Getting attention for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives has never been easy.  

Employees are often too distracted to pay attention to your messaging or too busy to show up to your programs. DEI initiatives are rarely a priority amid the urgencies of day-to-day deadlines and a barrage of messages on Teams, Slack, and email.   

And while executive awareness and support are crucial for DEI programs - both to demonstrate that DEI is an organizational priority and to secure DEI budgets and headcount - leaders can be just as hard to engage. Sometimes, it’s because of bandwidth. And sometimes, it’s because they don’t fully appreciate the value of DEI work.  

And let’s face it: DEI and ERG leaders don’t have a lot of time or resources at their disposal when it comes to promoting their programs. Most DEI teams are stretched and ERG leaders have separate full-time jobs. So after investing so much effort to organize programs and events, it can be tempting to just throw together some promotional comms and hope that the message reaches the right people.  

Sadly, that’s not enough - especially today.  Because securing high employee participation in DEI programming, and compellingly demonstrating it to executive decision-makers, is more important than ever. After all, at many companies, DEI programs are at risk. Many are being  (or already have been) deprioritized, with budgets and headcount slashed.  Plus, in our politically charged environment, DEI leaders face fresh skepticism about their work from leaders and employees alike.  

So what can DEI and ERG leaders do to most effectively promote their programs - both to boost participation among employees and support from executives? 

The answer: think like a marketer.  

What Does It Mean to “Think Like a Marketer’ When Promoting an ERG or DEI Initiative?

There’s a tried-and-true method for promoting your DEI programs like a marketer. Fortunately, the approach can be applied to virtually any type of promotion: from publicizing a one-time event in order to boost attendance, to encouraging active membership in an ERG long-term, to showcasing the impact of DEI initiatives for executive audiences.

It all starts with having a clear goal in mind and a clear understanding of your audience - whoever it is you need to engage or influence. Next, you’ll need to understand what messaging your audience finds compelling, and the best channels and tactics to reach them.   When you’ve executed on your plan, you’ll want to track how it all went, so you can learn and iterate.

When you’re already stretched thin, this strategic approach can feel like a lot. So let’s break this down with real examples - and a ‘Bare Bones’ Template (here). 

Step 1: Articulate Your Goal(s) 

What are you trying to achieve? Your goals likely fall into one of six categories, which outline the journey an employee goes on from being unaware of your initiative to being a strong promoter or supporter of it. 

Whatever the goal, aim for it to be measurable, specific, and time-bound. This keeps you accountable and helps you evaluate what’s successful, and unsuccessful, about your approach.

Example goals: 

• Awareness: ensuring employees and leaders know your initiative or ERG exists. For example, how many people like your DEI-related posts on Slack or Teams?
• Enrollment: encouraging employees to actively join your ERGs or activities. For example, what percentage of employees are part of an ERG?
• Participation: engaging employees in specific activities and events. For example, how many employees participated in a volunteer event or ERG meeting? 
• Ongoing Engagement: maintaining employees' interest and involvement in DEI programs and ERGs over time. For example: what percentage of ERG members participate in at least one ERG activity per quarter? 
• Promotion: recommending your initiatives or ERG to others in the company. What’s the net promoter score for your initiative?
• Support: providing funding, headcount, resources, guidance, or other assistance. For example: how many executive sponsors does your initiative have? How many minutes are you granted to present at an All Hands meeting? 

Step 2. Understand Your Audience(s)

Who are the people you need to reach? This will tie directly to your goal. For the most effective planning, try to go deeper than broad, superficial definitions like ‘employees’ or ‘the executive team.’  

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For example, if your goal is to increase awareness of ERGs at your company, you might define your key audience as employees hired in the last six months. Whereas, if your goal is to drive ongoing engagement in an ERG, your audience isn’t ‘new employees’ or even ‘all employees.’  Instead, it’s employees who have already attended one or two ERG events.  

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You may have secondary audiences, too. These are people who aren’t the primary target of your campaign, but they can influence your success in meeting a goal. In the first example above, your company’s talent acquisition or onboarding teams might be a secondary audience. Perhaps you want to convince them to promote your ERGs during the recruitment or onboarding process.  

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Step 3: Craft Your Message

Your message will have two parts: a call to action, and a value proposition.  

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The call to action is simple: what are you asking your audience to do?  This should be clear, time-bound, and (ideally) just one thing because multiple calls to action can create confusion, and result in the audience doing none.  

