how to promote a medical marijuana dispensary

Why would this market require any different techniques than any other? But since you asked, here are some ideas off the top of my head.

It's (typically) a younger market, so facebook advertising should work well. It's a dispensary so you'll want to target your ads to people in your city.

I would drive to a piece of content that explains the difference between each of the strains you carry, why someone might choose one over the other ... and give a 10% discount coupon ... someone just has to get on your list.

Then, when they enter the store I would recommend signing up with one of the text messaging services (Mike Koenig's rocks by the way). Give someone an additional on the spot 10% discount if they'll send a text that signs them up to your text messaging list.

Now you've got an email and mobile list going and for local businesses mobile lists are practically like owning a gold mine.

Hope this helps.

awesome thanks for the input, ive got these on lock already but I really appreciate it.

Also, fb prohibits ads for dispensaries but similar to your idea advertising an ebook might be okay.
anyone know about this?

actually there are some differences that I didn't expect with this niche, like the fact that it's illegal to advertise, except in washington

Do a pre recorded radio infomercial. You can book time in almost any radio production studio pretty cheaply. Look for a small station. They provide the producer and studio. Set up an interview. Get someone intelligent to ask you questions so you can explain everything from A to Z.

Then you can run the radio infomercial late at night (or anytime you can get air time). You can have it played on any and all stations that will accept it. Lots of radio stations have dead time at night so you can have it run really cheap.

I did this years ago with a real estate investing book I wrote and got tons of sales from it, though you can apply it to lots of things. I think it would work really well for medical weed if it was done properly.

You might even consider doing your own Internet radio show where people call in.

awesome good one about the radio ads, about how much does this cost?

Ya that's exactly what I'm thinking @mikefashen

Ya one suggestion I have received is to target groups of people with chronic illnesses that have been helped by CBD, but I don't know how to find these groups. Any ideas?

i need local though

I have an idea for you and it is effective. It is from my previous experience. I work as a advertiser in craigslist. Craigslist is a very good market place for almost everything and everyone. I did some work to sell medical marijuana in craigslist and it worked. I got some call and some reply from my ad. That would be helpful for you.

yup I mentioned already that craigslist is effective in this niche, although docs and dispensaries are hesitant to deal with people from CL. I'll just leave it at that.

The 'gold nuggets' of disp advertising are already found and scooped up, with the biggest one being Weedmaps, IMO. I have come across more than one Colorado disp who's website refers you to their Weedmaps listing for their menu and pricing, where their current information is. Weedmaps has billboards, etc., and is pretty well established.

I'm a retired skibum, a retired raft guide, a retired expert grower and played around in the disp industry, having a bad business partner on the 'business' end of things, so I decided it was time to go in a new direction a few years ago, after some mistakes by my partner led to some $XX,XXX losses in a few months.

Oh well, I said, took it as a sign and walked away from the whole game.

And although generally younger, you would be surprised at the cross section of the population that buys weed at disps (remember that CO is one of the States where it is legal to smoke (or eat) weed recreationally; you just need to be 21, walk in a store, and you can buy weed - gotta like 2015). Every socioeconomic group is represented, including 'rich, upstanding professionals'.

I don't know where you are at, but this is a liquor store thing - Where's the CLOSEST one? Or - Where is one just far enough away that my nosy old bat neighbor won't see my car in the parking lot, 'cause it ain't her business? That's people's first question, then comes pricing, quality, etc. There are more social media avenues opening up that could show promise, but since this is a physical product bought in a brick and mortar store, there ain't no secrets of advertising here - you are advertising an offline, brick and mortar store.

When considering the MJ market, take into consideration US Attorney General Holder is retiring. From what I've heard, the nomination to replace him doesn't have the same opinions about "legalized" MJ and it's still illegal on a federal level. I'd be concerned that an entire industry is built on the opinions of a single person in a high position.