Zach Santarsiero of CannaPlanners: Cannabis Marketers Need Tighter Systems and More Reliable Data | Muse by Clios

"Zach is the CMO and VP of digital marketing at CannaPlanners, where he leads a team powering SEO and digital growth for more than 150 dispensaries and 30 cannabis retailers nationwide. Zach honed his skills in the plumbing, HVAC and automotive industries, fields where success depends on mastering local search. We spent two minutes with Zach to learn more about his background, his creative inspirations and recent work he's admired."

"How you first got interested in cannabis. I grew up in a small rural town where there wasn't a whole lot going on. My friends and I spent our time riding skateboards, BMX bikes and dirt bikes, building jumps and smoking weed. I became more serious about cannabis as a business opportunity in college when I interned at Green State Gardener, which at the time was an e-commerce company selling home-grow equipment online. The owners of that company now operate Green State Dispensary in Burlington."

"They were our first-ever dispensary SEO client and only operated one store in western Massachusetts when we started working together. They now have nine locations across four states and are continuing to expand. We built their websites and have managed their marketing from the beginning. A recent project you're proud of. We've been hard at work on a dashboard that connects and visualizes data from multiple data sources."

Zach Santarsiero leads digital marketing and SEO at CannaPlanners, managing growth for over 150 dispensaries and 30 cannabis retailers. He developed local-search expertise in plumbing, HVAC, and automotive industries. He grew up in Millstone, N.J., and now lives in Burlington, Vt. Early experiences included skateboarding and a home-grow e-commerce internship that sparked interest in cannabis business. He helped scale Silver-Therapeutics from one store to nine locations across four states, building websites and managing marketing. He is developing a dashboard that connects multiple data sources to visualize reporting and change how dispensary operators view marketing data. He emphasizes standing out without selling out as a key challenge.

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