What do you do if your marketing team lacks diversity and inclusion?

Diversity and inclusion are not only ethical and social values, but also strategic and competitive advantages for any marketing team. A diverse and inclusive marketing team can better understand, reach, and engage with diverse audiences, create more innovative and relevant campaigns, and foster a positive and collaborative work culture. However, achieving diversity and inclusion in marketing is not easy, and it requires intentional and continuous efforts from both leaders and team members. In this article, you will learn what to do if your marketing team lacks diversity and inclusion, and how to improve your team's performance and culture with some practical tips and best practices.

1 Assess your current situation

To improve your marketing team's diversity and inclusion, the first step is to assess your current situation and identify the gaps and challenges. You can use surveys, interviews, focus groups, performance reviews, and employee engagement scores to collect data and feedback from your team members. Additionally, you can measure and analyze the representation and distribution of different demographic groups in your team, such as gender, race, ethnicity, age, disability, sexual orientation, etc. It's also important to consider the level of inclusion and belonging that your team members feel in terms of how comfortable, respected, valued, and supported they are. Lastly, you can benchmark your team's diversity and inclusion metrics against industry standards, competitors, and best practices to measure the impact of diversity and inclusion on outcomes like creativity, innovation, customer satisfaction, revenue, retention, etc.

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Houssem Hazmi

Production Supervisor | Advertising | Branding | NCN-A™ | Scrum Fundamentals Certified (SFC™) | Six Sigma Yellow Belt (SSYB™)
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Encourage open communication, provide diversity training, and actively seek diverse perspectives in decision-making processes.

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2 Set clear and realistic goals

Once you have a clear picture of your current situation, you can set clear and realistic goals for improving your marketing team's diversity and inclusion. You can use the SMART framework to define your goals, which means that they should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. For example, you can set a goal to increase the percentage of women in your marketing leadership positions by 10% in the next year, or to improve the employee engagement score of your marketing team by 15% in the next six months. You can also align your goals with your organization's vision, mission, and values, and communicate them to your team members and stakeholders.

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Tatev Hakobyan

SEO Expert | Digital Marketing Strategist | Trainer & Lecturer
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Each team should be aligned in the same direction and each member should feel ownership. The team manager needs to set realistic goals and clear expectations

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3 Implement effective strategies

To achieve your goals, you need to implement effective strategies that address the root causes of your marketing team's lack of diversity and inclusion. You can use a combination of different strategies, such as recruiting and hiring more diverse talent, developing and retaining existing diverse talent, fostering a culture of inclusion and belonging, educating and training on diversity and inclusion, and measuring and monitoring progress and impact. Recruiting should involve expanding the talent pool, reducing bias in selection processes, and offering competitive and inclusive benefits. Retention should involve providing learning opportunities, growth opportunities, recognition, advancement, and a supportive work environment. Inclusion should involve promoting open communication, collaboration, feedback, and celebrating diverse perspectives. Education should involve raising awareness on topics such as unconscious bias, cultural competence, allyship, and social justice. Measuring progress should involve collecting data on diversity metrics and adjusting strategies based on results.

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4 Seek external support and guidance

Improving your marketing team's diversity and inclusion is not something that you can do alone. It’s essential to seek external support and guidance from various sources, such as your organization's leadership, HR, and diversity and inclusion teams. These sources can provide you with policies, resources, and best practices to support your efforts. Additionally, your customers, partners, and suppliers can share their insights on your marketing campaigns and initiatives, which can help you reach and serve diverse markets and audiences. Moreover, it’s beneficial to get advice from your peers, mentors, and coaches on how to lead a diverse and inclusive team. Furthermore, industry associations, networks, and communities can offer opportunities for learning, networking, and benchmarking with other organizations who are committed to diversity and inclusion.

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5 Keep learning and improving

Improving your marketing team's diversity and inclusion is an ongoing journey. You must stay informed and up-to-date on diversity and inclusion practices, and be willing to adapt to changing needs and expectations. To do this, you should seek feedback from team members, customers, and stakeholders, gather new sources of information and ideas, look for collaborative opportunities with other teams, organizations, and communities that share your values, and find new ways to recognize, reward, and celebrate your team's contributions. Additionally, it is important to acknowledge your mistakes and failures as you learn and grow.

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6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?

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Buket B.

🏅10X Top LinkedIn Voice Badges | Head of Marketing | Brand Builder | FinTech & Blockchain Expert | Crypto Enthusiast | +9K
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Strengthen Your Team! If there's no diversity in your marketing team: Uncover Biases: Examine the current team and materials. Provide Training: Educate on the importance of unconscious bias and diversity. Build a Different Team: Increase diversity with inclusive job descriptions and panels. Invest in Development: Provide opportunities for learning about different cultures. Practice Inclusive Marketing: Include diverse participants in research, create unbiased content, collaborate with diverse content creators. Track Progress: Monitor team structure and campaign performance, gather feedback. Create an Inclusive Culture, celebrate diversity, and lead by example.

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Danielle Marsh

Brand Strategist
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Developing a diverse and inclusive team is fun and exciting when done right. It’s important to know your company’s values to ensure you are hiring or expanding to include people who align with the direction of your company, while bringing diverse skills, backgrounds, and perspectives. Start by including your team in a personality assessment, such as StrengthFinders, and then charting results for your team as a group. This lets people learn about themselves, each other, and where the team has opportunities to expand. Then, spend quality time welcoming new people, especially if they don’t fit the traditional company mold. As a team, show them where they fit into the personality chart too, which lets them learn about the team they joined.

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Danielle Marsh

Brand Strategist
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The diversity iceberg was innovative when anthropologist Edward T. Hall created it in the 1970’s to explain culture. But companies should do better than reexplaining the 50-year-old diagram. Try this for a no cost solution. Draw the iceberg on a whiteboard with the attributes listed along the side of the board. Then have a conversation with your team about where each attribute fits on the iceberg, and how perspectives have changed over time. Then rewrite the attributes where the team can generally agree where it should be. Encourage participation and share your experiences. Make sure your team isn’t under time or deadline stress, and give them space to have open conversation, with room for emotions, growth, and no judgement.

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What do you do if your marketing team lacks diversity and inclusion?

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3

4

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1 Assess your current situation

2 Set clear and realistic goals

3 Implement effective strategies

4 Seek external support and guidance

5 Keep learning and improving

6 Here’s what else to consider

Marketing

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What do you do if your marketing team lacks diversity and inclusion?

1

2

3

4

5

6

1 Assess your current situation

2 Set clear and realistic goals

3 Implement effective strategies

4 Seek external support and guidance

5 Keep learning and improving

6 Here’s what else to consider

Marketing

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