DE&I Writing Tips For B2B Communications

Reach a Wider Audience with Targeted Public Relations

If your company is serious about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I), then your B2B writing style and overall marketing strategy should reflect it.

DEI shouldn’t be viewed as the latest fad. Instead, industry leaders should recognize how inclusivity and diversity of voice can benefit company growth.

Research shows that more diverse businesses boast above-average profitability. Why is this? Because inclusivity, diversity, and equity have been shown to promote innovation, and creativity and attract talented individuals.

If you are ready to show your clients that you value inclusion, equity, and diversity in the workplace, you’ve come to the right place. Here are four writing tips on how to style your DE&I-focused B2B communications.

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4 Writing Tips For DE&I-Focused B2B Communications

Engage Your ENTIRE Audience

To grab the attention of your brand’s entire audience, you should first know who you are writing to. Invest time and effort into establishing your brand’s customer personas.

After you have that finalized, further divide each customer persona into subgroups that take the underrepresented and marginalized into consideration.

Yes, you can use AI to sift through large amounts of customer data to help you with this. Just know that your AI system may not be free of bias and discriminatory decisions. Your learning strategy shouldn’t be wholly dependent on AI. Instead, do some of the heavy digging yourself.

This can be a brilliant exercise for your entire marketing team to unravel which underrepresented groups of people are not currently being catered to. The more time you invest in uncovering more sensitive ways to approach these types of clients, the more compelling, thoughtful, and useful your company’s content will be.

Cover The Right Topics

At the beginning of each month, it’s important to plan a content calendar that reflects how important diversity, equity, and inclusion are to your company.

What you write about should speak to more than only one ethnicity, gender, and age group. It’s also a great idea to write about special company events that celebrate diversity, equity, and inclusion.

This is best done in a team setting where various people can give their opinion and help shape your company’s monthly content ideas. If more than three pairs of eyes look your content calendar over, there’ll be fewer chances of excluding minority people groups.

To point you in the right direction, here are a couple of things that will help you create effective business content for a wide spectrum of clients:

Employ a diverse writing team.
Create language guidelines that promote inclusivity, equity, and diversity for your writing team.
Create content that is accessible to individuals with disabilities.
Cover a wide variety of topics that incorporates stories about a diverse range of people.
Create a company culture where everyone feels comfortable speaking their mind.

Choose Diverse Images

By knowing exactly who your clients are, and who you’re trying to reach through your content, you can better connect with future clients through the correct use of imagery.

Stock photo websites are a gem when it comes to sourcing diverse depictions of people in everyday situations. To show your readers that you really understand them and their needs on a personal level, you should represent them in your marketing material whenever you can.

If your clients can relate to what they’re seeing, they will be more inclined to read your newsletters, white papers, blogs, or case studies.

However, keep in mind that visually impaired individuals also want to know what each photo portrays on your website. Be sure to implement web accessibility best practices when describing images with the Alt Text tag to accommodate them.

Build DE&I Into Your Brand And Team

Yes, DE&I should be reflected in the content you put out into the world. However, if your bid to support diversity, inclusion, and equity stops there, do you really mean it? These values can’t just be sprinkled about here and there. They need to be built into your brand.

Any B2B content you send to clients should reflect the brand values that your team already lives and breathes. DE&I shouldn’t be an afterthought. It should be woven into everything your brand does.

For a company that serves other companies, this means you will need to practice active listening to really understand your clients’ needs. You should also invest in potential stakeholders that have different backgrounds, beliefs, religions, values, and ethnicities.

By hiring a diverse group of employees, you can also gain priceless perspectives on your brand and business initiatives. This will help build DE&I into your brand, team, and company culture.

Conclusion

When it comes down to it, everybody wants to feel seen and heard – even in the business world. By making it clear that every single one of your clients matter, your brand will always be one step ahead of the competition.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion should be top of mind in regard to all business and marketing decisions, especially when it comes to brand content.

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Leeza Hoyt

Founder and President at The Hoyt Organization

With over 25 years of experience, Leeza’s campaigns have garnered over 150 awards from top public relations organizations nationwide. Additionally, THO serves as the Los Angeles area partner of the Public Relations Global Network, granting clients access to over 50 global markets. The agency was also named to one of the top 200 firms in the country by Forbes magazine in 2021, and she has been named by Globest.com as a Woman of Influence and a Woman to Watch, among other designations.