Everything You Need to Know About the YouTube Partner Program and YouTube Monetization in 2020

In 2020, YouTube is as popular as ever. It remains the world’s second largest search engine and five billion YouTube videos are watched globally every day. Five billion. That’s a lot of eyeballs. YouTubers have long attention spans too; they spend an average of 40 minutes per session watching videos on the platform.

Some might have expected that, given that YouTube is now almost 15 years old now – it launched on February 14, 2005 – its popularity – and profitabilty – might have waned and that something newer and cooler would have come along by now to replace it.

But despite the best efforts of other video platforms like Vimeo YouTube is as dominant in the online video space as its parent company Google is in the general search space. The fact is if you want to try to make money from video content creation YouTube is still the place to be and becoming a YouTube partner, along with other YouTube monetization avenues, is the way to go.

Who is Making Money on YouTube in 2020?

It’s been a long time since YouTube was dominated by music videos. They’re still popular of course, and any musician needs to pay serious attention to the platform, but YouTube’s top earners in 2019 were quite the motley bunch:

Take a look at the highest-paid YouTubers of 2019

Ryan’s World /Ryan Kaji – $26 million

Dude Perfect – $20 million

Anastasia Radzinskaya – $18 million

Rhett and Link – $17.5 million

Jeffree Star – $17 million

Preston – $14 million

PewDiePie – $13 million

Markiplier – $13 million

Kids. Gamers. A male beauty influencer. Bootstrap comedy crews. These were the highest earners in 2019. Not a Kardashian among them.

These are the biggest earners. There are many more YouTubers making great money – and gaining fame – every day. And remember, the figures above are just what these YouTube stars make from the platform itself. Their earning power outside YouTube is even bigger.

For example, Jeffree Starr, whose signature cosmetics line is worth around $75 million just used $14 million of that $17 million he made from videos last year to buy a house practically next door to said Kardashians.

The top earners list proves one thing; anything goes on YouTube and if it’s engaging, the sky’s the limit.

How to Make Money on YouTube

While it’s more than possible to make significant income from YouTube content creation it’s not easy to do so. There are 500 hours of video uploaded to youTube every minute (seriously) and so the competition is huge.

So while no, you probably won’t make enough for a compound in Calabasas (like Starr) you can, with work, make a decent additional income. While as promotional platform for your product, service or company YouTube can be invaluable what we are taking a look at here are the ways that content creators can monetize their YouTube videos.

Become a YouTube Partner

As some of you reading this may be aware, becoming a YouTube partner has become a little more difficult since 2018. But for many YouTubers this is the best path to monetization – and to making money.

What Do You Need to Become a YouTube Partner in 2020?

Before 2018, the requirements for entry into the YouTube partner program were relatively easy to meet. A creastor needed to amass 10,000 lifetime views for their channel and host video content that met YouTube’s guidelines. In 2018 to prevent a YouTube blog post announced that so that “spammers, impersonators, and other bad actors can’t hurt our ecosystem” those requirements were becoming more stringent.

As of the time of writing to monetize your YouTube videos via the YouTube partner program you – or rather your channel – now need to rack up 4,000 hours of verified watchtime within the past 12 months and 1,000 verified subscribers. This has knocked a lot of small and ‘low-level’ channels out of the YouTube Partner Program over the past two years, but it has, as YouTube intended, also helped to improve the overall level of content posted on YouTube.

Getting to 4,000 hours watch time can seem like a tall order. But as the graphic below demonstrates – calculations put togther by a then YouTuber back when the rules changed in 2018 for a well read Medium article, the longer your videos are, the fewer views you will need. This does assume you can create one video a day, which for some people might seem impossible at first but it’s not, as we’ll explain in a moment:

Mathematically then, reaching Holy Grail of 4,000 hours may not be as hard as it seems. If you can make one video a day. And doing so might not be as time intensive as you imagine. Or require as much thought.

How to videos are always going to be popular on YouTube – in fact YouTube is where millions of people head first when they want to find out how to do something, and that something can be anything from how to beat a particularly hard level in a video game to how to change the oil in their car or how to make great scrambled eggs.

