Tag Archives: intelligence

Growing the Seed of Sale: Integrating Security with Business Opportunity

By Ryan Schonfeld
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Anyone in the cannabis industry is well aware that theft of crops can economically devastate a grower. Security is critical, and thankfully, growers and dispensaries have many tools available to protect their investment. There is simply no excuse for not having a solid security posture to keep your business in compliance, from public-private partnerships to advanced security tools – in fact, it’s required in most jurisdictions.

In 2020, nationwide cannabis sales increased 67%, and support for legal marijuana reached an all-time high of 68%. New Frontier Data found that U.S. legal cannabis market is projected to double to $41.5 billion by 2025.

The industry’s advancement impacts numerous areas such as job and tax revenue creation and providing a wide variety of valuable opportunities. For cannabis facilities to keep up with the market expansion and experience success, they must face two significant challenges: achieving adequate security and efficient business operations. Though both can be seen as separate concerns, growers and producers must merge processes and solutions to tackle the issue as a whole.

Dispensaries are prime targets for burglary. Defending your storefront requires a comprehensive security plan

Along with rapid growth, dispensaries face traditional security risks, such as workplace violence and retail theft, while cybersecurity risks have also become more prevalent. These potential issues make it clear that the stakes are high, and as the potential impact on a business rises, the need for real-time, predictive response increases. Insider threats are another issue plaguing the industry when you look at the rate of theft, diversion and burglary that is attributable to employees.

The cannabis market is complex: it’s expanding rapidly, has to meet essential regulatory requirements and faces high-security risks. Therefore, security needs to be looked at holistically since it can be challenging to determine where a potential threat may originate.

With security top of mind, it is critical to move away from responsive behaviors and seek ways to manage security in a manner that gets ahead of threats, prevent them before they happen and respond to them in real-time. But does a grower or retailer have the time and expertise to manage all this while keeping an eye on how security affects the business?

Remote Security Operations

The ability to comply with government regulations and protect a valuable cannabis crop at all stages of its journey from seed to sale makes security systems a mission-critical asset for cannabis growers. Security operations centers create a safer and more productive environment and provide state-of-the-art tools to protect employees, retail locations and grow facilities. But some businesses in the cannabis market may not have the resources or space to have their centralized security operations, leading them to piece-meal security together or do the best with what they can afford at the time. Running these facilities can also be prohibitively expensive.

Security operations centers create a safer and more productive environment and provide state-of-the-art tools to protect employees, retail locations and grow facilities.

But new options take the process of security off the table. The business can focus on the growth of its core functions. Remote security operations services allow companies to take advantage of advanced security services typically only possible in larger enterprise environments. These services are offered on a subscription basis, delivered through the cloud, and are entirely customizable to detect risks unique to your business operations while saving each company significant expense.

Centralized security operations centers leverage intelligent tools, standard operating procedures and proven analytic methods to provide cannabis facilities with the information and guidance necessary to mitigate issues like retail or grow theft before they can have a significant impact.

The integrated, holistic response center staffed by experienced operators and security experts delivers a comprehensive security and regulatory compliance method. This approach is designed to provide complete data about what is happening across a cannabis business, from seed to sale, and how individual events can impact the company as a whole. As a result, stakeholders get the security intelligence they need, without the high overhead, personnel investments and complex daily management.

For those businesses in the cannabis market looking to supplement their security operations with other workforce but may not have the budget or infrastructure to do so, remote security operations services are something you should consider. With the experts handling all the heavy lifting, leaders can focus on growth. And, right now, in the cannabis industry, the sky is the limit in terms of opportunity.

The Brand Marketing Byte

Spotlight on Aster Farms

By Cannabis Industry Journal Staff
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The Brand Marketing Byte showcases highlights from Pioneer Intelligence’s Cannabis Brand Marketing Snapshots, featuring data-led case studies covering marketing and business development activities of U.S. licensed cannabis companies.

