How to Create Inclusive Case Studies That Convert, According to an Inclusive Marketing Consultant

The other day, my parents went to my uncle’s house for dinner. My uncle and his wife, my aunt, moved about an hour away a while back. And ever since then, my uncle always asked my parents why they never come over.

And my mom always responds the same way. We don’t go where we’re not invited. And that’s true, my parents don’t go to anybody’s house without an invitation.

Not even to me and my sister’s places where my parents never ever just drop in unannounced, even though they are welcome to. My uncle’s response to my mom’s, we don’t go where we’re not invited comment is always the same too. You don’t need an invitation.

You are always welcome here. So anyway, it’s a bit of a cycle with them. So last week, my uncle called my parents up and invited them over to his house for dinner.

My parents of course accepted the invitation and they went. Later, my mom sent the photos to me and my sisters in our group chat and looks like they had a fantastic time, like they always do. The people you serve, particularly those from underrepresented and underserved communities, often need you to invite them to the experiences you’re delivering.

You may have the stance that of course you are welcome here, but some people like my parents will never come without an invitation or feel like you’re for them without that invitation. So you need to get into the habit of extending invitations to the people you want to serve from underrepresented and underserved communities. We’ll get in some more details about how and the why that is after this short break.

—

Ever wondered what unicorns eat for breakfast or maybe what they use to keep their skin looking so flawless? Well, even though I don’t know these answers, I can tell you something equally as interesting and unicorn-related. Over 20% of all unicorn startups are using HubSpot.

And for good reason. HubSpot’s all-in-one platform levels up your sales, software and support. So you can grow beyond your wildest dreams.

Boosting leads and ramping sales along the way. They even have a constantly evolving collection of resources to help startups scale. Plus with HubSpot for Startups program, you can save up to 90% off your first year.

I’ll admit, it does sound too good to be true. But unlike that majestic and also incredibly fictitious unicorn, HubSpot for Startups is all real. To see if you’re eligible to save on HubSpot and take your growth to new heights, visit hubspot.com/startups.

—-

Okay, so a while back, I did an interview with a woman who talked about the organization she worked for and the efforts they were going through to make more of the people they were serving in the community feel like they belonged and the impact of their efforts. Here she is talking more about that.

It’s interesting. It’s like there is definitely a level of like, we want to make space for underrepresented people, artists and creatives. And I feel like they’re doing that, but then the part of like being sort of part of the community is still something that’s a work in progress.

And so it’s a big understanding how to interact beyond the comfort zone of like an art institution, you know, music space or science talks and things like that.

Kind of like meet people where they are.

Yeah, meeting people where they are, right. As opposed to like expecting them to come in and just, yeah, the space is for everyone. Like, sure, of course it is, but people don’t like see themselves or see things that they are attracted to in it.

It’s not some place that they’re going to want to be. So that’s an example of that, I think.

A lot of times when people are working to create environments and spaces where everyone feels like they belong, they make the mistake of thinking and behaving in a manner that says, yes, of course, everyone is welcome. Saying that everyone is welcome and making someone feel welcomed or like they belong because you designed an experience with them in mind are two completely different things. 

And when it comes to engaging people in communities that are different from you, in many instances, you will have to be proactive about reaching out to them in a manner that is authentic to them and meets them where they are to demonstrate that the space, environment and or product you created and cultivated for them is indeed for them.

Don’t put the effort on them to wander into your space, to your experience, to your product so they can discover whether or not what you created is for them or not. The craft beer market discovered that they needed to take a different approach to reaching a broader audience a few years ago. A New York Times article, which I’ll link to in the show notes, explored how the craft beer market found themselves in a position where they needed to move beyond marketing solely to, as mentioned in the article, “Young White dudes with beards, unquote.”

Historically, this is who they marketed themselves to, but they soon realized that if they wanted to grow, they needed to expand who they were reaching out to or who they were inviting to drink and consume craft beer. So they started being intentional about reaching out to women, to black people, to the Latino community, to the Indigenous community, and as a result of them inviting people from other communities to the craft beer party, more people from those specific communities started to come. Now, remember that famed saying from that movie Field of Dreams, if you build it, they will come?

Well, I want to switch that phrase around to emphasize this point. They will come when you invite them. We’ll get into how you can invite people from the communities you want to serve to experience what you’re offering after this short break.

