Three Ways To Expedite Cannabis Market Research

Conducting research on any industry can be a challenge. The internet is a vast expanse of information and it's all too easy to go down a rabbit hole. There's so much information out there—how do you know what sources to trust? Or what keywords to use to surface the most helpful information? Researching is an art and takes time, even when looking into the most established of industries.

Now think about conducting cannabis market research; an industry which, not too long ago, was illegal in the United States. Yet in just a few years time, it's become a legitimate multi-billion dollar industry, complete with store-fronts, brands, and more than 400 public companies listed on the NY Stock Exchange. Due to it's grass-roots beginnings, however, cannabis market research is challenging and time consuming, even for the most skilled of Googlers.

Sales and marketing teams could easily spend 50% of their time or more conducting cannabis market research and collecting industry data, but you have prospects to chase, campaigns to run, and revenue goals to hit. So how can you gather the intel you need to be effective and spend less time doing it? Following are three ways to help you do just that.

There are so many news outlets covering the cannabis industry. Mainstream, industry dedicated, association-led—keeping up with all of them is impossible, not to mention a subscription nightmare for your inbox! That's not to say you shouldn't subscribe to one or two cannabis business news outlets that you find most valuable, but a better way to digest everything that's out there is through one, collated feed. At Emerald Intel, we offer a free cannabis business news feed, gathering hundreds of articles from trusted sources on a daily basis from across the US and Canada so you don't have to!

Our cannabis business news feed is a searchable resource that makes it easy to conduct market research. Are you looking for information on  a particular city or state? Type it in, and the feed will surface news from that area. Looking to see if a specific company has made it into the news? Type in the name and any article with a mention of the company will pop up.

And for Emerald Intel customers, we've linked company-specific news to individual company profiles to save our users even more time when conducting cannabis market research.

Interested in scouring our cannabis business news feed? You can access it for free here.

As a sales or marketing professional, you know how important data is to your success. And you also know how long it can take to gather basic company details or even find an email for a single employee. There are numerous market intelligence tools out there, and you may even be using one today—ZoomInfo, Apollo, SalesIntel—the list goes on. However, most of the 'mainstream' providers are providing minimal, if any, cannabis market intelligence, without even the most basic of information, like cannabis business vertical. 

There are 55,000+ cannabis and hemp companies employing over 80,000+ cannabis decision makers across the US and Canada, and those numbers change daily. What percentage of those do you have access to today? Are you provided with direct emails and phone numbers? What about location and license information? Recent news?

Emerald Intel is one of the few data tools dedicated to cannabis market intelligence, and we're proud to be 100% focused on such a fast-growing marketplace! We classify every company we profile by cannabis business vertical, so it’s easy for users to identify cultivators, product manufacturers, dispensaries, and more. Emerald Intel offers robust company intelligence, location and business hierarchy information, license details, including status, and contact profiles with verified emails and phone numbers. We even pull in company Twitter feeds and business news articles to provide the most comprehensive, one-stop shop for cannabis market intelligence. 

Collecting this type of information on just one company can take hours, but it's necessary if you want to personalize outreach and come across as an informed sales or marketer. With a dedicated cannabis market intelligence tool in your arsenal, you can expedite the research process and spend more time prospecting and engaging with decision makers.

You can learn more about Emerald Intel here. 

Licensing is a critical aspect of the cannabis industry and of course, because cannabis legalization sits with each individual state, consistency between states is non-existent. It may be that your product or service is license agnostic, which means license types are less important to you. But for those of you who seek out prospects based on their license types, your job becomes even more challenging—and cannabis market research takes even longer.

However with a cannabis market intelligence tool like Emerald Intel, you can create prospect and target lists by license type and/or license status with a simple filter. You can search by license types across the country, or conduct a more focused search within a state, group of states, or by city.

And the market intelligence doesn't stop there. We provide license status, allowing you to narrow your search results to surface newly approved, pending, or even conditional licenses, which means you can beat your competition to the negotiating table. In Emerald Intel, licenses are also tied to individual contacts at each company, providing yet another layer of intelligence that can be used to personalize outreach.

For those covering one or two states, committing license types to memory isn't going to be too difficult, but for those of you covering entire regions, keeping it all straight can be a challenge. Leveraging a cannabis market intelligence solution minimizes the need for memorization and collates all license details in one place so you can spend time reaching out—instead of researching. 

Cannabis market research can be challenging and time consuming without the right tools and resources, no matter how good of a Googler you are. By taking advantage of free resources like Emerald Intel's cannabis business news feed, you can get some time back in your day. To gain an even bigger advantage, consider a cannabis market intelligence tool like Emerald Intel and centralize your research to one, reliable source.

Interested in learning more about Emerald Intel and how we can help you? Request more information here.