Here is a data-led, shallow dive on Aster Farms:

Aster Farms is based in Lake County, California and operates with an ethos of environmental sustainability. They call themselves the “cleanest, meanest and greenest around” and produce sungrown cannabis with “good genetics, clean cultivation and the power of nature.”

According to Pioneer Intelligence, Aster Farms is showing increased strength in each of the pillars they track: social media, earned media and web-related activities. The reason for such an improvement in performance? It starts with a number of earned media placements driving greater awareness for the brand, like this piece in SFWeekly or this one on Benzinga.

Engagement rates for Aster’s Instagram account have been growing for about two months and received a recent boost in the form of a sweepstakes giveaway. Their web activity performance improved as a result of keyword growth on their site.

All of these factors helped Aster Farms get on Pioneer’s list of Top 100 hottest U.S. cannabis brands for October, coming in at Number 60.

The Brand Marketing Byte

The Hottest U.S. Cannabis Retail Brands Right Now

By Cannabis Industry Journal Staff
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The Brand Marketing Byte showcases highlights from Pioneer Intelligence’s Cannabis Brand Marketing Snapshots, featuring data-led case studies covering marketing and business development activities of U.S. licensed cannabis companies.

In this week’s Byte, we’re taking a look at the hottest retail U.S. cannabis brands right now. Using a scoring methodology that factors in a wide variety of data sets, Pioneer’s algorithm tracks brand awareness, audience growth and engagement. Using more than 80,000 relevant data points per week, they analyze business activity across social media, earned media and web-related activities.

The brands listed below have the strongest marketing performance indicators, according to Pioneer Intelligence, which includes web activity. Here are a few insights that explain why some of these companies made the cut:

  1. Cookies comes in at the eighth spot on July’s list. The brand does a lot of promotional content on their business development activity, which helps them make the news almost every week. This time around, they announced the debut of a new chain of Sativa-focused dispensaries under the brand name Lemonnade.
  2. Terrapin Care Station took the fifteenth spot in July’s list. Terrapin made headlines this month with their expansion in Michigan. Their newest brick-and-mortar location is the first medical cultivation facility to open in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
  3. Surterra Wellness had a podium finish in July, becoming the third hottest U.S. cannabis retail brand. Back in early July, they received a lot of press for launching its line of tinctures in Texas.

Here are the top 15 hottest U.S. cannabis retail brands for July 2020:

  1. Viola
  2. Stiiizy
  3. Surterra Wellness
  4. Dosist
  5. Grassroots
  6. GrowHealthy
  7. Liberty
  8. Cookies
  9. Serra
  10. gLeaf
  11. Caliva
  12. Sunday Goods
  13. Harvest
  14. Connected Cannabis Co.
  15. Terrapin Care Station
The Brand Marketing Byte

The Hottest U.S. Cannabis Brands Right Now

By Cannabis Industry Journal Staff
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The Brand Marketing Byte showcases highlights from Pioneer Intelligence’s Cannabis Brand Marketing Snapshots, featuring data-led case studies covering marketing and business development activities of U.S. licensed cannabis companies.

In this week’s Byte, we’re taking a look at the hottest non-retail U.S. cannabis brands right now. Using a scoring methodology that factors in a wide variety of data sets, Pioneer’s algorithm tracks brand awareness, audience growth and engagement. Using more than 80,000 relevant data points per week, they analyze business activity across social media, earned media and web-related activities.

Keep in mind though, these brands are not the best in class or the strongest selling. The brands listed below have the strongest marketing performance and web activity, for better or worse. Here are a few insights that explain why some of these companies appear on the list:

  1. Curaleaf closed their acquisition of Grassroots. They also own Select, which is one of the largest wholesale brands in the United States. The official completion of Curaleaf acquiring Grassroots makes them the world’s largest cannabis company by revenue.
  2. Ignite Brands, founded by Instagram playboy and controversial figure Dan Bilzerian, made headlines for all the wrong reasons in early July. The company lost $50 million last year and is still hemorrhaging money. News stories in early July detail his lavish lifestyle funded by the company, including paying $2.4 million in rent per year and paying for dozens of models to travel with him, among other absurd expenses.
  3. Tyson Ranch: The cannabis brand owned by Mike Tyson, generated considerable web activity due to some press the boxer received recently. Tyson announced that he is coming back to boxing, stepping back in the ring to fight Roy Jones Jr. in September.
  4. Baked Bros, an edibles company based in Arizona, grew its social media outreach considerably in the month of July. Through a giveaway contest on Instagram, the company generated 3,584 comments on one post alone. That kind of activity directly increases their audience reach, thus boosting their marketing performance.

