1. A fleet of green colored vehicles for your delivery service

If you deliver, you can have a fleet of green bugs with some branded decals on them, a la Geek Squad.

Call it Weed Squad or Bud Bugs, or Zippy Zips. Include a phone-number and web address on the vehicles. May be less appropriate for people wanting their herb discreetly. Security will also be a consideration.

2. Give away free t-shirts and stickers

Get some tees and stickers printed with your logo and web address, and give them away to friends, family, collective members, and any 420 aficionados and sativa divas who would like one. Zazzle can print custom shirts, stickers, and business cards.

3. Offer exceptional quality

If you produce the healthiest rooted clones of the finest strains at reasonable rates in quantity and timely, people will naturally recommend you to friends and associates, and word of mouth will work it’s magic.

4. Have A Website

Everyone and their aibo has a website, do you have one?

I’ve noticed that Homestead and GoDaddy are hosting many dispensary websites. If you find a webhost with reasonable pricing, outstanding support, stellar up-time, abundance of features and scalability please let me know.

Many hosts provide free site building tools, and one-click installs of popular content-management-systems.

It’s often advised to purchase your domain name from a registrar that is separate from your web-host.

I haven’t used these registrars, but name.com and Internet.bs look pretty good.

If you’re versed in html, css and such, you can trick out a website with the Wordpress platform.

You can also find a professional web designer who will register a domain and build a website for you. At the time of writing, a couple designers have ads on BudBay: http://www.budbay.com/?s=design

Your website can have contact information, directions to your location, images of your storefront, images and educational material on the strains you carry, a form for people to submit info and initiate the process of becoming a member (if necessary), maybe a blog and messageboard, a regularly updated menu and any special offers you’re running.

5. Fliers with tear-off tabs

Make fliers with tear-off tabs (tabs can have a phone number and web address). Put these fliers on bulletin boards in stores/colleges/churches/libraries… and on newspaper-boxes, pay-phones, crosswalk poles, near head shops, near bus-stops and other  public transport systems. Make the flier an artistic and attractive amendment to the visual environment.

6. Differentiate

Find ways to make your cannabiz unique and expand on them. Even little things can be powerful.

The other day I saw a mango with a sticker on it that looks like a CA license plate and says ‘CA Grown’. Kinda corny, but it puts other fruit stickers to shame.

What is your mango sticker? Do you offer the finest quality herb, grown organically with special methods that produce the most flavorful and stoniest product ever to be toked? Well then, announce this from the tree-tops like a pot-possessed bird calling your flock to a scrumptious source of manna. Or use more subtle methods like little stickers on your baggies.

7. Post on cannabis forums

There are many popular online cannabis forums that you can find with a quick search. Join the conversation and have a link to your website in your signature and profile. Some forums have a marketplace section where you can post your offerings. Some forums don’t allow any form of promotion.

8. Connect on social networks like Twitter and Facebook

Get accounts at Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace, and at cannabis themed networks. Make it easy to find your contact info, web address, fresh menus, special offers, or whatever you’re brewin’.

@artistscollctve is a great example on Twitter.

9. List your goods on free classifieds sites

In addition to BudBay, I’ve seen people list medical cannabis on BudTrader, BayAreaCannabis, Craigslist, and Backpage.

10. Post vids on YouTube

Post videos of your dispensary, and the process of becoming a member, and obtaining some herb. Post a humorous skit or something novel and intriguing.

How about this for a viral vid:

Create a domino topple with the pieces falling into an outline of a cannabis leaf, plus some fractal shapes, plus an outline of the name of your operation…

Have the final piece somehow ignite a lighter that lights a bong while somebody costumed as a big green domino piece takes a bong rip for the finally. Put some music in the background, and decorate the topple scene with a bong city and pot plants. After the rip, the costumed dude also falls over with a peaceful grin. I’d watch it.

11. Government agencies can market for you

Some people call city/county/state agencies for information about nearby services and cannabis providers. If your operation is registered, your contact info may be shared by these agencies.

12. Promote extra services

In addition to offering cannabis to qualified patients, help people get their paperwork and doctor’s recommendation sorted in the first place. Hold seminars at your dispensary on topics like cultivation, curing, and preparation of medibles and concentrates. Allow the choice of female delivery drivers for female patients.

13. Push the envelope (and put weed in it)

Can medical cannabis be donated via auction on popular auction websites?

Will billboards with emotion-stirring symbols like green leaves and words like “reefer” spark the media to advertise for you? It worked for DrReefer

14. Dispensary directory and marijuana menu sites

There are quite a few directories and menu sites including POTDAQ, WeedMaps, MCCDirectory, CANORML’s List, DispensaryGuide, WeedTracker and CannaShops … some are free and some are less so. I don’t know how fruitful these sites are for generating business. BudBay might have a menu/biz directory grafted onto it at some point.

15. Reward Referals

Offer members of your collective free nugs for referring new members.

16. Large media buys

Billboards, magazine ads, tv commercials, radio commercials, and advertising in online ad networks are all part of the playing field for the growing weedconomy.

17. Tip number seventeen is to simply “do something”

In many US states the cannabis industry is mainstream, and trichomes are now twinkling in the light of day.

California and other states are in the process of recognizing the legalization of cannabis for recreational enjoyment.

Cannabis business and social-profit models have huge opportunities to spark new expressions of lifestyle, awareness, art, and well-being.

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