The question that I’m asked most by Cannabis business owners in the UK is “Why do I need PR?”

Public Relations work is often misunderstood. There’s this assumption that we just wait in the wings for a problem to come up and then try to put a positive spin on it, or draw attention away from it and onto something else. And in some cases that can be true, but more often than not, this just isn’t the case. Otherwise it’s assumed that PR is “basically just marketing”. The truth is that while there can be some crisis communication involved, and like marketing, we try to drive foot traffic or web traffic, the world of PR is inherently deeper than this and in recent years has become one of the most critical weapons in a Cannabis company’s armory. And yet, so few are making use of this storytelling tool.

I want to break down some of the ways that PR can transform a Cannabis company in the UK. There are 3 key drivers behind why PR is so powerful;

The Barriers to Marketing within the Cannabis Space

Anybody who has had a Cannabis company in the UK (or anywhere around the world, really) for more than 5 minutes will have had their social media accounts banned. Or maybe told that they can’t run a certain marketing campaign because it breaks advertising rules/regulations.

It’s a minefield trying to push content that directly advertises a brand or company operating in the cannabis space. This goes across all aspects of the industry and it can waste huge sums of money and huge amounts of time leaving business owners and marketing teams tearing their hair out. Marketers are doing a brilliant job, coming up with increasingly innovative and creative ways to get around these barriers, but it remains a steep uphill battle where the goal post is constantly moving.

So how does PR differ? A good PR agency will work to get organic stories into established magazines, websites, blogs, podcasts, the list goes on. While regulators may be preventing you from advertising, they aren’t preventing free speech, discussion and education. Journalists and editors across the country are producing content about the cannabis industry every single day, and the companies utilising PR are featuring in those pieces as thought leaders, industry experts providing stats and data, even in product gift guides. They’re gaining that exposure and unlike marketing campaigns, those pieces are here to stay and shared widely across different platforms. Ultimately, PR activity can reach places that marketing just can’t reach in such a regulated space.

The Critical Relationship between AI search engines and PR

Two of the biggest buzzwords (or buzz-acronyms I should say) in business over the last few years have been AI and SEO. There’s no denying that while we’re all a little bored of hearing about these wonders of the business world, they’re really quite critical tools in any industry. But what is often not known is the crucial part that PR plays within that world.

Take Google as our most obvious example, every time you do a Google search now, you’re met with an AI summary right there at the top of the page. This is relatively new, but already absolutely killing SEO for some companies. Recent research has shown that 59% of Google searches now end at the AI summary, because people aren’t bothering to scroll down to see all of the links below. This highlights the power of being included in that summary.

This is where we get a little technical, but bare with. AI engines are designed to trawl websites that are deemed as “trustworthy” and that “have authority”. Websites are assigned a Domain Rating (DR) or a Domain Authority (DA), which effectively tells the search engine whether or not it can “trust” the source. Naturally your big household names like the BBC, Forbes, The Telegraph, Mens/Womens Health, etc have exceptionally high DR’s. So imagine your company being mentioned in one of these outlets in relation to Cannabis. It elevates your likelihood of featuring in that AI summary massively. The same goes for highly regarded cannabis industry media outlets. These outlets are highly likely to be trawled by AI engines when people search anything in relation to cannabis.

So the general message is that to feature in these outlets means boosting your SEO (or AEO/GEO if we’re feeling fancy). “But why can’t we just pay for ads in these outlets?” I hear you ask, and that’s a great question. Firstly we have our regulatory issues again (outlet dependent) but the key here is to understand the value that AI search engines put on organic, natural placement over paid article opportunities. Google is smart, it knows the difference and it will always favour the organic article, because that feels more trustworthy. You want to be getting featured in these outlets and you need a top publicist to help drive that strategy.

Building Trust in an Emerging Market

Many of us in the Cannabis Industry have been here for a long, long time. We know a lot about the plant, its uses, the stigmatisation that comes with it. It’s easy to forget what it’s like to be on the other side of that fence. Thinking that cannabis is a drug from the street, used just to get high and waste your life away, it’s dangerous. Now put yourself in the shoes of a new patient, or a farmer pivoting to grow the plant, or a medical professional looking for a new product supplier or pharmacy. You want to educate yourself, you want to find trusted sources and ultimately build your understanding about this greatly misunderstood and stigmatised plant. So who can you trust? Much like Google, we’re going to trust those bigger names, those steady voices. Or perhaps we’ll seek out industry experts. The company who has been presented as thought leaders in an article with the BBC are going to be seen as far more trustworthy than the company who you’ve never seen or heard of before. If you can be a part of that education process from the start of someone’s journey, you build an enormous amount of trust. PR is at its core about building trust with the general public, with other businesses, even with investors. And in an industry like Cannabis, trust is one of your greatest assets.

I hope that this has shed some light on the role that PR can play in the cannabis space and perhaps dispelled a few myths! If you want to explore how a crack team of PR experts with decades of combined experience in the global Cannabis industry can elevate your business please get in touch with me (hi, I’m Nicole) or the Americana Communications team at info@americanapr.com.

Nicole Farah, Founder & Managing Director, Americana Communications

Nicole is a results-driven PR & events professional with 9+ years of integrated experience in global PR, internal comms, investor relations & brand partnerships. As the Founder & Managing Director of Americana, Nicole has led impactful campaigns to improve brand awareness and develop/drive media relations, investor relations and crisis comms strategies. Working with a variety of clients in sectors including health & wellness, clothing & accessories, homewares, regenerative agriculture, and non-profit, Nicole has placed stories in international publications including BBC, Prolific North, City AM, The Independent, FT, Forbes, CNN, POLITICO, Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, and more.