With practiced ease, Penelope slides from her wheelchair onto the couch, her friend Margot sitting beside her. She turns the TV on, catching the end of a commercial for their local grocery store. Penelope sighs.
“What’s wrong?” Margot asks, concerned.
“I don’t know. It’s just…” Penelope gestures to the TV, where the people in the ad walk around the store with bright smiles. She then motions to her wheelchair resting beside her. “That’s not how I would experience the store, you know?”
Although we often associate DEI with Human Resources, Marketing and Sales is one of the most important departments to incorporate DEI practices into. As this example illustrates, when people don’t see themselves represented by an organization, they often become disconnected from whatever is being marketed. In contrast, “90% of ads that featured a diversity strategy experienced [a] higher recall [remembrance] rate”—simply put, when people see themselves represented in marketing, they remember. As such, here are a few tips to implement DEI in Marketing and Sales’ departments:
Images on an organization’s website(s), social media, and other visual advertisements should reflect demographic diversity, including but not limited to people of color, women, people of different generations, people with disabilities, and the LGBTQ+ community.
Digital content should be optimized for people with disabilities. For example, websites and social media should be functional for screen readers and voice search. (Although we may think of this technological era as everyone having information at their fingertips, such is not always true for people with disabilities, because online content is often not accessible!)
Use inclusive language, such as gender-neutral pronouns (e.g. the singular “they” rather than the “universal” masculine). Avoid generalizations related to experience and avoid stereotypical language, as these implicit assumptions often exclude people unwittingly.
Have diverse sales representatives, particularly when reaching out to a local community. A good rule of thumb is that an organization’s representatives should reflect the community’s demographics! To see oneself in others is to feel seen oneself.
Highlight real stories from diverse communities. After all, “[s]torytelling is a powerful tool in marketing,” as “[e]ach customer is a unique individual with a unique story and motivation to consume a product or service.” Directly engaging and displaying the narratives of one’s customers is to better connect with the diversity inherent to every consumerbase.
Imagine if Penelope turned on the TV and saw other people in wheelchairs moving through the aisles of her local grocery store. Wouldn’t that world, a world of access for everyone, be one we’d all like to live in?
Dima Ghawi is the founder of a global talent development company with a primary mission for advancing individuals in leadership. Through keynote speeches, training programs and executive coaching, Dima has empowered thousands of professionals across the globe to expand their leadership potential. In addition, she provides guidance to business executives to develop diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies and to implement a multi-year plan for advancing quality leaders from within the organization.
Reach her at DimaGhawi.com and BreakingVases.com.
