How Marketers Can Measure Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

21 Jun How Marketers Can Measure Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Over the past year, consumers and employees have challenged organizations to drive diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the workplace and the community. Marketers have repositioned their brands as advocates of these initiatives. But how do they know if they are achieving this goal in their marketing?

For a goal like advancing DEI, marketers must adopt a holistic approach and measure the successes and opportunities across all areas of organizational impact. Additionally, marketers must ask the right questions to measure their achievement against these goals.

There are four primary dimensions of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) that marketers should measure:

1) Customer Base DEI

The first dimension is the DEI of your company’s customer base. The questions marketers need to consider when examining this metric include:

• What is our current customer base balance?
• How has our customer base balance changed over the past year?
• What is our target customer base balance?

2) Media Targeting DEI

The second dimension is the DEI of your media targeting strategy. The questions marketers may ask include:

• Is our messaging balanced? Does it recognize the diversity within our target audience?
• When necessary, does our creative design elevate the diversity of our target audience?

3) Customer Perceptions of DEI

Third, marketers can examine their customers’ perceptions of DEI efforts. Some of the questions marketers may ask are:

• Are our customers aware of our DEI initiatives?
• Do our customers associate DEI as an integral part of our brand image?
• Do our DEI initiatives influence their purchase decisions?

4) Employee Perceptions of DEI

Businesses can examine employees’ perceptions of their company’s DEI efforts. Some questions to ask are:

• Do all our employees know of our DEI efforts?
• Do our employees believe that our DEI efforts improve our workplace?

Measurement Challenges

When marketers know what questions they need to ask, they may struggle to gather appropriate data to determine the answer. For instance, survey respondents may not disclose demographic information like their ethnicity. Small organizations may have trouble collecting data with an adequate sample size as well. Or, the data may not be granular enough to apply appropriate analytics and draw a conclusion.

Nevertheless, marketers need to work along these four dimensions to first assess their status, determine their objectives, and then act to meet these objectives.