So, making one video a day could be as simple as sharing your best cookery tips. If you’re a gamer, a single session streamed live, or for a musician a jam session or a few related covers. As an SEO expert Pearl Lemon founder Deepak Shukla shares easy to consume, bite size SEO how tos and practices, as well as personal experiences and opinions.

Once you see that green “$” in your YouTube Video Manager you can apply to the YouTube Partner Program and start hosting ads.

There is no concrete timeline or format to get these foundational 4,000 hours. You can get 100 hours each on 40 videos, and there you are. If you are a viral maestro, you can get the 4,000 hours or 24,000 full views on one video.

But all of this takes time. The good news is that there are other ways to monetize your YouTube videos before becoming a YouTube partner.

Drive Traffic to Your Blog or Website to Increase Sales

YouTube video marketing remains an excellent way to promote your products, services or business in general. Ways you can market your business on YouTube include:

• Introducing yourself and your business
• Behind the scenes views to your business
• Tours and demonstrations of your business
• Q&A to answer your market’s questions about your niche and industry
• Tutorials

When you create your YouTube video, include links to your website or blog in the description and in the video itself.

Sell Products or Services Directly

YouTube has so much traffic potential and is so effective that many use it almost exclusively to promote their business. Instead of a blog, they use YouTube to share their expertise, tips, and insights to built trust and rapport with their market.

Similar to driving traffic to your website through video, you can sell your products and services using demonstrations, sharing your expertise and tips, answering questions, doing tutorials and more.

Affiliate Marketing

Don’t have your own product or service? No problem. Through YouTube, you can promote other businesses’ products and service through affiliate marketing.

To be most effective, you need a YouTube channel built around a specific niche and then find affiliate products and services that will solve your target market’s problems in that niche.

For example, you could tap into the increasingly popular home baking market, start a healthy baking YouTube channel, and find quality baking equipment and healthy good options through Amazon’s Associate’s program or other companies that offer baking supplies. Include the links to the products you’re using in your YouTube video’s description but don’t forget to add any required disclosures about affiliate links.

Along with sharing the tools and resources you use, you can also use YouTube to promote affiliate products by doing reviews and demonstrations.

Ads/Sponsorship

Generally, you need good traffic to sell ads or secure sponsorships for a YouTube video, but it may be possible to get this type of income before you qualify for the YouTube Partnership Program if your traffic is steady and growing. Further, selling ad space or getting sponsors has the potential to earn more than YouTube’s Partner Program, so it’s worth pursuing.

To sell ads or get a sponsorship, you’ll need to reach out to brands with a proposal. In your proposal you’ll need to:

• Introduce yourself and your YouTube Channel. Make sure you indicate how your channel relates to their business.
• Share your YouTube Channel, and provide information on the level of engagement you have, including views, comments, likes etc. If you have a good social media following, you can include those numbers to give you more authority and show off your influence.
• Focus on how you can help the company, as opposed to talking all about you. If you’ve used their product, let them know and share how much you liked it.
• Have a media and sponsorship kit to share with potential advertisers and sponsors.

Crowdfunding

It’s possible to generate regular income or project-based income using crowdfunding through YouTube. Much depends on your channel topic and what your crowdfunded donors get in exchange. For example, you might use crowdfunded money to enhance your production value or do special topics.

Usually, YouTube channel owners offer different rewards depending on the level of contribution. Some rewards channel owners can give include a shout-out in a video or something more substantial for more money contributed. This is actually a tactic used often by even better known YouTubers.

Crowdfunded money can be earned on a recurring, similar to a subscription or membership model, or project-based, in which people help fund a specific video or series that needs greater investments to be created.

How To Get the YouTube Views and View Time You Need (Almost) Free

So, you know how to become a YouTube Partner and how to make additional monies as a YouTube creator. But how do you actually get the YouTube views and view time you need, either to hit that 4,000 hour sweet spot to begin monetizing your YouTube videos directly or to make money in the other ways we’ve suggested (and any others you can come up with)

You can’t buy them, that’s for sure. Of all the things likely to get your videos booted off YouTube, buying views is one of the biggest. But there are plenty of ways to do things legimately – and often for free other than your time – that can got you all the views you need and more:

Ask People to Subscribe

That sounds very simplistic doesn’t it? And yet you would be surprised by just how many content creators on YouTube don’t actually bother to do it. They create videos that have fantastic information, are really entertaining and informative but then forget to make it clear to the audience that there is more of the same to come and so they should subscribe to be notified as soon as it does.

