Background + Challenge
City Sessions is a cannabis lifestyle and tourism company established in 2014 and based in Denver, Colorado. With a goal to optimize social media platforms I was initially hired to run my Social Media 101 Workshop with the company marketing manager and founder in January 2020.
The COVID-19 pandemic cut in-person cannabis tourism by half in 2020. With fewer opportunities to get products and services in front of guests, drum up consulting prospects, and fulfill brand partner obligations, City Sessions needed to pivot to online education and promotion. After cutting full time staff the founder took on all day-to-day tourism duties and was limited in her time and ability to focus on the company’s digital presence and growth.
Following a check in call with the founder later in the year, I was brought on in July to help meet marketing and operations goals.
Client Goals
• Expand brand recognition, social platform and website audience growth
• Fulfill promotional obligations for brand partners
• Promote consulting services
My Role
• Social Media & Communications Management
• Content Creation
• Promotional Strategy
• Streamline Operations
Process
In order to expand brand recognition and audience growth I implemented a social media and marketing strategy based on brand partner buy-in and bringing forward City Session’s founder as a trusted voice for cannabis education and product vetting.
Established clear and consistent social media voice & aesthetic
Rigorous partner and follower engagement
Introduced brand partner feature weeks across platforms. Coordinated brand content with marketing teams to ensure re-shares and optimal reach
Added more CTAs and visual elements to Newsletters
Optimized blog content for SEO
Automated marketing tools to promote reviews
Introduced CRM software that streamlined customer data capture and waiver signing
I focused on creating a wide variety of high quality educational and promotional content in different mediums. I introduced a short educational video series, directed and edited video interviews with industry leaders, edited blogs for readability and SEO, and adapted to new mediums by creating Instagram Reels that received a wider reach than any other content.
Established brand aesthetic by featuring the company’s founder and touring guests, making community and education the focus of all content
Focused on brand partnerships, inviting partner representatives to participate in content pieces
Worked closely with brand marketing teams to integrate and implement featured content
Handled photo and video directing and editing
Blog design and editing
With the goal of acquiring more consulting clients for City Sessions’ founder, I first identified the need for proof of concept and past work. Through interviews and photo collection, I designed and built a two page case study reflecting the success of consultation with clients based in Oklahoma, to be used as a promotional too. I also designed and created a landing webpage for consulting services that features a promotional video I directed.
Promotional video direction
Consulting webpage design and build, optimized for SEO
5 Leaf Lab Case Study design and build
Created and formalized LinkedIn Company page
Results
After 5 months
Day-to-day social media management + community communications
Platforms steady 15% growth in followers each month
80% Growth in average Engagement
60% Growth in average Reach
Strengthened relationships with brand partners
Website saw 10% increase in visitors from previous year despite pandemic
86% growth in email subscribers from 1,600 to over 3,000
20% avg open rate 1.7% avg Click Through Rate
Educational and promotional content creation
Expanded Industry Interview series
Directed and edited 12 new videos with over 10,000 views
New video + photo content lead to large increase in engagement & reach across platforms
Week long brand partner features
Educational partner product videos saw largest reach with over 500 average viewers
Consulting services promotion
Consulting services inquiries and RFPs increased 5x from before website was published
Consulting webpage 2nd most popular page on website
Case study used to gain numerous new clients
LinkedIn company page has seen a 200% increase in visitors since July 2020
Future Plans: 2021 + Beyond
Goals
• Target reach of consulting services to new US legal markets
• Build social media platform for educational brand
• Offer Educational curriculum for dispensaries & budtenders
• Offer marketing strategy and social media services to other brands in the industry
• Founder to be invited to speak at premier and relevant conferences on cannabis education
Continued Consultation
• Hire and work closely with SEO expert to expand reach and visibility of consulting webpage
• Create case study for previous branding + marketing consulting services
• Build out Educational platform, curriculum, and website
• Create relevant content and run social media platform for education brand
• Develop and edit “TED” style conference talk
Manage conference timelines and speaker applications
