Getting your cannabis brand noticed requires more than great products. It demands strategic media coverage that builds credibility and creates authority for search engines and large language models. While traditional advertising remains limited, a well-executed PR strategy can get you in front of your target audience via both earned media and search results.
The Unique Challenges of Cannabis PR
Cannabis PR operates in a complex landscape that requires specialized expertise and strategic thinking. Understanding these challenges is the first step toward building an effective media strategy.
Overcoming Advertising and Marketing Restrictions
Unlike traditional industries, cannabis companies face significant advertising restrictions across major platforms. This makes earned media coverage even more valuable. When journalists write about your brand organically, it carries more weight than paid advertisements ever could. Maximizing the impact of earned media coverage becomes crucial when traditional advertising channels remain limited.
Navigating Stigma and Public Perception
Despite growing acceptance, cannabis still faces stigma in mainstream media. You have to layer in education and normalization. Cannabis still carries stigma, so part of the pitch involves explaining why this company, its leaders, or its product matters beyond cannabis. It’s less about ‘weed’ and more about public health, social justice, business innovation, or consumer trends.
Understanding why cannabis reputation management requires a comprehensive strategy is essential for overcoming these perception challenges.
The Importance of a Credible Brand Story
In a regulated industry where trust is paramount, your brand story must demonstrate legitimacy, compliance, and positive community impact. Media coverage helps establish this credibility in ways that self-promotion simply cannot.
The landscape has evolved dramatically since 2013. The normalization of cannabis coverage has been the biggest shift our team has witnessed. In 2013, only a handful of niche outlets would touch the topic, and mainstream reporters often framed cannabis as fringe or illicit. Today, cannabis is part of business, health, lifestyle, and even food/beverage beats.
Setting Realistic Expectations for a Cannabis PR Campaign
Before diving into strategy, it’s important to understand what successful cannabis PR actually delivers and how long it takes.
How Long Does it Take to Get Press Coverage?
With the right story, you might see your first major placement in 30-60 days. However, 3-6 months is more realistic to build relationships, refine messaging, and align with news cycles. PR is a long game that compounds over time.
What Does a Successful Cannabis PR Campaign Look Like?
One of our proudest achievements was securing a front-page feature in the business section of a major national newspaper for a client expanding into a new state. That single article unlocked investor conversations, regulatory goodwill, and local consumer trust in ways no advertising spend could have achieved.
Can I Pitch a Reporter or do I need a PR Agency?
Our data shows cold pitches work about 10-15% of the time, while warm introductions through established relationships achieve 60-70% success rates. This underscores why cannabis PR is as much about relationships as messaging.
Your Cannabis PR Strategy Roadmap
With realistic expectations set, let’s build your strategic foundation for securing meaningful media coverage. Effective press coverage strategies require careful planning and execution.
Step 1: Define Your “Why” – Your Brand Narrative
Before pitching any journalist, you need a compelling brand narrative that goes beyond product features.
How do I Create my Company’s Mission and Values?
What problem does your cannabis company solve? Whether it’s providing medical relief, supporting social equity, or advancing industry innovation, your mission should be clear and newsworthy.
Who is the Best Spokesperson for my Company?
Designate knowledgeable spokespeople who can speak confidently about your industry expertise. Journalists need reliable sources who can provide valuable insights beyond basic company information. Understanding the difference between a cannabis publicist and a PR pro can help you determine the right spokesperson approach.
Step 2: Know Your Media Landscape
Understanding where your audience consumes cannabis-related content is crucial for targeting the right publications.
How do I get Mainstream Media Coverage for my Cannabis Company?
The media landscape has become significantly more cannabis-friendly. Forbes, Bloomberg, Politico, Rolling Stone, and even The New York Times have all consistently opened their doors to cannabis stories. On the lifestyle side, outlets like Bon Appétit and Men’s Health now cover cannabis in a way that would’ve been unthinkable a decade ago.
For outlets like Forbes or Inc., focus on traction, scale, and innovation stories: growth metrics, unique funding rounds, new business models, or executives with pedigrees from Fortune 500 companies entering cannabis. Framing cannabis as an emerging, investable industry rather than a novelty is what resonates.
Building relationships with the right journalists is crucial. To identify key media contacts in your space, check out our guide on hemp and cannabis reporters to follow in 2025.
Step 3: Master the Pitch
Your pitch email can make or break your media outreach efforts. Securing media coverage requires understanding what journalists actually want.
What Are the Biggest Mistakes to Avoid in PR?
The biggest mistake is leading with a product pitch rather than a story. Journalists don’t want to be a company’s advertising arm; they’re looking for narratives that fit into broader cultural, business, or policy conversations. The pitch almost always falls flat if a company can’t tie its news to bigger trends such as regulatory shifts, consumer behavior, or social equity.
