The CBD industry has skyrocketed the past few years and is estimated to reach $47.22 billion by 2028, up from $4.9 billion in 2021, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21 percent. While this growth was initially seen as positive, it inevitably caused a multitude of entrepreneurs to open their own CBD businesses. Now, the stakes are high, and it is increasingly difficult to market yourself in such a saturated market.
“Right now, I think it is really hard to capture new customers, and I think that is the industry’s fault. Many companies out there saw a gold rush by entering this space and saw a lot of hype with customers,” Bharat Ayyar, Marketing Director at Sunsoil, said. “The way they responded to that hype was by putting products out there that were really low quality, contained little to no CBD, and charged really high prices. So now, you have disappointed customers, which makes it hard to acquire new ones.”
The “Vampire Attack”
In an effort to captivate new consumers, Sunsoil is taking an integrated and aggressive approach. Their marketing plan, called the “Vampire Attack,” offers new Sunsoil customers up to $200 to switch their subscriptions from other competing CBD brands to Sunsoil. When thinking about what other companies do in order to get consumers to switch to their brand, Ayyar noticed that they give out all sorts of crazy incentives, and he wanted to do something similar.
“The time is now to start calling out some of the bad practices in our industry and creating more transparency around the products. We are fed up with other companies overcharging for the merchandise they are putting out, so we want to give customers an easy way to try Sunsoil because we think if they do, they will find that we have better products and they will also save money in the process,” Ayyar said.
How It Works
Once shoppers sign up using this link, they will get an initial $50 credit which they can use for a first purchase, with no proof required of purchasing another brand. In order to get the remaining $150 credit, customers have to submit some proof of purchase from another brand such as a receipt, a photo of the product, or an email confirmation.
Secrets for Success
Just like the entire industry as a whole, Sunsoil also suffered from the negative impacts of the pandemic. They sell mainly to mom-and-pop shops and small regional chains, whose foot traffic still has yet to come back full swing, but the brand has compensated for that by putting a focus on their ecommerce website, which has grown quite a bit.
“We are also super careful about what we choose to spend our money on,” Ayyar said. “We do not spend a lot on brand initiatives and we do not have a celebrity spokesperson. We think really hard about those things because the costs essentially get passed down to the consumer, so despite the pandemic and downturn in the industry and economy as a whole, we have kept our costs down and still stayed a profitable and sustainable company.”
It also helps that Sunsoil owns the entire process from end-to-end. While other brands have been hit hard by disruptions to the supply chain, either with their ingredients or relying on third party manufacturers that have delays, Sunsoil grows all of their own hemp and makes all of their CBD oil on-site. Throughout all of the pandemic, they have not had a single out-of-stock item or missed a shipment.
Sunsoil is the fourth largest-selling hemp brand in the U.S. and was recently named one of the top CBD brands of 2022 in Healthline. As a pioneer in the hemp and CBD space, they have high hopes that this new marketing method will be able to convert customers and keep them loyal. Try this trick and see how it can help boost your business.