Why Inclusive Content Marketing is Crucial for Business Growth
The world is filled with people from various backgrounds and with varied and specific needs, and these needs are being brought to light now more than ever. Using inclusive features is important regardless of your goals, whether they are to generate traffic to your website or to improve the user experience of your site.
Inclusivity is the process of taking active steps to ensure diverse members of a community feel safe and valued and focuses on serving and resonating with a wider and more diverse audience. And since content marketing is no longer limited to geographical constraints and old-school mindsets, online businesses and marketers must create content that is mindful of all the communities it serves.
What does it mean to be inclusive?
Being inclusive requires you to think differently, recognize what you don’t know, and use words more purposefully. It doesn’t require your brand to make a major statement on social issues or take a public stand on any hot topics.
Let us recall that the purpose of content marketing is to attract and keep an audience while ultimately driving its members to profitable action. Your audience grows when you publish relevant and valuable information that encourages them to interact with and, eventually, trust your business.
Making inclusive content is one way to strengthen those bonds. Not only should inclusive language be a priority in your marketing, but also in your job descriptions, website copy, social media and any other written documents within your firm.
Creating inclusive content that benefits both your audience and your business
If you are wondering how to make your content marketing more inclusive, here are some ways in which you can improve your bottom line by making your business’s online presence accessible and more inclusive to everyone.
Improving your SEO
Google prefers websites with positive user experiences, inclusive efforts, and accessible solutions. They look to see:
- Whether you correctly answer frequently asked questions.
- The emphasis on location in your site content.
- How many keywords correspond to the typical demographics’ search requests.
- Whether the text or answer on the page was already answered on another, older website.
Though it is often overlooked, having accessibility measures on a website is also important for getting Google to recognize and rank your website, as well as lowering your bounce rate through SEO techniques.
Building Brand Awareness
When a visitor comes to your website or social pages and feels included due to the ease of use, notices visual elements that mean something to them, or language that confirms their understanding, they will feel a connection that can give your brand an advantage over a competitor who is only trying to appeal to the mass market
Making your customer journey one that they will recognize, feel included in, and satisfied by is the best approach to ensure that your brand is remembered the next time they require your services or products.
Brand awareness is your identity as a business and your identity highlights what you stand for. Inclusive content can go a long way toward demonstrating to your diverse audience that you understand their struggles and treat them fairly while keeping your brand in mind.
Increasing the size of your audience
There is no such thing as a one-size-fits all marketing strategy, but taking diversity into consideration and keeping accessibility in mind can only help you broaden your audience.
This includes not only reaching people with disabilities, but also incorporating language, images, and other features to improve the inclusion of people of color, educational backgrounds, genders, sexual orientation, socioeconomic classes, and age groups.
Increasing your Revenue
Considering the aforementioned considerations, an inclusive online presence with a holistic approach can only serve to boost your sales and profitability.
As previously stated, inclusivity broadens your consumer base, enhances brand awareness, which in turn helps your website rank higher online for greater visibility, and offers your potential customers the confidence that will convert them from visitors to customers, to recurring clients.
Doing the right thing
It’s just the proper thing to do in order to make the world a better place for everyone and to provide a welcoming environment for all human diversity.
The world is constantly changing and expanding, and the recent inclusion of people of many creeds, body types, orientations, colors, cognitive diversity, and aptitude levels has had a significant social impact on where people shop.
What to avoid in order to deliver a more inclusive message
While you are trying to create inclusive content for a broader audience, there are some things that you need to avoid to ensure you are being effective in your efforts.
You should avoid using discriminatory language, as well as stereotypes and appropriation. These clichés are not only dull, but they can offend individuals and land your brand in hot water.
What is the most effective strategy to prevent these pitfalls? When developing marketing strategies, keep empathy, context, and nuance in mind.
Going forward
To summarize, marketing is the process of connecting people with products and services that can help them solve their problems. However, effective marketing also involves bringing people together through shared interests.
Prioritize inclusive marketing with deliberate language, graphics, social media, and techniques to ensure you’re reaching the broadest possible audience in a way that accurately reflects your company’s beliefs.