What are the Best Angles to Pitch a Reporter?
Sometimes, unconventional approaches break through. We once tied a client’s new beverage product to the release of a major DnD update. It was playful but anchored in consumer lifestyle trends, and it landed in entertainment and food sections we normally wouldn’t have reached.
How to Write a Pitch To a Reporter?
Keep pitches concise, newsworthy, and personalized. Lead with your strongest angle, provide relevant data or expert insights, and make it easy for journalists to see the story value. Most importantly, connect your news to larger industry trends or cultural conversations. For more detailed guidance, read our 7 tips to get cannabis press coverage in 2025.
Relevant media placement requires the right relationships and an understanding of the larger story. NisonCo can help with hourly work to fine-tune your strategy or monthly retained services, where we manage everything for you.
From Pitch to Placement
Once your foundation is solid, execution becomes critical for securing consistent media coverage. How to gain more media coverage for your brand involves consistent relationship building and strategic timing.
Building and Nurturing Media Relationships
Why Follow-Up Matters When Pitching Reporters (But Don’t Be Annoying)
Most journalists receive hundreds of pitches weekly. A polite follow-up after a week can help your story rise to the top, but avoid being pushy or sending multiple follow-ups.
How to Become a Trusted Cannabis Industry Resource
Provide journalists with valuable information even when you’re not seeking coverage. Share industry data, connect them with other expert sources, or offer insights on breaking news. This positions you as a go-to resource for future stories.
Handling Negative Media Coverage
This is how our team handles such situations. We start by assessing whether the coverage is factually incorrect or just unfavorable. If it’s wrong, we politely provide corrections and supporting evidence. If it’s opinion-based but fair, we let it go and look for the next opportunity to shift the narrative. Often, the best approach is a follow-up pitch that reframes the client in a new light, so the journalist has reason to revisit the story later.
Leveraging Earned Media Across Your Channels
When you secure media coverage, maximize its impact by sharing it across your website, social media, and email marketing. This amplifies the reach and demonstrates credibility to potential customers and partners. How to secure media coverage extends beyond the initial placement to ongoing amplification.
How to Use Crisis Communications When Things Go Wrong
The cannabis industry faces unique regulatory and reputational challenges that require proactive crisis planning.
Real-World Crisis Management
One of the toughest crises we faced was when a client faced a product recall. Social media lit up quickly, and regulators were involved. We immediately built a crisis comms plan: transparent public statement within hours, direct communication to affected consumers, and proactive outreach to reporters to provide accurate context before speculation took over. The key was honesty and speed. By owning the mistake, laying out corrective action, and showing leadership’s accessibility, the story moved from ‘company in trouble’ to ‘company doing the right thing.
Key Crisis Communication Principles
- Speed matters: Respond within hours, not days
- Transparency builds trust: Own mistakes and outline corrective actions
- Proactive outreach: Reach journalists before speculation spreads
- Focus on solutions: Show leadership and responsibility
Integrating PR with SEO and AI for Maximum Impact
Modern cannabis marketing requires an integrated approach that combines traditional PR with digital strategies.
The SEO-PR Connection
How to Get High-Authority Backlinks
Media coverage from reputable publications provides valuable backlinks that boost your cannabis SEO rankings. These high-authority links signal to search engines that your brand is trustworthy and relevant.
How to Build Digital Authority
Each media mention increases your brand’s digital footprint and helps you rank for branded search terms. This creates a compound effect where PR success drives SEO performance. Coordinate your PR efforts with your 2025 cannabis content marketing planning calendar for maximum impact.
AI-Enhanced PR Strategies
AI consulting services can help identify relevant journalists, track industry trends, and optimize your outreach timing for maximum impact. While human expertise remains essential for relationship building and strategic thinking, AI tools can enhance efficiency in research and content optimization.
Building Consistent Media Coverage
Securing cannabis media coverage isn’t a one-time effort—it requires consistent relationship building, strategic thinking, and ongoing value creation. The most successful cannabis brands treat PR as a long-term investment in their reputation and market position.
Remember, competition is fierce. Where once any cannabis news was novel, now you have to show unique value to break through. Focus on connecting your story to broader trends, building genuine relationships with journalists, and positioning your company as a credible voice in meaningful conversations.
Ready to elevate your cannabis brand through strategic media coverage?
Contact NisonCo today to learn how our comprehensive public relations, SEO, and content marketing services can help you secure the media attention your brand deserves. With over a decade of cannabis industry expertise and relationships with thousands of journalists, we’re uniquely positioned to help your story reach the right audiences.