Once people subscribe, they can choose to be notified every time you upload new content and this will bring you instant views every time you release a new video. Add a call to action at the end of your video asking users to subscribe to your channel. And include a link in your video description that makes it easy for them to do so.

Use Playlists To Keep Those Eyeballs on Your Videos

According to YouTube’s own numbers s “top-performing brands on YouTube build and promote twice as many playlists as the bottom 25%.”

That’s because those top-performing brands understand the magic of auto-play. It’s much harder to pull yourself out of the YouTube rabbit hole when the videos just keep playing.

Users might not actually be motivated enough to keep watching if they have to click play every few minutes, but if the ‘hits keep coming’ the chances are very good that they will just keep going. When you have a little more time head to one of our favourite YouTube entertainment channels – Watch Mojo UK – and we can almost guarantee that you’ll be there for a while. As soon as one video stops the next one starts. And people are often there for hours.

So, how do you create a playlist? Here’s a video that explains it very simply:

Ten minutes, tops, and provided you are creating good content this will almost certainly increase your views on YouTube.

Make Use of YouTube Cards and End Screens

The card and end screen functionalities on YouTube offer you another way to get your viewers watching more of your videos while also helping them get more familiar with your brand every time they do.

Cards are those pop ups you see in the body of the video itself. This video explains how to add them.

Since at this point your focus is getting more YouTube views for free, you will probably get most mileage out of a channel card that just links to the rest of your videos. However you could use a video or playlist card to point viewers to specific related videos that it would make sense for them to watch next.

Making end screens for your videos is almost as simple as adding cards. Here’s how it’s done:

• From your YouTube account, click the Creator Studio link under your account icon.
• Click Video Manager > Videos.
• Click Edit on the video you want to add the end screen to, then click End screen.
• Choose whether to copy an existing end screen, create one using a YouTube template, or create one from scratch using the Add element option.
• When you’re happy with your selections, click Save.

Make Your Video Titles and Descriptions Search AND User Friendly

Before you can get new eyeballs on your videos they actually have to be able to find them, which means your YouTube SEO has to be on point. However, those efforts have to cover two slightly different ‘audiences’; YouTube’s search bots and actual human viewers.

YouTube SEO is actually a discipline all unto itself, and there’s a lot to learn (which is why you might want a YouTube SEO specialist to help you at first) But here are some of the basics:

When you are writing your descriptions and titles try out your potential keyword ideas in the YouTube search box itself. As the autocomplete populates you may get ideas for related terms you hadn’t thought of. Or even ideas for new videos (score)

You can also click on a few of the videos that show up for keywords right now to get an idea of your current competition.

Where can you find high potential keywords? Google Keyword Planner and Google Trends are both potentially great sources of them, but do not include anything that isn’t relevant to your video’s content just because it’s a high volume keyword. YouTube knows that ‘trick’ and they will eventually penalise you for it.

As we mentioned, you have to keep your users in mind too. According to YouTube “Titles that perform best are often those that tell a story.” Search bots are not interested in stories but humans are, so you have to figure out a way to achieve this balance. Within 60 characters, to ensure that your full description is displayed in search.

Thumbnail Images Count

Most people just don’t read when they are online, they scan instead. And when they are scanning their way through the search results of a list of videos they might want to watch they are far more likely to click on the one that has an interesting/eye catching thumbnail image to draw them in.

YouTube will, of course, auto-generate a thumbnail but why let them? Take control of the first impression you want to make and upload a custom image. Make sure that image complements both the subject matter of your video and your brand.

Your custom thumbnail should be 1280 x 720 pixels and less than 2 MB in size, in JPG, .GIF, .BMP, or .PNG format. And you probably want to know how to add one, so here’s a video that explains that:

Optimize Your Channel

Almost as important as optimizing each video you create is optimizing your channel. Yet SO many people just do not bother to do that. YouTube’s top performing creators do though, and since your ambition is to get more views and actually become one of them it is something that you should be doing as well.

