5 Inclusive Holiday Marketing Campaign Tips

According to a study by McKinsey, 75% of Gen Zers will stop purchasing from brands that discriminate against race and sexuality in advertisements. 79% of millennials also want to see more diversity in ads.  

Given these stats, it's safe to conclude that modern consumers care more about diversity and inclusion today than they ever did before.  

With the holiday season fast approaching, shifting your digital marketing strategy in Miami to be more inclusive and reflective of the world we live in is a surefire way to cut through the noise and stand out among your competitors.  

So, how exactly can you be more socially conscious in your approach to marketing your products and services during the holiday season?

Here are some tips for developing a more inclusive holiday marketing campaign that will surely raise brand awareness and boost your sales.  

What is Inclusive Marketing?

Inclusive marketing is the practice of crafting marketing messages, creating content, and publishing imagery with an inclusive mindset.  

It considers diversity in all forms, which allows you to represent people from various backgrounds or demographics. It’s useful to consider diversity from all these perspectives:

• Race
• Body size
• Ethnicity
• Gender identity
• Socio-economic status

• Religion/spirituality
• Mental/physical ability or disability

Your audience is made up of different kinds and groups of people. By recognizing this in the messaging of your holiday ads and the imagery across your social media accounts, you can develop campaigns that resonate and make a lasting impact on the lives of your community.  

How to Create an Inclusive Holiday Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses

Approach your holiday digital marketing strategy in Miami with inclusivity in mind. This is how you're going to grab the attention of your intended audience, during a time when they’re constantly being bombarded with all sorts of marketing gimmicks from left to right, and engage them effectively. Here’s how to do it:

1. Forget About Traditional Holiday Color Palette

One way to be more inclusive is to shy away from the traditional red-and-green and blue-and-white color combinations. Instead, use your brand colors but give it a holiday twist like what Kate Spade did with their holiday emails! Check it out:

Image from eSputnik

As you can see from the image above, the colors are very on-brand. The imagery is also very neutral, but the night sky, twinkling stars, and the holiday greeting tell us that it has something to do with celebrating holidays.

You can use the same tactics for your holiday digital marketing campaigns in Miami. Instead of painting your site and marketing materials with green and red, use pastel shades of your brand colors instead. You can also incorporate imagery that conveys a message about the holidays but are still neutral.  

2. Focus on Value-Based Messaging Instead of Holiday-Based Messaging

90% of Americans celebrate Christmas for religious, cultural, and other reasons. It’s the most celebrated holiday tradition in the country by both Christians and non-Christians. No wonder why many groups feel forgotten during the holidays.  

Be cautious about stepping on anyone's holiday toes with your messaging. Keep in mind that not everyone celebrates for the same reasons. With this in mind, abandon holiday-based messaging and center your marketing message on common values and themes instead.  

For example, instead of using “Merry Christmas” or focusing your message on gift-giving, lean towards the meaning of Christmas like community, family, and generosity. Doing this is a great way to become more inclusive of all religions, faiths, and beliefs.

Here’s an inclusive holiday video ad created by Target:

By focusing on the beauty of diversity, new traditions, and celebrating differences, Target's campaign was not only relatable but also successful in bringing people together to celebrate the spirit of holidays.  

However, if you have customers who belong to the older generation, it's essential to craft a message and a copy that's specifically appealing to them. This means using the usual season greetings like “Merry Christmas”, “Feliz Navidad”, “Joy to the World”, and many more in your email campaigns.  

3. Create Inclusive Content, But Avoid Imagery That Conveys Tokenism

We’ve seen brands “hire” diversity and inclusion to make their campaigns more appealing to the public. But modern consumers aren’t naïve. They can tell that these are just tokenistic attempts to be seen as diverse.  

Tokenism is a half-hearted act of fulfilling a requirement only to prevent criticism and to be seen as "woke."  

To come off as authentic in your approach to being more inclusive and diverse in your marketing, your efforts should root at the core of your business strategy.  

