Brand strategists and content marketers have a lot to consider when creating content. Whether it is a full campaign or a single blog post, the creator must find ways to make people feel included. It has become more important to improve inclusive content marketing in multiple formats and channels.
Today, there is a heightened awareness of diversity in marketing and advertising. Our favorite brands such as Starbucks, Chase, Google have benefited and grown tremendously by including visible representation.
However, for some organizations incorporating diversity within marketing has been quite challenging. If you want to improve diversity in your content marketing, I’m here to help. I have identified four tips for improving diversity in your content marketing.
Understand Your Audience
We know the first rule of marketing is understanding your audience. When it comes to creating inclusive content marketing, we must dive a bit deeper to gain that knowledge. Whether it is a general or segmented audience, personas descriptions will help you target the needs, wants, and desires. At this point, we know the demographics and psychographics of our audience. Let’s be mindful of their challenges, interests, and goals. Content marketing is about educating our audiences on our business to improve their business. For example,
- Can our product be tweaked to meet people with adaptive needs?
- What financial resources are available for women with a disability that wants to start a business?
- How does a Black-owned restaurant become a franchise?
- How can our workplace appeal to Generation Z?
Whatever your niche may be, diverse communities may have specific needs to be addressed because they have different challenges. When you understand your audience, content ideas will come from areas where all interests overlap. The intersection will reveal great content topics but will not reveal how to create and distribute the content which allows you to dig deeper. What if you took 5-10% of your content marketing plan and created inclusive topics that address the needs of hidden individuals in your audience and target new readers? The essential thing, you will have an idea of what topics to write for your content. This will significantly improve your diversity in content marketing.
Proper Content Planning
When creating inclusive content, make sure there are no assumptions. Simply do your research.
Spending a decent amount of time on content planning is critical for any article. Doing research and not operating on the bias will help you on creating valuable content especially when it comes to including diverse communities. Retrieving data and resources will be your best due diligence.
Hopefully, you have a diverse audience on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn that will allow you to ask a poll and provide ample engagement. Of course, a social media poll is not hardcore data, but it is fun and can backup general statements in a fun and interactive way.
Additional options may include interviews or a third-party source such as Help a Reporter Out (HARO). When it comes to content, relevancy matters. If you have great conversations on social media and interviews those people will be glad to engage once you publish and share the article on the same platform.
Inclusive Images and Stories
Another way to craft great content marketing is to think about representation. Yes, representation matters.
People want to be seen and heard in all aspects of life. Just like employers state how they are looking for the right fit, consumers are looking for the right fit on how they spend their time and money.
If you are not the expert, how can you include the expert? That is the power of interviews and storytelling.
There must be a great deal of intention when it comes to searching for diverse images. Through my work, I have noticed you specifically have to state African American working women or Middle Eastern couples to retrieve diverse images on Google or other websites. I have compiled a list of diverse images that you can implement in your work.
Inclusive Content
Importantly, be thoughtful about descriptive words when writing. Avoid slang, cliches, and stereotypes without making a positive impact.
Being deliberate with your words matters. The audience wants to know your content marketing reflects your brand. I have worked with several clients when the content is not a match to their images. Therefore, it silos an audience that doesn’t feel qualified to participate in their community which means money is missed.
One thing that creates culture is language. Whether it is based on ethnicity or company culture, how we communicate to one another lets one know that they belong. Exercising a language of inclusion will express genuine interest in your marketing efforts. Some helpful words to work with are connection, openness, and balance. Some of these words that signal inclusion to the audience are bonded, belonging, care, accepting, and more.
In your content, use photos showing interaction or relationships between diverse people. For example, to show openness, use words such as differently-abled people, people of color, people of different body sizes, and more.
Conclusion
These four tips will help you improve in inclusive content marketing without sounding biased. Avoid allowing diversity to become platitudes or buzzwords in your content. By following the above tips, you will have improved not only your content marketing, but growth in your audience, and eventually revenue.
Inclusive Marketing Consultant
If you enjoyed this article and believe that your organization can benefit from the Diversity Drives Revenue training exploring inclusive marketing strategies, I would love to connect with you. Take a moment to schedule a 15-minute discovery call, reach out via email at ngome@line25consulting.com, or call (713)298-5851.
