9 Inclusive Marketing Actions to Resonate With Diverse Audiences

In an effort to craft marketing messages that resonate across society, we’ve gathered insights from a professional panel that includes CEOs and Chief Marketing Officers. These nine experts reveal specific actions they’ve taken to ensure inclusivity in their communications. From incorporating culturally relevant keywords to showcasing a range of customer testimonials, discover how these leaders are effectively engaging diverse audiences.

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Incorporate Culturally Relevant Keywords

One specific action I’ve taken to ensure inclusivity in my marketing messages is to conduct thorough keyword research that reflects the diverse voices and perspectives within our target audience. By incorporating a wide range of culturally relevant keywords and phrases into our content, we can better resonate with diverse communities and address their unique needs and interests. For example, when optimizing content for a client in the healthcare industry, I discovered through keyword analysis that there was a significant search volume for health-related terms in multiple languages spoken by minority communities. By integrating these keywords into our content strategy, we not only improved our search visibility but also demonstrated our commitment to inclusivity and accessibility in healthcare information.

Umair Hussain, Digital Marketing Manager, Cloudways(DigitalOcean)

Partner with Native Speakers

We want our marketing messages to feel friendly and welcoming to everyone, no matter where they are from. Since different cultures have different ways of speaking, we take special steps to avoid misunderstandings. Our marketing team is trained in cultural sensitivities, and we partner with translators who are native speakers of the languages. It lets them adapt our messages to include local humor and references, making them more relatable. By taking this extra step, we build trust with our global audience. This approach helps create an inclusive online shopping experience for everyone.

Faizan Khan, Public Relations and Content Marketing Specialist, Ubuy Australia

Gather Direct Feedback from Your Audience

A specific action taken to enhance inclusivity in our marketing has been to engage with and gather feedback directly from our audience through social media and customer surveys. This direct engagement involves asking specific questions about how our audience perceives the inclusivity of our advertising, what they feel is lacking, and how they believe we could improve. This feedback is invaluable as it comes straight from the individuals whom the marketing is intended to resonate with, providing authentic insights into the effectiveness of our inclusivity efforts.

Using this feedback, we refine our marketing strategies and content to better align with the needs and expectations of our diverse audience. For example, if feedback indicates that certain groups feel underrepresented in our advertising, we make concerted efforts to address these gaps in subsequent campaigns. This iterative process of seeking and incorporating feedback ensures that our marketing messages are continually evolving to be more inclusive and representative of all segments of our customer base. This practice not only enhances customer satisfaction but also strengthens brand loyalty by showing that we value and respond to customer input.

Jason Hennessey, CEO, Hennessey Digital

Establish a Diverse Focus Group

One specific action we’ve taken to enhance inclusivity in our marketing is to establish a diverse focus group that reviews our campaigns before they go live. This group, comprising individuals from various backgrounds, helps us ensure our messaging resonates broadly and respects cultural sensitivities.

Their feedback is crucial for crafting communications that not only reach but also positively impact a diverse audience. This approach can be readily adopted by any business aiming to connect genuinely with a wider demographic.

Marco Genaro Palma, Chief Marketing Officer, PRLab

Implement a Comprehensive Review Process

Ensuring that our marketing messages are inclusive and resonate with diverse audiences is fundamental to our strategy. Here is one specific action we have taken:

At our organization, we’ve implemented a comprehensive review process that includes diversity checks for all our content before it goes live. This process involves a diverse group of team members from different backgrounds who review content to ensure it is culturally sensitive, uses inclusive language, and represents diverse perspectives. This not only helps us avoid potential cultural missteps but also ensures that our messages resonate with a broad audience, reflecting the global marketplace we serve.

Marc Bishop, Director, Wytlabs

Leverage DEI Learning Initiatives

At Connect Vending, we started by learning how to make our communication authentically inclusive through workshops and certificate courses. This helped in creating internal Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) resources that were applied across multiple marketing assets and processes, like updating user personas, expanding brand language guidelines, customizing the message for different contexts, and deciding on diversity Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to track progress. We are currently auditing and redesigning every element of our marketing assets to ensure that inclusivity is an inherent and effortless part of all our communication, internal and external.

Elyas Coutts, CEO, Connect Vending

Enhance Digital Accessibility for All

Prioritize digital accessibility. Even the most beautifully executed strategy and creative aren’t worth the effort if your message isn’t able to be seen or understood by everyone in your desired audience. Did you know that Meta reports that up to 85% of Facebook users are on the platform with the sound turned off? They also report that captions increase the average view time of videos by 25%. Consider burning captions into your videos and placing them in such a manner that they are not blocked by overlaying text once uploaded. Not only will it help the 1.5 billion people that the CDC estimates are impacted by hearing loss globally, but it will also help your overall reach. Other accessibility considerations include adding alternative text descriptions to your images, avoiding stylized fonts, and keeping emojis and ASCII art to a minimum.

Fey Grimm, Social Media Manager, Starkey

Diversify Models to Mirror Your Customer Base

One specific action we’ve taken at DasFlow is to diversify the models in our marketing materials. We ensure our visuals reflect various ages, body types, and ethnicities, mirroring the diversity of our customer base. This inclusivity in our imagery not only resonates with a broader audience but also reinforces our brand’s commitment to celebrating all individuals’ unique styles and fitness journeys.

Nicolas Krauss, Founder and CEO, dasFlow Custom Sublimation Apparel

Showcase a Range of Customer Testimonials

One specific action we’ve taken to ensure our marketing messages are inclusive and resonate with diverse audiences is to incorporate a range of customer testimonials that reflect various backgrounds and experiences. By showcasing diverse voices and stories, we create a more inclusive brand image that appeals to a broader demographic, thereby enhancing customer connection and trust in our brand. This approach has significantly expanded our market reach and reinforced our commitment to serving all clients with excellence.

Fahd Khan, Director of Marketing & Technology, JetLevel Aviation

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