Weedmaps vs. Leafly: What's the Difference?
By Liam Noonan
10/5/21
Weedmaps & Leafly are the two leading and fastest-growing dispensary listing and review sites on the web. Both these companies strive to help connect consumers with the best dispensaries and weed products in your area.
Tons of cannabis consumers check Weedmaps and Leafly to find the best deals and dispensary owners can utilize the service to drive more business. The two services claim a combined 18 million+ visitors a month and act as a gateway to potential customers. Think of it as Yelp for cannabis, but with more features.
Continue reading for a guide to Weedmaps and Leafly and how to decide which one is right for your business.
How Does Weedmaps Work?
With offices in Irvine California and Denver Colorado, Weedmaps has long been at the forefront of cannabis legalization. Founded back in 2008 by Doug Francis, the site is now one of the fastest growing online cannabis communities for connecting users with dispensaries and vice versa. At the core of its service, Weedmaps allows users to review, discuss, and rate strains, local cannabis products, and dispensaries.
As proof of its rapid growth, Weedmaps filed a listing for an IPO on the NYSE. Nowadays, WeedMaps is the consumer-facing platform of WM Holding Company, which is a tech company that provides the broadest suite of cloud-based software as a service (SAAS) solutions for the cannabis industry. According to their website, “WM enables clients to scale their businesses while complying with the complex and disparate regulations applicable to the cannabis industry.”
How Does Weedmaps Make Money?
Weedmaps requires dispensaries to pay a monthly membership fee in order to list their store on the site. These subscriptions are fairly expensive and offered at 3 different levels including Brand, Basic, and Premium. These packages range from free services up to over $1,000 a month. Additionally, Weedmaps runs ads on it site, which gives them another source of profits.
How Does Leafly Work?
Founded in Seattle, Leafly is a cannabis tech company and one of the leading destinations for learning about, finding, and ordering cannabis. Just like Weedmaps, Leafly recently file for an IPO and have bold plans for growth. The site began as a simple strain review site and online cannabis community. Nowadays Leafly is a direct competitor to Weedmaps operating their own dispensary and product listings across the country.
How Does Leafly Make Money?
Leafly offers geo-specific pricing schemes that can range from $500-$1,000 for listing your business on the site. This makes Leafly a more expensive option unless you opt for a lower tier of Weedmaps packages. Like Weedmaps, Leafly also makes some profit off of sponsorships and running ads on its site.
Weedmaps vs. Leafly Compared
Weedmaps Key Features
- Product menu
- Map pin
- Full profile
- Deals
- Customer messaging
- Rating/reviews
Leafly Key Features
- Dispensary profiles
- Map markers
- Profile upgrades
- Marketing services
- Video showcases
- Product Menus
How to Use Leafly & Weedmaps as a Dispensary
When used properly, Weedmaps & Leafly can help generate large amounts of traffic to your dispensary. In our experience, registering your dispensary is often worth the cost, but this is something you’ll need to evaluate for your own business.
How to Add Your Dispensary to Weedmaps
The first step in subscribing and claiming your dispensary listing is to request to have your dispensary, delivery service, or practice added to the Weedmaps site. You can visit the following page to submit a dispensary for a Weedmaps listing. After this, you can create a free account and add your business details.
A customer service representative will soon be in touch to help you decide on the best Weedmaps package for your specific dispensary. You can then sign a month-to-month contract to add your product menu to Weedmaps. There is also an easy import option if you already use one of the popular dispensary POS Systems.
How to Add Your Dispensary to Leafly
The first step is to go to the dispensary solutions page on the Leafly site. From there you can claim your dispensary by filling out a form that includes your name, address, business, and contact information. After this, a Leafly customer service agent will reach out to discuss pricing and a custom plan based on your retail location.
Additional Ways to Bring Traffic to Your Dispensary
Weedmaps and Leafly are great options for advertising/promoting your dispensary online. With that being said, there are plenty of other ways to bring more traffic into your dispensary and increase sales. Most of these strategies have to do with organic and paid digital marketing verticals.
Optimize for Local SEO & Google My Business
Local SEO is arguably the most important aspect of digital marketing for dispensaries with a physical location. Local SEO is the practice of growing the local awareness of your storefront or business by optimizing for Google results. Local SEO tactics for Cannabis dispensaries include optimizing for the google map pack, location-based keywords, directories, and Google My Business. Google’s local SEO algorithm takes into account ranking factors like backlinks, content, off-site factors, and more.
Publish Relevant Content
Keeping your website updated with fresh website content and blog posts can benefit your online presence in multiple ways. A blog can help your overall website SEO by keeping people on your site, building backlinks, growing traffic, and more. Local brick & mortar dispensaries often have the most to gain from a well-thought-out blog and content writing campaign. By targeting the right topics and keywords, you can build up a valuable blog full of topics that are custom to your local customer base.
Social Media Marketing
Whether you use a social media agency or post in-house, you need to actively publish high-quality content that adds benefit to your social media followers’ experience. It’s also a good idea to populate various platforms like Instagram, Tik Tok, Facebook, etc. When it comes to the best strategies for social media content, video is king. Short, engaging videos are by far the best type of content you can put out! If you’re not already invested in social media marketing, it’s time to start.
Use Cannabis Friendly Digital Ad Networks and Billboards
Whether you want to let local residents know about the grand opening of your new dispensary or promote your e-commerce cannabis store in major cities across the nation, billboards are still a viable way of getting seen by large numbers of people. Remember that some cities and billboard owners have particular policies about what they’ll advertise and what they won’t. Find a friendly billboard service that offers spots on high traffic routes in relevant areas like trendy neighborhoods or downtown.
Don’t forget digital advertising, which also needs to be high up on your list of cannabis marketing strategies. While major search engines and social media platforms are still restricted from running cannabis ads, niche digital ad service providers like Mantis, RevOffer and Traffic Roots have stepped in to fill the gap for emerging cannabis brands
Summary
Weedmaps and Leafly are almost must-haves for modern-day dispensaries. Their subscriptions are expensive but tend to give you a solid return on investment when set up and used properly. Looking for additional ways to market your dispensary? Stoned Root offers several cannabis content services to help bring more traffic to your dispensary website and conversion.
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