—

Okay, I’ve got another podcast recommendation for you. It’s Latinx Empower hosted by Taísa Fernández. It’s brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

Latinx Empower is a podcast that features interviews with top level executives, entrepreneurs, and innovators from Latin America, aiming to demystify the tech industry by providing listeners with insider perspectives and insights from Latin American leaders who have succeeded in their fields. I recently listened to the episode The Power of Storytelling in Business with Andrea Márquez, and I really, really enjoyed it. You often hear me talking about the importance of diversifying your circle of influence, and this podcast is one that will really help you do that by hearing different perspectives about some of your favorite topics.

Listen to Latinx Empower wherever you get your podcasts. All right, so let’s get into some ways you can be intentional about inviting people from underrepresented and underserved communities to work with your brand. All right, so we’re going to talk about five specific ways here in no particular order.

—

The first one is influencer marketing, where you’re going to really just be collaborating with people who are parts of the communities or who have audiences that is made up of communities you want to reach. 

Now, the content that the influencers are making doesn’t need to be very specific or culturally relevant to that community. Sometimes it’s just a matter of somebody that you know, people who your audience or the people that you want to serve already know, like, and trust introducing them or creating brand awareness for the products and the services that you are offering.

So if you are a brand who’s got products and services and you identify that there are people from specific communities who aren’t represented in your existing customer base, go ahead and reach out to people who have the customer base that you want to expand into and get them to start talking about your product, whether that’s gifting them the product, whether that’s giving them experience with the product, whether it’s just paying them to create content on your behalf. Influencer marketing is a smart way to borrow the existing trust of people who already have the attention that you want to reach. I learned about several different products that I’m using to create content in my own business from influencers who I also call friends online that I see them on Instagram.

As they were talking about their products and how they use them, I mean, they didn’t give any specific cultural references or talk about their cultural heritage or anything like that. They were just people who looked like me, who I was already following and had a relationship. And they were talking about things that they used.

And because I trusted them, I went ahead and explored those products and services. And where it made sense, I bought them. I probably wouldn’t have heard about those products otherwise if I hadn’t seen people who were already in my circle, who I know and appreciate and love talking about them and the benefits that they’re getting.

So just really, if you aren’t leaning into influencer marketing specifically as it relates to how you can engage people who are parts of specific communities, go ahead and put that on your list of things to give a try. If you need a good primer on Inclusive Influencer Marketing Campaigns, go ahead and check out episode 54 of this podcast, which is all about how to do just that. I’ll drop a link to it in the show notes for you as well.

Another thing that you can do to invite people from underrepresented and underserved communities to your brand is to engage in strategic partnerships and collaborations. 

And this is where you’re going to partner with local businesses, partner with brands, and co-create different campaigns, different opportunities together. So an example of this was a couple of years ago with the brand Peloton partnered with Beyoncé specifically to create specific playlists for her with her music, curated playlists.

As a part of that collaboration, they also reached out to historically black colleges and universities, HBCUs, as a manner to reach more people from the black community. Another example of strategic partnerships and collaborations are a lot of times during different heritage months and celebrations, brands will reach out to, let’s say, people from the LGBTQ plus community during Pride Month to create special limited edition products or content and campaigns. They’ll do the same for Hispanic Heritage Month, for Black History Month, making sure that you are engaging people who are part of the communities, who are creators, who are service providers, who are founders of brands and products that will be beneficial to your customers.

And partnering up with them to do specific things or to become available to your products, not just during those heritage months and celebrations, but all year long, are great ways to reach out to those communities. In last week’s episode, episode number 80, where I was walking through different consumer feedback for the experiences that current brands are delivering right now, there was one woman that I talked to and we were on the Sephora website and she saw that Sephora had specifically called out black owned brands that they were partnering with or that were featured as a part of their product line. And that made a difference from her.

She didn’t previously often think much about shopping at Sephora, but once she found out that they had specific collaborations, partnerships, specifically propping up and featuring black owned brands, that made a difference for her. And for her, it was a signal that Sephora was inviting her to be a customer. And as a result of that invitation that she felt she received from Sephora, she has expressed interest in becoming a customer whenever she has needs for beauty-based products.

Okay, a third way that you can invite people from underrepresented and underserved communities to be your customer or to experience what it is that you have to offer and go through your overall customer experience is by designing specific campaigns and programming with them in mind. 

