and Cons of Pay-to-Play PR Opportunities
More and more PR opportunities are “pay-to-play,” meaning you must pay a fee to be featured. These opportunities can be a good way to gain exposure in front of a border audience, but they may also be overpriced and less effective than organic placements. The best way to determine whether a pay-to-play opportunity is right for your company is to partner with a PR agency like NisonCo, which has over a decade of experience placing all types of pieces in all kinds of publications.
Launch Creative PR Campaigns
The best PR and marketing campaigns are the ones that stand out. It is beneficial to partner with a PR agency that can help you refine your goals and decide how to promote the unique aspects of your company to make an impact on the industry and set your cannabusiness apart.
3. Integrate SEO into Your 2024 PR Strategy
Finally, while a low cost PR campaign can be incredibly effective on its own, SEO can help take it to the next level. It’s imperative to have an SEO strategy for your website, but incorporating SEO integration best practices into your press releases, articles, and editorials can also help them gain traction and visibility. You can publish a top-tier press release full of valuable information; however, it won’t make an impact unless it ranks highly on search engine results pages (SERPs) since less than 1% of users click over to the second page of Google results. It’s helpful to work with an agency that does both PR and SEO, like NisonCo, to optimize your press releases using SEO best practices.
An Affordable PR Firm Can Help You Achieve Your PR Goals in 2024 and Beyond
There’s much to think about regarding PR in 2024, especially when considering it needs to be combined with SEO strategies to have the most significant possible impact. The best way to maximize the efficacy of your PR efforts is to partner with a PR agency that’s familiar with your industry and can address all your needs.
NisonCo has over a decade of experience helping cannabis companies and businesses in other future-facing industries, and we offer SEO services, content creation, marketing, and website building services to complement our low cost PR offerings.