Visuals are important here of course. You need to take the time to create a great channel icon, one that helps accurately portray your brand and your content, especially as this icon will be used by both YouTube and Google Search. It also needs to be an 800X800 image that will also display well at 98×98 pixels. A tall order perhaps, but there are a lot of tools and tips in the YouTube Creator Academy that can help.

Then there is the channel description. You have up to 1,000 characters to create a compelling brand pitch for your YouTube channel, letting viewers know why they should care about the videos you’re posting, what you have to offer, and how often they can expect to see new content. It’s not much, but take the time to make it count.

If you are up for a little more work you can even choose to create a channel trailer. We’ll let this video explain this.

Understand the Way the YouTube Algorithm Works

‘A search and discovery system’ is the way that YouTube officially describes its algorithm. This is what determines which videos are seen first in a user’s search results, in the suggested videos tabs and in those trending streams.

The algorithm has an awful lot to do with watch time. Primarily this refers to how much time someone spends watching your videos, measured in cumulative minutes watched. According to YouTube itself, “each video uploaded—as well as every channel on YouTube—is ‘ranked’ by watch time.”

But “watch time” is not as simple as it sounds. Yes, it includes the actual time people spend watching your videos. But channels also earn “watch time credits” for driving viewers to watch videos on other channels.

This means that YouTube is more likely to showcase your videos when people spend more time watching your videos, and when they spend more time watching videos by other users that you refer them to.

It’s complex stuff sometimes, and working with a Youtube marketing specialist can help you, but getting a better grasp on what you have to do to please YouTube – versus pleasing Google – is something it pays to do.

Take the Time to Go Through Your YouTube Analytics

One of the biggest keys to the success of any marketing strategy – on or offline – is to continuously test, track and tweak according to watch you learn as you go. And this is where analytics come in.

YouTube itself offers a pretty robust analytics panel that will tell you a lot of what you need to know. It lets you know which of your videos performs the best, how engaged your viewers really are and, to a certain extent, just who those people actually are.

These are all things that you not only need to pay attention to in order to increase the views on your current videos but also to act as a guide when creating future content. Once you know who is watching, and what seems to be resonating with them the most you can make a point of creating even more of the same kinds of content to keep them coming back for more.

Promote Your YouTube Video to the Outside World

Finally, it’s important, even if you do become a Youtube partner,  that you promote your YouTube videos to the outside world to draw them over to you channel to watch (and hopefully keep watching) your content. Embed them on your website, share them on your social channels, include them in your emails (even in your email signatures)

All of these tips should help you increase the number of views your YouTube videos get and, for the most part, are free. There is one thing that has to be noted here though. As is the case for anything else in the world of content creation all the tips, tricks and hacks in the world aren’t much use if the content isn’t good.

Final Word

In 2020 you can still make money on YouTube, both as a YouTube partner and by monetizing your YouTube videos in the ways we’ve suggested. Need help? Get in touch. Pearl Lemon has a team of YouTube experts – including YouTube SEO experts – who are ready and waiting to help you grow your influence – and fatten your wallet – on YouTube.

The post Everything You Need to Know About the YouTube Partner Program and YouTube Monetization in 2020 appeared first on Pearl Lemon.

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What CBD Marketing Experts Know About Suceeding in the Niche

It’s a rare thing when a single product – or group of products – captures the attention of  global consumers in a very short space of time and becomes something of a phenomenon – but that is certainly the case for CBD.

Across the world, and especially on both sides of the ‘pond’ CBD products are some of the hottest health focused offerings available. There are CBD oils, CBD supplements, CBD vape juices, CBD gummies, and the list keeps growing.

Hip coffee shops are putting CBD in their coffee. People are cooking with it. In the US – but not the UK at the time of writing – vets are advising pet parents – people who spent a whopping $75.38 billion on pet products in 2019 – to give CBD to their furry friends. So the potential market for CBD products is huge. The challenge is though, because CBD still lives in a rather gray area legally in most places, marketing CBD products effectively is anything but easy.