Without further ado, here are the top 15 hottest U.S. cannabis brands for July 2020:

  1. Kiva Confections
  2. Wyld
  3. Select
  4. Rove
  5. Ignite
  6. Papa & Barkley
  7. Cresco Labs
  8. Old Pal
  9. Lowell Herb Co
  10. Coda Signature
  11. Tyson Ranch
  12. Baked Bros
  13. 1906
  14. Bloom Farms
  15. Kush Queen
The Brand Marketing Byte

Basking in Sunshine: GrowHealthy

By Cannabis Industry Journal Staff
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The Brand Marketing Byte showcases highlights from Pioneer Intelligence’s Cannabis Brand Marketing Snapshots, featuring data-led case studies covering marketing and business development activities of U.S. licensed cannabis companies.

Here is a data-led, shallow dive on GrowHealthy:

GrowHealthy – Basking in Sunshine

Although Florida may only have a medical market and a relatively restrictive regulatory framework, a handful of companies are leading the pack in dominating the new market. Even though the medical cannabis market is fairly young and the state has not adopted adult use yet, the market’s growth trajectory is very encouraging.

GrowHealthy (GH) is one of those companies capitalizing on market growth with a number of expansion plans. They already have 16 dispensaries open for business throughout Florida and have plans to add to that considerably.

In the past few months, GH has taken a number of steps to enhance their web presence. Perhaps as a reaction to the COVID-19 crisis, GH, along with many other companies in the cannabis space, have started aggressively improving their websites.

With the pandemic wreaking havoc on the national economy, cannabis companies are not immune. However, in the early days of the health crisis, Florida deemed the medical cannabis market ‘essential.’ That proved to be a boon for cannabis companies in the state like GH, who pivoted to curbside pickup and delivery quickly.

In order to capitalize on curbside pickup and delivery, a strong web presence is very important. GH saw a solid rise in web traffic in the past few months, thanks in part to their continuing expansion of brick-and-mortar dispensaries. Adding to their boost in web traffic, GH saw increased strength in their backlinks profile, indicating further increases in future web traffic.

In May, GH shot up to the 20th hottest brand in the United States, up from the 38th slot in April, according to the Pioneer Index. We can attribute this jump to the brand’s performance in web-related activities. The trend continued into the first week of June, as GH’s web activities were the 2nd best nationwide, with the company becoming the 4th hottest brand in the Pioneer Index.

The Brand Marketing Byte

The Hottest Edibles Brands in the United States Right Now

By Cannabis Industry Journal Staff
2 Comments

The Brand Marketing Byte showcases highlights from Pioneer Intelligence’s Cannabis Brand Marketing Snapshots, featuring data-led case studies covering marketing and business development activities of U.S. licensed cannabis companies.

In this week’s Byte, we’re taking a look at the top edibles companies in the country. Using a scoring methodology that factors in a wide variety of data sets, Pioneer’s algorithm tracks brand awareness, audience growth and engagement. Using more than 80,000 relevant data points per week, they analyze business activity across social media, earned media and web-related activities.

