Many marketers believe that inclusive marketing means that your brand should serve everyone. They are overwhelmed with how to serve every dimension of diversity and as a result never get started.
But the idea that brands need to work to be inclusive is a myth.
Inclusive marketing means recognizing everyone's many differences, intentionally choosing who your brand will serve, and then truly including these diverse consumers in all areas of your marketing mix.
Inclusive marketing is a choice.
Imagine your brand is hosting a dinner party. Thinking you have to serve everyone means you have to plan and have capacity for everyone who wants to participate.
It's a pretty difficult and completely unrealistic challenge for most brands.
A more likely and workable scenario is if your brand decides to host a dinner and you can host 200 guests. When planning, you've created a menu that includes many dietary preferences and restrictions. And you really want to make sure you invite people with different personalities.
When comparing these two options, one seems excessive and the other is much more doable.
By choosing the identities you want to serve, you can focus your efforts. It helps you be more specific about the visuals you use, the actors you work with, the inclusive language and cultural references you use, and even your choices about the teams and partners you create.
It is important to note that just because you have decided to serve a particular community, does not mean that you should not serve other communities that are not on your list. Rather, it means that you are not dedicating your marketing attention to doing anything specific to attract and retain people with other identities.
For example, if your brand makes people over 45 feel cared for, supported, and welcomed by your brand, that doesn't mean 27-year-olds aren't welcome.
Here are some criteria to help you decide which identities to focus on.
Values
When these values are deemed important, brands will promote them and use them to make decisions.
While being inclusive in marketing clearly correlates to business results, that doesn't mean that every decision you make about inclusion, especially who you want to serve, should be based on numbers in a spreadsheet.
From a value perspective, there may be some underrepresented, underdeveloped communities that you really want to make sure they feel cared for, supported, and that they're a part of. In this case, guided by your values, your selection process is simpler.
the shop
The makeup of the customer geographies your brand operates in can also help you choose which identity to serve.
If you visit businesses in Miami, you'll notice that many of them have signs in English and Spanish, and many have bilingual employees. It is clear that these businesses cater to the local population, as Miami has a large percentage of Latinos and Spanish speakers.
If you go to San Francisco, where nearly 40% of the population is Asian, you will notice differences in the language used by companies and brands as they serve the local market.
Existing customers
When you evaluate past customers, you can identify who you are currently attracting and converting and who you are not. Years ago, when brands in the craft beer market looked at their existing customer base, they realized they were over-indexing to young white males.
They wanted to change the mix, so they deliberately started marketing towards women, blacks, Latino communities and Native Americans.
resource
Your time, staffing, and budget can all play a role in helping you determine which consumer identities you can serve. Being inclusive doesn't automatically mean your marketing spend will be higher.
However, changing the way you work to include more people in your marketing mix may require reallocating or reallocating resources to ensure you get it right.
So, for example, if you decide to serve people who speak multiple languages around the world, make sure your brand has the resources to consistently support those multiple languages across all areas of your marketing mix.
Therefore, it is important to ensure that you have allocated resources that allow you to truly and effectively serve the people of your chosen underserved and underserved communities.
Inbound marketing isn't all or nothing. Identify the personality you want to portray as your own and then provide experiences that demonstrate this. And if you want to add more identities to your areas of interest over time, you can do that too. Progress, not perfection.