Being inclusive and diverse should be something you truly believe in as a brand. This should then be reflected in your values and messaging.

A fully inclusive, diverse content strategy that provides authentic results cannot be achieved overnight. The goal is to produce content that’s inclusive and diverse all year round.  

This is why it’s best to start as early as today. Start publishing content with inclusivity and diversity in mind. Craft messaging that speaks to more than one group of people.  

You should also start planning your holiday marketing campaign. You want your content to authentically reflect your community beyond their races, but also their various gender identities, abilities, ages, body types, and sexualities.  

Image from ImpactPlus

Here are some inclusive content best practices to follow:

• Don't use gendered language. Swap phrases like "ladies and gentlemen" with neutral alternatives like "folks" and "businessperson".
• Optimize your site for a more accessible web design.  
• Avoid using terms that may seem harmless but originate from harmful historical events.  
• Diversify your examples and references.
• Structure your articles in a way that makes it easy for people to skim through them.

• Use diverse imagery.

4. Use Neutral Holiday Imagery or Inclusive Representation

Image from Chipotle’s Instagram

Create compelling holiday campaigns that appeal to your intended audience by getting at the core of what they see the holidays to represent. In other words, create campaigns that apply directly to them.  

When people see themselves represented in your content, social media posts, and videos, it empowers them and makes them feel seen. It also motivates them to engage more with your brand.  

In fact, 67% of consumers say that seeing themselves represented makes them feel more connected with a brand, influencing their purchasing decisions.  

Make your content inclusive by featuring photos of people from all walks of life, races, body shapes and sizes, cultures, and sexuality.  

It’s also a good idea to anchor your holiday message on a theme that everyone can resonate with and use visuals that will help you convey this. It could be a picture of hope, a promise of a new beginning, peace, or unity.  

Again, focus more on the values. The goal is to make everyone feel welcomed and bring communities together. You can also achieve this by being neutral with your imagery or making specific references for each of your target segments.  

Another example is using snowflakes in your ad copy to target customers in snowy areas, while a sand “snowman” for clients located in warmer areas.  

Image from ConsumerAffairs

Just remember to avoid tokenizing, stereotyping, and appropriating by using religious imagery and hiring models who are only white, able-bodied, and size 0.  

To ensure your holiday marketing campaigns reach as far as possible within your target market, create a series of campaigns where each ad is inclusive of a specific group.  

5. Optimize Your Content for Accessibility

Being inclusive and diverse also means creating content that caters to people with visual and hearing impairments.  

Here are the different ways you can make your holiday content more accessible.  

• Keep your messages short and direct to the point.
• Use bullets and numbers to structure your content for better readability.
• Add alt text to interpret images and other visuals in your content.
• Use descriptive links to give readers an idea of where the link is leading them to.

• Check for color contrast, especially between your text and the background.
• Add subtitles, closed captions, open captions, standard audio descriptions, and extended audio descriptions to optimize your videos for silent viewing and to make them more accessible to everyone.  

Making your content accessible can also positively impact your SEO and provide a better user experience for everyone!

Bonus Tip: Create Deals for Every Holiday

Take your holiday digital marketing campaigns in Miami to the next level by rolling out special deals and discounts for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Diwali, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Dia De Muertos, Yom Kippur, Small Business Saturday, and more!

Doing this is a great way to make everybody valued by your business.

Is Your Holiday Digital Marketing Strategy in Miami Focused on Celebrating Inclusivity and Diversity?

As a small business owner, aim to embed inclusivity and diversity throughout every aspect of your company and brand, especially in your digital marketing plan in Miami.  

This way, your inclusive holiday campaigns will feel like an extension of your regular content - not something that's for the sake of compliance only.

At Digital Resource, our digital marketing specialists will work with you to create a custom holiday marketing campaign that will generate leads and boost your revenue during the peak sales season!

Contact us today to get started!

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