There are plenty of reasons why companies in the cannabis industry should be utilizing cannabis public relations campaigns. The biggest: generating more awareness, boosting visibility, and overcoming the limitations that other brands in the market face. Through public relations, companies can develop and frame the way that the media and the public will see their brands, and in a positive manner. They can interact with their target audiences and keep the conversation going. They can keep the company name constantly circulating in media outlets. However, when companies in the cannabis industry are creating their public relations campaigns, they have to follow certain steps to ensure they'll be more successful in their efforts.
Budget
One of the first things that companies need to define when creating a public relations campaign is the budget. This tends to be a significant upfront investment, but it produces real return for businesses at the same time. When companies invest in public relations, they're helping generate brand awareness — and through brand awareness, companies can turn from unknown, small, and local businesses into legitimate players in their markets.
Goals
The next step is to define the goals that the campaign should achieve. Setting goals upfront helps companies define which PR strategies to pursue and what kind of efforts they need to make. With the budget in mind, companies will have a better understanding of whether they're able to utilize certain strategies or whether they're constrained by their budget. This helps companies avoid spending too much on a single promotional effort while making sure all of the efforts are effective. Goal-setting also matters for tying PR work into the overall goals of the business and tracking the performance of each cannabis PR effort with the right metrics.
Story
Research consistently shows that when a person is listening to a story, both the experiential and the language-processing parts of their minds are being engaged. Companies can use stories to engage their target audiences in a relatable and memorable way — keeping the name of the business at the top of their minds. Through storytelling, companies can create more meaningful relationships with their consumers, who are a lot more interested in doing business with the companies they find relatable.
The 2026 Layer: AI Citation Share
The 2022-era cannabis PR playbook above — budget, goals, story — remains foundational. The new layer is AI Citation Share. Buyers researching cannabis brands increasingly start in ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews rather than Google search. The cannabis brands that appear in those answers are the ones that built the source-layer infrastructure that AI engines retrieve from: Leafly and Weedmaps platform presence, state regulatory documentation, sustained trade press coverage, Reddit community engagement, and Wikipedia entry depth. The full 2026 retrieval framework lives at How Cannabis Brands Get Cited Inside AI.
The Everything-PR Editorial Team produces original reporting, research, and analysis on communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question. Publishing since 2009.
