In the ever-changing cannabis industry, it’s essential to know what strains are trendy or on the rise for both consumers and businesses. As a dispensary or a breeder, or simply an enthusiast, being aware of strains that are in demand affects purchasing decisions and what’s being cultivated. In this blog, we’ll explore our favorite tools for knowing which strains are popular and trending, and focus on features and benefits of each to help you get ahead in the market.
Why Knowing Strain Popularity is Important
If retailers want to stock what is popular, and cultivators want to grow popular genetics, or if a consumer wants to find a new flavor they love, popularity of strains matters. Consumers are inundated with thousands of strains that each have a different profile and different effects. Trends can help artisans avoid expensive overproduction, and enjoy successful marketing strategies.
The popularity of a strain or strains is often indicative of a consumer’s expectations and preferences in flavor, potency, or therapeutic effects, and this is just another layer of evidence on why it is such an important consideration for your future product offerings.
The Best Tools for Monitoring Popularity of Strains
1. Leafly Analytics
Leafly is one of the best names in the cannabis space, and their analytics platform gives a lot of insights about strain popularity. Users can look up metrics on search trends, strain ratings, or product reviews submitted by millions of users, in a matter of seconds.
Benefits include:
- Interactive dashboards that allow for up-to-date trend analyses
- Ability to compare strain popularity metrics over time
- Consumer feedback that provides insight into how to provide product recommendations
2. Weedmaps Trends
Weedmaps is another major player that dispensaries and consumers engage with. The trend reports provided focus on geographic demand to highlight which strains are doing best in certain regions. This can be a tremendous asset for local markets or planning product launches.
Features includes:
- Regional and national popularity heatmaps for strains
- Sales trends using filters for strain or type of product
- Marketing tools for dispensaries that are more data-driven.
3. Headset Insights
Headset provides reliable cannabis market analytics that are based on much deeper sales data. Instead of simply looking at search data by strain, the use of real purchasing data gives you a more holistic view of trends in consumer behavior.
Benefits:
- Sales data by category and strain, location
- Ability to create tailored reports for inventory review
- Insight into trends and seasonality
4. Social Media Monitoring Tools
Sourcing platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok can also be informal and simplistic but reliable ways to track strain popularity through their owned channels. Social media users routinely discuss their experiences with strains, which directly influences purchasing in real-time.
Ideas for usage?
- Search hashtags for strains
- Monitor influencer posts and reviews
- Engagement rates to identify up and coming stars
Using Strain Popularity Data
These instruments can be utilized by both growers and retailers to determine which strains to produce and sell in the marketplace. Marketing departments can develop campaigns emphasizing the strains that are most popular, increasing sales, while customers will benefit when they are able to find new strains that they desire, based on the community feedback.
By utilizing aggregate data from separate sources, retailers are able to gain an understanding of demand through the cannabis industry as a whole, while maximizing their competitiveness and enhancing consumer understanding of the categories they may be interested in.
How We Recommend Using It
If you are looking for the best possible insights, we would recommend employing multiple tools. One example would be to use Leafly to gauge consumer sentiment, use Headset to identify actual sales and then use social media, which could be utilized to isolate trending strains. Combining these approaches will generate quantitative / qualitative data for making the best possible decisions.
To Wrap This Up and Next Steps
And there you have it! The tools to track strain popularity could not be more accessible today. Whether you are a retailer who makes ounces available in an inventory shrinking market, a grower testing the waters for market viability of a new strain, or a consumer looking for the latest “best” strains for your own consumption, the ability to leverage knowledgeable data-generated insights could make the difference for those respective audiences.
Are you ready to take advantage of cannabis trends in the market? You can use these tools today to stay on the leading edge, in addition to having great conversations with your audience. For more information to become knowledgeable and premium cannabis product producers, go to Passion Farms, and we will be your cannabinoid partner to build upon and use your ideas as stepping stones to acknowledge that quality matters!
