Traffic In Just 12 Months
With A Brand New
Dispensary
Cannabis and art have always accompanied each other through history, and Cloud 9 was a blank canvas ready to be turned into a masterpiece! The stakeholder's affection for pop art, design aesthetics, and cannabis birthed Cloud 9 DC. Their local business has quickly flourished and has become the place to purchase high-quality custom art prints that come with premium gifts under DC's Initiative 71.
Cloud 9 is a dispensary located in the heart of the nation's capital. When they first came to us, they had a storefront with a name but knew they wanted to be apart of this incredible cannabis movement and culture in the city and were very driven and passionate about it. They are now one of the most popular dispensaries and deliveries in the DMV area and have been able to expand to multiple locations.
No Branding, Website, Order Management System
As we mentioned before, Cloud 9 was a blank canvas, a vision, an idea. We would have to build everything from the ground up, from designing a logo, website, and systems to manage it all. Although there was a lot to do, this was a great thing since we could build everything out correctly, efficiently, and in a compliant way. Our team would have to handle the branding, UX design, development, systems architecting, API integrations, and content creation to build a foundation.
No Local or Online Presence
Due to Cloud 9 being a new business with a physical storefront, we needed a strategy that would maximize brand presence in three areas: local area, local search, and global SEO. We would have to build their online and search engine presence from the ground up. We have to develop a multi-faceted project plan hitting multiple target areas in parallel. We would also have to fight our way out of the Google sandbox and get ranking as fast as possible if Cloud 9 wanted to draw business to their storefront against 200+ competitors in the city.
No Marketing Plan
Developing a concrete marketing plan was also a big challenge, as it was Cloud 9's management's first time in the B2C space, and was looking for a partner to handle all aspects of marketing. We would need to develop and manage the marketing plan from in-store offers, guerilla marketing, street signage, search engines, and E-Mail/SMS.
Apex has been a strategic partner in making and growing our brand. They have been there every step of the way and go above and beyond with all aspects. We use them for our IT, Development, Branding, Marketing and more. They are readily available all hours of the day and have helped us open up multiple stores within a year. We would not have been able to do this without all the traffic generated, website, web app delivery and pickup solutions during COVID and their availability. You will not be disappointed having Apex take on any project.
- Sarah Williams - CEO - Cloud 9
Create Logo, Branding & Website
The logo, branding, and UX of the website will get assigned to our design team. They will work with the client every step of the way, going over the designs weekly for approval, insight, and changes.
Order Pickup and Delivery System
We would need to design and develop a custom compliant ordering system for their region. We would need to work with the client and legal resources to develop something that was a great experience for end-users and was compliant and permitted.
Marketing Plan
We would need to structure their marketing plan into multiple areas; Local, SEO, Retention, In-Store, and Signage. We know from experience that storefront signage and SEO would be the most significant drivers, and we needed to start on these first. We would need to build out our content a couple of months out and have it ready to deploy when the website launched. Additionally, we would work with our sign company to get the sign designs approved and installed at the physical storefront as soon as possible.
Build Out Local Search & SEO
We will need to build a brand new SEO campaign retrofitted for the region based on our research and automated market audits. We would also need to research all of the directories, local listings, influencers, and reviewers to determine where the marketing budget would be spent for the best ROI. Our team was able to do this by analyzing data through various proprietary tools and historical data.
Brand & Website Launch
We worked to get them listed on the most popular directory services and found which ones are worth the price based on traffic going to their sites, along with a way of tracking orders to calculate ROI information.
Order, Delivery & Inventory System
We worked with the Cloud 9 team and a law firm to develop a beautiful compliant delivery solution that customers loved. The delivery solution was critical to have up during COVID since stores were solely taking store pickup and delivery orders. We quickly rolled out a functional solution, and delivery continues to be a core part of their business today.
Marketing Execution
Our team went on-site and worked with local installers to have the sign and vinyl's installed. We used gorilla marketing, local influencers, Email/SMS through partners to get the word out at launch. We used in-store marketing strategies and customer retention strategies that improved the customer in-store experience. Our content team worked on the web and SEO marketing in tandem with the web design team to knock things out of the park at launch.
Local & SEO Campaign
We listed Cloud 9 on the most popular directory services and found which ones are worth the price based on traffic going to their sites and tracking orders to calculate ROI information. While we developed the site, we SEO optimized the site and content and had everything ready at the same time for launch. This way, we could quickly avoid the google SEO sandbox and be seen as a trusted authority in the space.
We have assisted Cloud 9 in having so much foot traffic they have had to expand to multiple stores to support their clientele. We have assisted them in getting the top of local listings, search results and customer experience.
Google their business or search local search terms to see for yourself!
The marijuana filter industry for a client with a revolutionary must have product!
With a new local dispensary and grew their rankings to #1 in their surrounding area.