The CBD Confusion Conundrum

If you are reading this piece the chances are you are thinking about trying to find a good CBD marketing agency. So, you probably have CBD products to promote. Or are thinking of getting into this booming and very lucrative market. So you probably have a wealth of knowledge about CBD. One of the marketing challenges you face is that most of the general public don’t.

CBD is, as you know, cannabidiol. The form that can be sold legally in the UK and the US, and many other parts of the world, is any that contains a minimal amount of THC and is derived from hemp plants. THC is the chemical compound that causes euphoria, aka gets people high and comes from marijuana plants. CBD derived from hemp does not produce a high, it’s non-psychoactive.

But because both THC and CBD are found in cannabis plants, and lots of people don’t understand the difference between hemp plants and marijuana plants – many of them  a – including some legislators – still assume it’s a ‘bad drug’.

It’s not, and, as many CBD retailers will be happy to explain to people if they can speak to them in person, it has the potential to do a lot of good for a lot of people. But that can be a difficult concept to get across.

The Legal Challenges

Then there are the legal challenges. And, the fact that the law is different in the UK than it is in the United States, and in some cases different across the individual states in the US, and that these laws are changing all the time, keeping up with them all is a must. You will also need to ensure that any CBD digital marketing agency or CBD advertising agency understands them too, as something as simple as a few lines of copy in a product description or blog post has the potential to land you in legal hot water if it’s not phrased properly.

Not started your CBD business yet and wondering about those laws across various countries? The best thing to do before you do is consult a lawyer – WE ARE NOT LAWYERS – but as an experienced, responsible CBD marketing agency we do ensure that we keep ourselves informed of the legalities involved so we can do the right thing.

General CBD Legal Considerations in the UK and US

In the UK, generally speaking, CBD oil is legal in the UK if it has a THC content of below 0.02% as THC is still considered a controlled substance under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.

To be legal the CBD must be extracted from an industrial-grade hemp strain that’s been approved by the EU (what will happen after Brexit remains to be seen) Cannabis is listed as a Class B drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act, but CBD is not listed as a controlled substance under this act.

This has led to some people believing that they can grow their own cannabis or hemp. This is not true. It is illegal to grow your own cannabis or hemp in the UK. CBD producers in the UK must receive a licence and permission from the UK Home Office to do so. So if you are getting CBD products from a third party to resell make sure you know exactly where the hemp used to make it came from.

In 2018, in the United States the Farm Bill was enacted, which made CBD derived from hemp legal provided it is produced and used within the laid down regulations as defined by the law. Prior to that, CBD was classified as a “Schedule I” substance and is therefore illegal to use it. But, with this new law, CBD produced from hemp becomes legal if it adheres to the following requirements:

           Hemp’s THC level must be less than 0.3%

           It must comply with the distributed state-federal regulations

           Only a recognized and licensed cultivator must cultivate the hemp CBD.

The Farm Bill also removed previous restrictions that inhibited the selling, transportation, and possession of CBD produced out of hemp across state lines, provided they stay within the regulations mentioned above.

As you are preparing to get into CBD, you must always remember that the 2018 Farm Bill only legalized CBD produced from hemp, not from marijuana. The latter is still illegal in all but nine states in the US.

As to other markets you might be interested in entering, including those in the rest of the EU we’ll leave you to do the research, but we can tell you that an increasing number are allowing the sale of hemp derived CBD products including France, Germany, Poland and more.

The CBD Market’s Potential Explored

Before we get into how best to market your CBD business and its products we should look at just who you are marketing to. As CBD has only recently become legal the market is still developing, as more and more people discover the potential benefits CBD has to offer and additional research is completed.

This report from Marketwatch breaks down both 2019 figures and projections through 2024. If you don’t have the time to wade through it right now we can tell you that it predicts that the US revenue from CBD products will increase from US$ 270 million in 2019 to a whopping US$ 2420 million by 2024.

In terms of UK revenues the potential market is, perhaps surprisingly, even bigger. The report predicts the UK CBD market will be worth almost £1 billion (~€1.1 billion) per annum by 2025. Which is huge. So anyone asking if there is potentially money to be made in the CBD product market in either country has their answer right there!

