🖐 Ahem...your funnel is wonky

As Jane has evolved from a service that offers “online ordering for retailers” to include indirect-to-consumer for brands to data analytics for everyone to digital ads functionality for brands, we have been exposed to lots and lots of retail and brand business plans. We have discussed retail ops, shopping journeys, trade marketing, and - the funkiest of the bunch - customer acquisition initiatives.

I call them funky for a number of reasons, but the most salient one is that advertising, specifically, is very restricted in this space. Google and Facebook - which account for 50% of total digital ad dollars - are a no-go. Publishers often require that copy for programmatic campaigns be “clean,” which just means restricted such that they don’t really mention cannabis. Tough to be creative in that arena.

Ads aren’t the only funkiness involved the cannabis customer acquisition funnel, though. We tend to conflate top of funnel initiatives with lower funnel metrics. We tend to ignore mid-funnel initiatives altogether.

But don’t fret. Brian is here. Let’s dig in. 🕺🏻

🧈 TOFU (Top of Funnel)

First of all, I know that the emoji above is butter. Don’t @ me, it’s the closest thing to tofu.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s start broad, at the very tip of your acquisition funnel. This is your first impression with a potential customer - the very first reason that they might consider your product / store / brand / service.

The goal here is NOT to convert customers or generate sales. That’s a major misconception in the cannabis space - that we should measure efficacy of TOFU initiatives with conversions or sales. No!

The real goal of TOFU initiatives - which include advertising (digital, print, radio, OOH, email blasts, etc.) and content marketing (blog posts, podcasts, etc.) - should be to generate brand awareness and leads.

💡 The KPIs related to top of funnel initiatives are destination visits. Destinations can be your website or a physical storefront.

Btw, I mentioned that Facebook and Google were a no-no, but that doesn’t mean that cannabis businesses are locked out of broad programmatic campaigns. As Brett Konen of the Cannabis Industry Journal writes,

🎯 MOFU (Middle of Funnel)

The middle of the funnel is not unlike the middle child. It is often forgotten and given hand-me-downs.

The middle of the funnel is where you have piqued interest in your potential customer, and they’re down to dig in.

The goal here is to educate your potential customers about your wares, and hopefully drive consideration of a purchase. The levers here are excellent content in the digital environment - including top-notch images, descriptions, searchable meta tags, video assets, etc. - as well as in-store displays in the physical environment. The goal is to tell the story and harp on your value proposition.

The KPIs are related to actions performed in the midst of the shopping journey: clicks, views, searches, and add-to-carts. 

🎯 BOFU (Bottom of Funnel)

The bottom of the funnel is the moment of truth. Now, and only now, do we want people to purchase our products. We have tickled their fancy at TOFU, educated them at MOFU, and now we want their high-intent eyeballs to convert here in the holy land of BOFU.

The only goal here is to drive purchase. KPIs are conversions. Basket size. Sales, baby!

The levers here are familiar to brick and mortar environments, but very new in the digital space: priority placement of products.

Trade marketing is a well-worn pursuit at physical retail. Here is my old take on it:

This concept of digital trade marketing, though, is relatively new. And actually executing it well is brand-spanking new.

📚 tl;dr

• It is Thursday