For April 2020, here are the top 25 hottest U.S. edibles brands:

  1. Kiva Connections
  2. Wyld
  3. Tyson Ranch
  4. Wana Brands
  5. Serra
  6. STIIIZY
  7. 1906
  8. Kushy Punch
  9. Coda Signature
  10. Kush Queen
  11. PLUS
  12. Theory Wellness
  13. Incredibles
  14. Kikoko
  15. Dixie Elixirs
  16. Fairwinds
  17. Deep Roots Harvest
  18. Willie’s Reserve
  19. Chalice Farms
  20. Care By Design
  21. Beboe
  22. District Edibles
  23. Bhang
  24. Satori
  25. Betty’s Eddies
The Brand Marketing Byte

Pioneer Intelligence Increases Transparency, Expands Data Set

By Cannabis Industry Journal Staff
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Editor’s Note: While CIJ and Pioneer Intelligence do not have any financial relationship to disclose, it is important to note that we feature Pioneer Intelligence’s data in The Brand Marketing Byte, a column that showcases highlights from Pioneer Intelligence’s Cannabis Brand Marketing Snapshots, featuring data-led case studies covering marketing and business development activities of U.S. licensed cannabis companies.

Pioneer Intelligence, a marketing analytics company, is known for their marketing performance benchmarks of consumer-facing cannabis brands in the United States. They use data to analyze business activity across three areas: social media, earned media and web-related activities.

Today, Pioneer Intelligence announced they released a list of their data partners on their website. The group of partners includes well-known companies like Ahrefs, Instagram, SEMRush, Meltwater and SimilarWeb.

Ben Walters, Founder of Pioneer Intelligence

At present, Pioneer takes in over 80,000 data points each week. The company’s team of marketers and data scientists share findings through weekly generated Performance Scorecard reports as well as Brand Marketing Snapshots. Pioneer Intelligence offers reports on more than 500 U.S. cannabis brands. Ben Walters, founder of Pioneer Intelligence, says their mission is “to help cannabis industry stakeholders better understand how marketing strategies & tactics resonate with audiences.”

According to Walters, their goal was to partner with best-in-class companies. “So, alongside the fact that these names are trusted by marketing professionals worldwide, our team of marketers and data scientists researched, tested and validated a sizable number of sources before eventually selecting this group of partners,” says Walters. “We feel we’re well positioned to support the industry with valuable, data-led insights.”

Along with the release of their partner organizations, Pioneer Intelligence also announced they have expanded the total input data set to 80,000 relevant data points per week. That’s up from 26,000 data points at the beginning of this year.

According to Walters, the company is actively growing their product offering and looking for new ways to engage with cannabis industry stakeholders. “The feedback received on the first version of our Brand Marketing Performance Scorecard has been super encouraging,” says Walters. “That said, as customers told us they’re looking for more actionable data, we’re building an expanded suite of reports that include, amongst other things, more granular metrics.”

The Brand Marketing Byte

Executing on Social Media: PlugPlay

By Cannabis Industry Journal Staff
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The Brand Marketing Byte showcases highlights from Pioneer Intelligence’s Cannabis Brand Marketing Snapshots, featuring data-led case studies covering marketing and business development activities of U.S. licensed cannabis companies.

Here is a data-led, shallow dive on the California brand, PlugPlay:

PlugPlay – Executing on Social Media

This company is about three years old and based in Los Angeles. PlugPlay distributes proprietary vaporizers and cartridges to more than 150 dispensaries throughout California.

The company’s brand identity is a bit different from the traditional California cannabis company image. They trade the typical beach, yoga and plant imagery for a more modern, contemporary and sleek theme. Furthermore, the brand ambassadors featured throughout PlugPlay’s social media and communications reflect the diversity of its market.

The demographic they target in social media is increasingly tech-savvy and on the younger side. PlugPlay uses a few very smart tactics to engage with this demographic: They experiment with bold and creative content formats, some being a bit more refined than others. They engage in the comments section with their followers in an unabashed, genuine manner. Lastly, they share information with their followers on current events effectively, whether it be the vaping crisis back in 2019 or the current coronavirus pandemic.

All of these marketing tactics have worked tremendously in their favor. In March, PlugPlay’s social media earned them the #1 spot on the Pioneer Index, up from #10 in February.