In terms of where the greatest product growth is expected the report states that these are the three greatest areas of growth:

• Over the Counter Pharmaceuticals Industry (covering supplements and other preparations that can be purchased without a prescription)
• Food Industry
• Cosmetics Industry

Did the food industry surprise you? The fact is that CBD is a fast growing presence in the food and beverage industry in both the UK and the US.

In tandem with the growing plant based foods movement – did you know that Gregg’s recently stated that much of their impressive growth in 2019 was due to its line of vegan products, especially its vegan sausage roll – CBD is being added to everything from veggie burgers to breads and cakes (as well as all kinds of chocolates and sweets.) In the US CBD coffees and ice creams are big business as are a growing number of CBD enhanced beers and sodas.

As you might have been able to deduce by now – or may know if you are already active in the CBD product space – the primary market for CBD products of all kinds is a younger one.

According to a report from The Centre for Medicinal Cannabis in the UK all the following is true for the UK CBD market:

• The size of the UK CBD market is between 3-6 times larger than previous well quoted estimates. The CMC research estimates that 1.3 million consumers are spending over £300M per year on CBD products.
• For comparison the CBD market is larger than the total UK Vitamin D (£145M) and Vitamin C market (£119M) combined;
• Approximately 6 million adults have used CBD in the UK;
• 11% of the population had consumed a CBD product in the last year;
• 40% of those aged 18-42 are open to using CBD products
• Usage was higher on average among females (13%) than males (9%)

And in the US, a 2019 Gallup poll found all the following:

Again, the indication is that the biggest interest in CBD products is among those aged 18-49 (although you can see that a slightly older demographic is catching up.)

Overall it’s safe to say, at the moment, that when marketing CBD products your audience is a relatively young one – Gen Z, Millennials and Gen X.

Now that you know who you would be targeting with CBD marketing it’s time to look at how.

Why Specialist CBD Marketing is So Important

Why should you make specific CBD marketing a priority and work with a CBD marketing agency specifically? Here are some of the most important reasons.

Educating Consumers to Create New Customers

Going back to the Gallup poll, in 2019 35% of the respondents said they had no knowledge about CBD products so could not say whether they would use them or not. CBD marketing offers you the chance to be the one to educate this under informed consumers, clearing up the confusion that surrounds CBD we mentioned earlier.

People are out there actively searching for information about CBD and its use. By being the ones that provide them with that education, rather than just ‘fluff’ the chances that you will be able to convert them into your customers.

Differentiating Your Brand.

The CBD space is bursting at the seams, with more companies and products being established on an almost daily basis.  This does not mean that you should give up on your dreams of earning money with CBD products but rather learn how to stand out and differentiate your brand from the rest.

Develop a Loyal Following to Grow Your Bottom Line

Whenever a new product hits the market – or a whole new concept like CBD use – there will be plenty of people who ‘just try it to see’. Part of the success of any CBD marketing campaign will need to convert those people into repeat customers and, even more importantly, customers who are loyal to your brand.

CBD Marketing Restrictions

Any CBD marketing campaign faces, as we mentioned, a number of challenges that many other forms of product advertising does not, and there are lots of pitfalls that need to be avoided.

In standard product marketing it’s not unusual to use flowery language and make all kinds of claims that a marketer may not actually be able to substantiate in real life. For example, a pair of jeans can be marketed as ‘slimming’ even if, in reality, they don’t do anything at all other than button.

CBD marketing is very different. While it might be tempting to boast about CBD’s potential medicinal properties and benefits to the whole world via online CBD marketing, or indeed CBD marketing in general it’s something that regulatory authorities on both sides of the Atlantic disapprove of and making such claims can get you into tremendous legal trouble. And maybe even kill your business altogether.

Although it is possible to spotlight the potential medical benefits of integrating CBD into a daily health and wellness routine, it is not possible to legally advise consumers about treating their specific medical condition, disease or ailment with CBD. Only a doctor can do this, so don’t make the mistake of assuming that just because you read it somewhere, it is true.

Every single thing you say (including consumer reviews, testimonials, social media posts, marketing, and claims made on any forum where the consumer may see the product) when trying to attract buyers with an online CBD marketing campaign must be backed up by reputable sources and cited where/when necessary.