More and more, I see a lot of brands that are doing this with campaigns that target specific communities, either from a representation standpoint, featuring people from a specific community and their ads and their campaigns, or even through things like language. I’ve seen a lot of car commercials doing this featuring people from the Asian community, featuring people from the Latino community, featuring people from the black community, featuring all kinds of different people in their ads, specific families, they’re using different languages.

Because they want people from these communities to feel like they are seen and like the brand sees them, understands them and gets them. Now, you can create campaigns that are specific to the community, or you can create campaigns that include or elevate or feature people from these communities without it being about them specifically. But the important thing is for people to see themselves or who they aspire to be represented in the marketing and the campaigns that you are putting forth.

A fourth thing that you can do to specifically invite people from underrepresented and underserved communities to engage with your brand or make them aware of your brand is using targeted media. I was working with a client last year who was specifically trying to reach Spanish speakers. So one of the big components of their targeted outreach was going and creating commercials or media on Spanish language radio.

So they knew that there was still very much a high consumption of radio by this particular market. So they created Spanish language campaigns and ads on Spanish language media. So for you, whether that’s radio, whether that’s different forms of online media, whether it’s through good old fashioned print media, whatever the specific type of outreach channels are, know that there are no doubt channels for each of the different types of communities that you want to reach.

And it will be appreciated whenever you are collaborating and you are specifically investing in owners of those communities by investing in media that is by them, for them. And one last area that we’ll talk about in this episode that you can specifically invite people who are parts of communities that you want to serve is by creating inclusive content. And when I say inclusive content, I mean content that specifically speaks to them and their needs.

I remember my first time seeing any Marvel movie was whenever I went to go with a large group of other black expats in Buenos Aires, because I was living in Buenos Aires at the time, and we all went to go see Black Panther. That was content that was designed. It was, of course, part of the overall Marvel story, but because it was a predominantly black cast and crew, that content spoke to me.

It was something that I wanted to go to see. Me and my friends, we dressed up, and we as a group went to go see it. I have since seen, I mean, just about every Marvel movie, if not the actual shows in addition to that as well.

But my entry point into Marvel became because there was content specifically designed for me and mine. Now, that doesn’t mean that of course you need to go out and create a movie, but there are plenty of other forms of content. There was one potential client that I was looking at the content that they have created, and it’s specifically for support for protecting the finances of people who are aging, people who are retired and over the age of 65.

And as I was looking at their content, I saw that much of the content was just designed for, it wasn’t really speaking to any one type of community in particular, but they definitely have the opportunity to create content that speaks to specific types of communities. So let’s talk about the specific needs or the specific ways that children relate to their aging parents and how they support and communicate with them and make sure that they’re not being taken advantage of and that their finances are well cared for. How can they create content that speaks to a specific community, that speaks to their needs, that features people from that community, that is placed in media specifically for that community?

All of these different strategies that I’m talking about today don’t have to be created in a vacuum. They are definitely interrelated in how they are enabling you to approach reaching out and letting people know that what it is that you’re offering applies to them and that they belong there and that you see them and that you’re considering them. So with the content that you’re creating, definitely you want to make sure that it’s inclusive and that it isn’t causing harm and that it demonstrates that you see specific communities.

But in the content itself and its design and who it’s about and the specific issues that you are addressing in the content and the specific people that you are reaching out to and featuring, do make an impact and a difference in making sure that the communities that you’re serving know that you are specifically talking to them and inviting them to explore your product, learn more about it and to be your customer. So there you have it. Five specific ways that you can invite people from particular communities to be your customer and to let them know that what you have is for them and that they belong with you and to let them know that you’ve designed experiences specifically with them in mind.

So I am curious which of these approaches will be ones that you will work to start implementing and applying in your business as you work to expand your outreach, expand your marketing to make sure that people from other communities specifically know that they are welcome with you. Send me an email. Let’s chat on social media and let’s connect more on this particular topic.

That’s it for today’s episode. If you like the show, I would so appreciate it if you would leave a rating and review for it in your podcast player of choice. It really does go a long way towards helping more people discover the show.

Also, I’m very curious to know if you are getting the Inclusion & Marketing Newsletter. Each week, I send tips, insights, news, stories, and other commentary to help you build an inclusive brand that makes more people feel like they belong with you. Go to inclusionandmarketing.com/newsletter to get signed up.

I’ll also drop a link to it in the show notes for you. Until next time, remember everyone deserves to have a place where they belong. Let’s use our individual and collective power to ensure more people feel like they do.

Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you soon.