Why Digital Marketers Should Make Diversity a Priority

by Frankie Wallace, Guest Contributor

​Diversity and marketing should always go hand in hand, but the importance of diversity in the marketing world often goes overlooked. When your marketing agency prepares to hire additional staff or goes to work on a new campaign for a client, including diverse perspectives in both instances can offer valuable benefits. 

With a more diverse workplace, your agency can enjoy improved productivity and more creativity, delivering better results for your clients and even improving the public perception of your agency.

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When it comes to marketing campaigns, tastefully incorporating minority groups and understanding the values and traditions of different cultures can help you to appeal to a larger audience, driving sales and helping you develop a loyal following. 

Diversity in marketing shouldn’t be an afterthought; with all of the benefits it can provide to your agency and your clients, it should be a priority. 

Increase Your Agency’s Overall Success
Incorporating diversity into your marketing and building a more diverse workplace can directly relate to your agency’s financial success. According to Ohio University, American businesses with racially diverse employees experienced average sales revenues 1,367% higher than those sales revenues that firms that shunned racial diversity received. Additionally, firms that had low racial diversity brought in average sales of $51.9 million, while firms with a higher degree of racial diversity earned a much greater average sales revenue of $761.3 million. 

But incorporating diversity in your marketing agency doesn’t just contribute to your agency’s financial success; it can also be a valuable recruiting tool, helping you to attract top talent and increasing the quality of your agency. Ohio University states that 90% of CEOs have reported workplace diversity to be a key factor in drawing new talent to their businesses. A whopping 85% of CEOs have also commented that diversity has helped to boost workplace productivity, while 77% of CEOs noted that diversity has also helped to improve customer satisfaction. 

Marketing agencies depend on innovative ideas, a nuanced understanding of different cultures, and the ability to identify pain points and motivating factors that can be used to communicate with different audiences. If you have a more diverse staff, these qualities will be found more naturally within your agency. When people come from different backgrounds, they tend to approach problems and challenges in different ways, generating creative ideas that others might have missed out on. This can be a powerful asset for your marketing agency. 

Improve Public Perception of Your Agency and Customers
If your marketing is lacking in its portrayal of marginalized groups, you might be missing out on public support and overall perception of your agency and the businesses that are your clients. A quality piece of marketing that includes marginalized groups connects with a larger audience, potentially bringing in sales and success for your clients and your agency. Done well, this type of marketing stands out, and they can also garner attention and support for your agency. 

Millennials care about diversity in marketing and want to support brands who support diversity. But authenticity also matters to millennials, so it’s important that marketing doesn’t include stereotypes or biases. Because 44% of today’s millennial population are minorities, millennials can provide us with valuable insights about the importance of diversity when appealing to the audiences of both today and tomorrow.  

Lack of diversity in marketing can have negative consequences, too. Many people view including marginalized groups in marketing as a moral and ethical issue. If your clients’ marketing efforts frequently leave these groups out, you could run the risk of alienating potential customers, or having those customers become loyal to competitors who take a more active approach in ensuring that marginalized groups are fairly represented in their marketing. 

Change How Marginalized Groups Are Perceived
In addition to making your agency more successful and allowing you to create marketing that is more effective, incorporating marginalized groups into both your staff and your marketing efforts has another important effect: When you’re producing marketing pieces that can reach large audiences, you have the power to help change how marginalized groups are perceived. 

Marginalized groups currently face countless challenges in the United States. Racism in the criminal justice system means that people of color are disproportionately arrested and sometimes receive harsher sentences than white individuals who have committed the same crime. But racism is also present in everyday society, and biases and prejudices about minorities can make it difficult for them to find employment and access the opportunities that are available to so many others. 

Your marketing agency alone cannot end racism, but it can make a difference. By taking an active stance in hiring a diverse workforce and including minority groups in your marketing, your agency can demonstrate its commitment to ensuring that minorities are represented and treated fairly.

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