Claims must always be substantiated, credible and authentic and avoid making disease or health claims. Anything that cannot be proven simply cannot be used in your marketing materials, including in your blogs.

CBD Marketing and Social Media

Social media marketing is a challenge for CBD product advertising as well. Facebook, which may seem one of the natural social media marketing avenues, given its popularity with your target market, until June 2019 Facebook forbid CBD ads due to the cannabis plant’s illegal status and previously, CBD-focused ads were blocked outright. That changed in June 2019 and Facebook now allows ads for topical CBD products – like CBD skincare – but not for things like vape juice or supplements.

In terms of pages and postings Facebook probably won’t stop you from creating a page for your business but if you want to keep it you will need to make sure anything you post follows the same strict content guidelines as we just mentioned. False claims will get your page taken down, and the same is true for Facebook subsidiary Instagram.

Twitter won’t accept ads for CBD products, but they will allow you to create a page. Again, be careful what you post though, to avoid it being taken down. We should also mention that regulating authorities watch social media as closely as they do vendor websites, so any questionable content posted may attract their attention and lead to fines or worse.

By the way, Google PPC is out as well right now. Google currently does not allow you to run an Adwords campaign for CBD products of any kind. It should be noted Google recently asked a number of companies in the CBD space to participate in a trial run for CBD advertising on its platform, but the results are, and any possible rule changes, are yet to be revealed.

CBD Marketing Best Practices

We’ve been through much of what you can’t do when promoting your CBD products, so, given the restrictions you’ll be working under, what can you do? What CBD marketing tactics are both legal and effective. Here’s a look at some of the most important.

Go Big on CBD SEO

As we mentioned earlier, a lot of people are looking not just for CBD products but also for information about CBD in general. Reliable information. This means that one of your biggest CBD marketing strategies should revolve around organic SEO.

Again though, this is where you’ll need to tread carefully, and your best bet really is working with an SEO agency with proven CBD marketing experience. Most of the SEO basics are the same as a standard e commerce or local retail SEO campaign, but there are still caveats and restrictions that have to be kept in mind at all times.

Certain keywords are keywords, for example, that regulatory authorities watch in an attempt to find the bad practices and illegal advice they don’t want to see. A smart CBD SEO campaign won’t avoid these though, it will just ensure that the content that ranks is valuable and legal.

Some CBD product concerns cry foul here as they, rightly, say that they have seen plenty of questionable content online posted and created by others. Indeed, you might have read claims online hailing CBD as a miracle cannabinoid that can be used to combat a wide scope of medical conditions, diseases and ailments. But unless it is valid scientific research we can almost guarantee that you won’t see it for long, as it will be taken down.

So, we can’t say it often enough: it is imperative that you hold off on making any health or medical claims, otherwise every penny spent on CBD SEO will go to waste.

Link building is important for the success of any SEO campaign, but CBD SEO link building needs to be approached carefully. Any links built need to be of high quality, and from sites that are as mindful about the legalities of CBD marketing and information dissemination as you are.

You should also be careful about who you link to as well. Linked content can be considered part of your advertising materials. Linking to articles, scientific studies, and testimonials does not shield or remove you from the claims that are made on the linked content. Commercial use of scientific publications to promote the product’s sale, including simple references to scientific studies or general research, discussing potential health benefits may still be considered to be drug claims made about the product. So do so very carefully.

Launch a Careful Content Marketing Campaign

Content is the bedrock of good SEO and of marketing in general. CBD content marketing is, for all the reasons we have already covered, trickier, because the standards of the content you create need to be considerably higher than that created to promote, let’s say, that pair of jeans we mentioned earlier. Jeans that, somewhat unfairly,  you can probably ‘get away’ with making all kinds of claims about.

Done right though great content can be one of your CBD based business’ biggest assets. Not only can it bolster your CBD SEO efforts but it can also be used to establish you and your brand as a knowledgeable, reputable source of information. But, given the restrictions on making medical claims just what can you talk about?

