What is the name of your favorite strain of cannabis? Before the cultivator’s revolution, many people could answer that question of the few named strains they had tried. “White Widow”, “Girl Scout Cookies” and anything “Kush” were names people understood. They knew approximately what they were getting between a “Diesel” and an “OG”. They had some idea of whether a strain would be energetic or sleepy.
Original naming trends held up this standard, using a geological style of name blending. But there are now dozens of generations and the blends are becoming so diverse and subtle that – once again – cannabis buyers don’t know where to start. That said, each grower is usually only working with a few strains at any one time. This creates the opportunity to use marketing, printing, and customer education to re-invigorate your audience with both understanding and enthusiasm for the meaning behind each product name – and how to have a good time with it.
Create a Graphic of Your Cannabis Family Trees
Create an infographic of the family tree for each strain that your brand grows. Show the roots in the essential strains that most people understand and how careful blending of strains has produced the buds you grow today – with a clear line back to the root. Each infographic is a helpful way for customers to immediately understand what they are taking, where it comes from, and what to expect based on those roots.
Color and Symbol Inheritance Key
Design a quick visual key that your customers will learn by heart. Certain colors and symbols indicate strain families, effects, flavors, and other features you might easily indicate in a simple graphic.
Design Packaging to Reflect Each Strain's Features
- Lemons and Limes
- Clouds and Zs
- Paints and Pencils
- Cats and Slippers
Give your customers a quick and easy visual understanding of what’s in the package. If you cultivate a strain with strong limonene zest, consider a lemon on the box. If you have a strain best for deep sleep, decorate its packaging with Zs and clouds. Energetic Sativas might get creative pencils and paints, while cozy body-high Indicas might convey their warm fuzzy effects with cats and slippers.
This way, you are marketing the strain’s features instead of asking customers to remember the names of your rotating strains.
Provide a Strain Guide with Every Packaged Product
Want your strain to play a major role in grower branding? Educate your customers to help them understand what really matters. Provide a printed strain guide as part of your packaging or a card slipped into every product package. A strain guide can be your cannabis family tree infographic, a chart displaying all the features and stats of the current product strain, or even a narrative story of how you cultivated the strain and its family.
You Are Here
If you include a family tree or chart of strain inheritance, don’t forget the “You are Here” dot, reminiscent of mall and event space map kiosks. Showing customers where they are on the tree not only tells them what to expect but also gives meaning and weight to the strain name they are about to enjoy – and creates a memory for the future.
Design a Visual Strain-Guide Landing Page
Give your customers an online resource when they get curious. Create an engaging visual strain guide and a landing page on your grow-op brand website. Customers want to know what they are toking and they do search for the origins of a new potent and flavorful strain. Flex your expertise as cultivators and show off what you know on a visual page detailing where your strains come from. You can tell the story in panels or create a flowing chart.
Make the page interactive, engaging, and peppered with FAQ answers about how cannabis strains come to be. Include details on the strains you are selling now and a sneak peek at your recent history or near future cultivation plans.
Cannabis strain names have phased into and then back out of the window of memorable marketing. Today, there are so many strain names and they cycle so quickly that alternate methods are needed to help customers find the products they want and build brand loyalty with growers they trust. Contact us today for more cannabis industry insights and technology solutions.