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The value proposition tells your audience why they should do what you’re asking them to do.  It’s the, “what’s in it for me?” When creating the value proposition, it’s crucial to think from their perspective - not yours.  

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For example, you feel that it’s important for managers to attend a session on pronouns in order to create an inclusive, welcoming environment within the company. But for the managers in your audience, that might not be the most compelling value proposition.  Instead, they may be more motivated by specific messaging that focuses on “pain” that they can avoid. For instance: avoid offending teammates or creating an awkward situation.   

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Likewise, if you’re looking for an executive sponsor for an ERG, they may be less convinced by messaging that relates to improving company culture, and more convinced by hearing that the CEO is also an ERG sponsor, they’d have facetime together at quarterly exec sponsor meetings.  

Step 4: Select Your Channels 

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Next, consider the best channel(s). A channel is the medium or platform that you’ll use for reaching your audience - think Slack/Teams vs. a town hall vs. your intranet vs. video vs. newsletter, etc. 

To make the right choice, you’ll want to consider you’re audience’s preferences for communication through several lenses:

• Where do they turn for information? For example, is the group you’re trying to reach always using email? Or, do they never check their inboxes and gravitate to Slack? Or maybe neither: for frontline employees, maybe physical signage, an on-site video screen or an employee communications app are better bets. 
  
  
• How do they like to consume information? Do your busy employees gravitate toward short videos? Do your field sales employees like audio so they can listen while driving?  Do your shift team members prefer live standups? Do your executives prefer brief written summaries in bullet-point notes? For what it’s worth, you may want to consider what your audiences *don’t* like, too. No one wants to be speaking into a void (or abandoned intranet).
  
  
• What accessibility considerations are important? Do you need video formats that don’t require reading? Written formats that don’t require audio? What about subtitles and translations? Asynchronous options that can be consumed at will? 

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Finally, your choices will be constrained by what’s realistically at your disposal.  While we’d all love to promote our DEI event in a punchy video, that’s not realistic for many stretched teams (though Spokn’s changing that!).  

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Step 5: Choose Your Tactics
 

Next come tactics - or the specific activities or actions that you’ll undertake for this specific goal. Think an intranet banner, newsletter blast, testimonial video, or swag shipment.  

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At Spokn, many of our favorite marketing tactics involve video, because when videos are done well, they’re eye-catching, credible, and authentic.   

For example, peer testimonials are a great tactic for engaging skeptical or busy employees. If your goal is to boost ERG membership among busy managers, you may record testimonial videos from current ERG members who are also managers, explaining the value they get out of their membership and why it’s worth their (limited) free time.  

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Utilizing influencers is also an effective tactic. If your goal is to increase the number of leadership program applications you receive from women employees, for instance, consider asking a well-respected and influential woman leader to serve as an ‘internal influencer’ - issuing personal invitations to apply or recording a video about why participation is so important. 

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Learn and Iterate 

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Phew! You’ve put these actions into place and the promotional campaign is over, right?  

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Nope.

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A crucial last step in promoting your DEI initiatives is reflecting on what worked - and didn’t work. Take the time after the dust settles to compare your outcomes to the goals you set at the beginning. Did you reach the quantitative targets, such as attendance numbers or rates or representation? Did you receive any qualitative feedback - whether through written forms, video submissions, or informal conversations? How did this feedback compare with your expectations? 

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It can be easy to forget these learnings, and it’s worth a few minutes to record them in a format like the one below:

DEI Campaign Postmortem:

• Results: How did your actual results compare to the measurable goals you set? 
• Success Factors: what factors contributed to the success of the campaign - from messaging to the channels you chose to the tactics you used? 
• Challenges and Issues: what obstacles came up? What didn’t work as well as you’d intended? Were there any issues you didn’t foresee (technical, budgetary, etc)?
• Lessons Learned: summarize your takeaways - what worked, and what didn’t 
• Recommendations: list out your recommendations for future campaigns 

Conclusion

Thinking like a marketer to plan the promotion of your DEI initiative can feel like a lot of work - especially upfront.  

But trust us: it’s worth it. 

Because with the increased pressure to show the value of DEI work, and the shrinking budget to get it all done with, it’s more important than ever to use DEI resources wisely.  Strategically planning your promotion - from goals and audiences to messages, channels, and tactics - is the first step.

To get started with a simple DEI Marketing Template, click here. 

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