As an experienced CBD marketing agency we make all the following suggestions to clients as appropriate, but there are more:

• Carefully researched educational pieces about CBD, including the differences between legal CBD and other somewhat related cannabis products that are considered illegal.
• Helpful pieces detailing the best ways to utilize your products, for example, if you sell CBD vape juice how, and how often, customers should vape.
• Fun lifestyle pieces that can be framed to include your product without making any medical claims or offering any form of medical advice. For example, great coffee recipes that include CBD oil.
• Carefully researched news pieces that detail all the legalities surrounding CBD, as the laws are evolving all the time, as are the results of an increasing number of research studies that the legalization of CBD has made possible.

Ramp Up Review Gathering

Customer reviews are crucial to the success of any retail business and that’s true of CBD products and businesses and perhaps even more so. As many people are new to CBD hearing from other users who have already tried your products will be something that is important to them, and is likely to play a big part in their purchasing decision.

Encourage customers to leave a review – with a discount on a future purchase perhaps – and if at all possible get them to review your products on both your website and on other reputable sites. The more positive reviews that consumers, regulatory authorities and yes, even search engine bots see the better; better for your sales, better for the positioning of your website in the SERPs and better for your reputation as a trustworthy source of CBD products as well as information.

Use Social Media, But Be Smart

Social media marketing is something that retailers use a lot, often with varying success. For some companies social media helps boost sales, but often that is only thanks to social PPC advertising, something that is not really easily available for CBD products, as we detailed earlier.

What you can use social media for however is to help build your brand and, hopefully, drive a little extra traffic to your website. Make use of great imagery of your products, and those products in use in ‘real life’, on image heavy social media sites like Facebook and Instagram. Boost conversions with social contests, and if you make use of those properly you can gain some very useful user generated content, something that is always a plus.

Use Influencer Marketing to Reach CBD Buyers

Just as certain types of CBD products outperform the others, there are certain types of CBD products that typically perform best on social media:

• CBD oils
• CBD-infused beauty products
• CBD/hemp-based body creams
• Pet products (in the US, they are not yet allowed in the UK)
• CBD-infused edibles

We already see all kinds of CBD brands partnering with influencers. Not only does influencer marketing act as a buffer between your products and the stringent regulations, it also yields a higher engagement and better ROI than traditional ads (which, for the most part you can’t use anyway)

Besides boosting interactions, you can target the following outcomes with influencer marketing for CBD products:

• Grow your brand visibility and reach more prospects
• Leverage the user-generated content influencers create
• Generate positive reviews from influencers
• Find prospects who are interested in health and wellness
• No worries about getting your content removed
• Build a network of brand advocates
• Grow a list of real followers for your brand pages

But, you cry, I can’t afford to work with a serious Instagram or Snapchat, or even Youtube influencer, so CBD influencer marketing isn’t going to work for me. But that’s OK.

Partnering with micro-influencers is one of the most effective ways to spread the word for small CBD businesses. You just need to pick them carefully.

Focus on influencers who have mastered the art of visual storytelling. These are influencers who can create the type of UGC you actually want to share. Besides, great stories are more engaging than a basic product post. But we are not talking about pretty people (although that won’t hurt)

What we do mean are people who are good photographers – and thanks to some amazing smartphone camera technology those are easier to find than you might think – or good orators. People who are willing to showcase your products in a unique way. And, as you are working with micro influencers it probably won’t cost you more than a few extra discounts and a handful of free products. Here are some good examples from Instagram of what we mean.)

Finding these people can be as simple as offering up the opportunity to be featured as a brand ambassador to your current customer base. The primary market for CBD is a younger one, so this will appeal to a lot of people.

Why You Should Work With a Specialist CBD Marketing Agency

If you didn’t realize it before, hopefully by now you know how hard it can be to market CBD products successfully and build a CBD brand that is trustworthy and respected. Not to mention time-consuming.

Very few marketing agencies have experience in the CBD space yet, so many of them, while they might be whizzes at standard retail SEO probably won’t be able to help you much and may, if they don’t understand the challenges of CBD marketing – especially the legalities – get you and your company into trouble.

From helping you create content that is legal and engaging to finding the best and most effective linking opportunities to executing a stellar SEO campaign the team at Pearl Lemon can do it all. If you are in the CBD space – or are thinking about getting into it – give us a call. Let’s discuss what we can do for you and why Pearl Lemon is a great choice for this niche, no matter what product you sell.

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