Cannabis Branding Agency: How to Choose the Best Agency to Help Achieve Your Goals

Cannabis branding agency, who are they, and why do you need them? CBD is a fast-growing industry at the moment. Besides all of its potential and growth, the industry also comes with many regulations for branding and marketing. To launch your business smoothly, you’ll need some of the most creative marketers. However, choosing the right cannabis branding agency is not a simple task. The market is getting much more crowded and it can be confusing sometimes. But you don’t need to worry anymore, here is our ultimate guide for choosing a branding agency.

1. Why do you need a cannabis branding agency?

The number of customers for the CBD sector is increasing every year, and we strongly believe it’s not going to stop. The sales of legal cannabis are expected to skyrocket in the next decade, so you can be sure about the potential of the CBD industry. Since the CBD industry is still too young to explore, there is still plenty of room to grow. Brands are investing greatly into marketing to reach their desired goals on the market. By now, if you’re thinking about establishing a marijuana business, you should also consider hiring a cannabis branding agency.

Not only will they save out a lot of time than working on your own, but the product they deliver is much more measured to the needs of customers. A cannabis branding agency will understand both customers' needs but also catch their attention while still giving your brand a great personality to stand out. Hiring an agency means you’re working directly with experts of the market, who know what is essential for the growth of your CBD business. Thus, everything about branding will be done for you while you can focus your resource on other aspects of the business growth.

Outsourcing branding tasks to agencies means you can rely on them for cannabis logo design, packaging design, online/commerce web design, social media design, and more. Those are the tasks that you can easily keep track of and comment on whenever needed, yet don’t take up too much of your time and energy.

2. What’s the process of working with a branding agency?

Most business owners are not very familiar with outsourcing projects to agencies and are more familiar with relying on in-house design work. If you’re feeling a bit confused about the process, let us help you. Although each cannabis branding agency has a different workflow, here’s the simplest guide for you to begin working with one.

First, before reaching out to a cannabis branding agency, you should determine some information about your brand. Specific goals, your target audience, and possible brand names. We actually work with clients on all of these aspects and have a brand audit worksheet that our clients fill out to help determine these items.  That information will be really useful for the agency to understand about you before handling the work details.

Next, let them know your expectations & budget. Those are also the core information you should talk about before working. After that is getting to know their process. Regularly, you will work with one key contact person – the account of the team. He or she will take all the necessary information from you and briefing it back to the creative team. We love setting up a kickoff zoom call with our clients to review all onboarding materials we require such as our brand audit worksheet, intake form, website wireframe doc, and much more.

Next up is the design phase. Most agencies have their own process on how they operate. For us, we like to collaborate with our clients throughout the process so that they have input in the design process.

Last but not least is receiving the final products from the agency team and now you’ve got your CBD branding ready to launch.

Of course, this is just a brief look at the process and how to work with a branding agency.

3. How to choose the right cannabis branding agency?

Now that you realize the value and importance of working with a design agency, you might wonder how to find the right agency to fulfill your needs. Don’t worry, we’ve got you!

Portfolio and background

This is the stage when some research is really helpful for you. The CBD industry is a unique and new industry, so finding an experienced agency is really important. What you’re looking for is a team with around 4-5 years of experience in the market. Get a list of agencies first, then begin checking their portfolio to see their style and how they pull off the work. By then, you can create a shortlist with 3-4 agencies to start inquiring about their process, cost for services, and more.

Location

We do not really recommend using an agency that is too far from your place. Finding a team that is at least based in the US and if not, closer to your home state is really important, especially with the cannabis business. Not all states have legalized cannabis, we are fortunate to be based in Maine where it IS legal so we know what rules apply to our market here but also, for our clients who are based in other states where regulations may be more challenging.

Knowing their capabilities

Not every cannabis branding agency is the same and we know you have an aesthetic you want to convey with your cannabis brand. Looking at what an agency specializes in is very important. Ask questions such as do you offer copywriting?  do you work on brand naming? Do you know what specific regulations and compliance issues we may face working on this cannabis project together? Do you build websites that allow for cannabis and CBD sales? Once you have a better understanding of the capabilities, this will help you narrow down the right agency for your business.

Agency size

Since cannabis branding agencies are quite a niche, working with a large, worldwide agency may pose a challenge and cost you your entire budget. A small, boutique-sized agency is a good alternative and will deliver amazing results at a fraction of the cost. A smaller team will have the ability to work with you directly vs shuffling you around from account manager to account manager.

Now sit back and enjoy the high

Do you need a cannabis branding agency? How do you choose the perfect one and how to work with them? If those questions are on your mind right now, then we’re here for help. Choosing a cannabis branding agency is an important decision you need to consider when stepping into the CBD industry. We would love to learn more and offer some tips of the trade!

GO ON, GET IN TOUCH WITH US!