The Brand Marketing Byte

Cannabis Brands in Culture: Tyson Ranch

By Cannabis Industry Journal Staff
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The Brand Marketing Byte showcases highlights from Pioneer Intelligence’s Cannabis Brand Marketing Snapshots, featuring data-led case studies covering marketing and business development activities of U.S. licensed cannabis companies.

Here is a data-led, shallow dive on the California brand, Tyson Ranch:

Tyson Ranch – Cannabis Brands in Culture

To just about every American, Mike Tyson is a household name, even after retiring from boxing for more than 15 years. For the uninitiated, Mike Tyson founded Tyson Ranch (TR), his cannabis licensing and branding company, about two years ago. The brand’s flower, extracts and infused products are distributed to dozens of dispensaries throughout California.

Last year, the brand developed plans for a boutique luxury resort outside of Palm Springs. About six months ago, the brand expanded its footprint to another state, with TR cannabis products showing up on dispensary shelves in Nevada.

Last week, Tyson Ranch gained some media attention, but this time not by anything Tyson himself had done. The Simpsons aired a cannabis-focused episode where they featured a character based on Tyson, Drederick Tatum, a former boxer who now resides in Springfield, the fictitious setting of the show. The episode’s storyline gives a major nod to the TR brand with a mention of an upscale luxury resort dedicated to cannabis.

That earned media attention helped Tyson Ranch soar in Pioneer’s weekly index of the hottest U.S. cannabis brands, earning TR the #2 spot. This also ends March with a bang for TR, climbing from the 40th position overall in February to the 28th presently.

The Brand Marketing Byte

Introducing The Brand Marketing Byte

By Cannabis Industry Journal Staff
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Cannabis Industry Journal is pleased to announce our partnership with Pioneer Intelligence on this new series of articles. This is the first installment of The Brand Marketing Byte.

Pioneer Intelligence uses data to benchmark marketing performance of consumer-facing cannabis brands across three areas: social media, earned media and web-related activities. At present, Pioneer takes in over 60,000 data points each week. The company’s team of marketers and data scientists share findings through weekly generated Performance Scorecard reports as well as Brand Marketing Snapshots. Pioneer Intelligence offers reports on more than 500 U.S. cannabis brands. Ben Walters, founder of Pioneer Intelligence, says their mission is “to help cannabis industry stakeholders better understand how marketing strategies & tactics resonate with audiences.”

The Brand Marketing Byte will showcase highlights from Pioneer Intelligence’s Cannabis Brand Marketing Snapshots, featuring data-led case studies covering marketing and business development activities of U.S. licensed cannabis companies. We hope this column can serve as a resource for readers interested in branding and marketing.

In terms of scoring methodology, Pioneer Intelligence’s reporting favors “heat” over “strength” as the company prioritizes “relative change” above “absolute position.” This means that, for example when talking about social media audience size, they don’t just score brands based on the number of followers, but they also score audience growth. In fact, Pioneer’s algorithms put more value in growth figures than actual number of followers. For more insight on their methodology, along with a weekly updated index of the hottest brands, visit their website here.

Without further ado, here is a data-led, shallow dive on the California brand, Legion of Bloom:

Legion of Bloom – Content Strategy

Legion of Bloom (LOB) was founded in Northern California in 2015 when five independent growers joined forces. As one of the more widely recognizable brands in the region, they produce craft, high-quality cannabis products and are well known for their vape cartridges. The company has superior genetics and sustainable practices, which they capitalize on in their marketing efforts.

LOB has invested heavily in generating content, which appears to be fruitful. Their website has an in-depth introduction to terpenes for consumers and they utilize their blog section well with a high volume of quality content throughout the second half of 2019. It’s worth mentioning their website features full laboratory test results for all of their products, highlighting their commitment to transparency, consumer trust and brand recognition. Through looking at a few key metrics like indexed keywords, site strength and visit duration, it is apparent that LOB has increased their audience engagement significantly.

All of those factors combined, LOB has used a variety of content tools to grow their website consistently and sustainably, earning them #38 spot on last week’s Pioneer Index, a ranking of the hottest U.S. cannabis brands.