Creating an Inclusive Marketing Strategy: How Small Businesses Can Incorporate DEI

Small businesses have a unique opportunity to be at the forefront of embracing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). DEI is not just a trend or a buzzword — it’s an opportunity for small businesses to drive meaningful change and create an inclusive environment. This article will help entrepreneurs understand how DEI can be applied to their marketing strategy.

What Is DEI?

DEI stands for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Diversity refers to differences in characteristics such as race, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, and ability level. Equity focuses on fairness and justice across all groups of people. Inclusion values everyone’s unique perspectives and allows everyone to feel safe and included in the workplace.

Why You Need DEI in Your Marketing

Achieving inclusivity through marketing is a surefire way to demonstrate your commitment to equality. Make individuals of diverse backgrounds feel seen and recognized by featuring them prominently in campaigns. This will also help extend your reach, allowing you to connect with even more customers who now relate directly to what you offer.

DEI in Your Marketing Campaigns

When creating marketing campaigns or content pieces for your small business website or social media channels, focus on featuring diverse groups of people with different ethnicities, races, cultures, abilities, genders, and sexual orientations represented equally within your image or video content. 

It’s also important to consider the language used in your campaigns and make sure it’s not biased against any group of people. Consider adding a “diversity statement” or “inclusivity policy” to your website or social media channels to make it clear that everyone is welcome at your business. This will show potential customers that you are committed to creating an inclusive and welcoming space for all.

Building DEI into Your Brand

No matter the size or sector of your business, there are plenty of ways to make DEI an integrated part of your brand narrative. Start by talking to your team and involving them in visioning brand language, activities, and initiatives that can demonstrate your commitment to DEI values. Review community actions such as funding projects that focus on diverse voices, hiring fairly from underrepresented backgrounds, and using brand messaging to represent a variety of identities.

Also focuses on genuine and sincere messaging that deeply resonates with your target audience. It’s important to remember that each person’s lived experience is unique, so the message must be tailored specifically to ensure that your audience understands that this is a priority for you and your organization.                                                 

Add DEI to Your Social Media and Website Posts        

Small businesses can highlight DEI by creating infographics to use on social media posts, emails, and websites. Infographics are a versatile and effective way to add visual elements to your content while illustrating DEI-related topics, such as inclusion and diversity in the workplace. They also help highlight and increase engagement with your key messaging by making it easier for potential customers to grasp the points you are trying to get across. With the right imagery, design content, and storytelling, infographics can be an excellent tool for incorporating relevant issues into your business narrative while driving leads toward conversions.

If you’re not skilled in design, it’s worth the cost of hiring a graphic designer to help you with this endeavor. You can still have a major say in the content of your infographics by collaborating with your designer on the images. Converting from PDF to JPG may be necessary to email files back and forth to each other during the brainstorming phase, but you can use a tool that will update your files without sacrificing their quality.

Building a Diverse Team    

Creating and maintaining a team culture focused on DEI is necessary for any small business to eventually succeed. To do this well requires a team effort, both from the team members themselves as well as from the employer or staff leading the team. There must be open communication between team members and active listening in conversations concerning cultural norms and values, which makes way for better understanding and connection in a diverse workspace. Teams can focus on DEI-driven principles by empowering team members to think from different perspectives. This leads to mutual trust and greater success for the people involved and eventually for the small business itself.

Small businesses have the powerful potential to lead with DEI in their marketing strategies, creating an equal and authentic atmosphere while driving lasting social change. From providing equitable access and services, diversifying teams, and engaging imagery like infographics, small businesses can position themselves as progressive voices in their respective communities and form strong customer loyalty ties at the same time.