Diversity and inclusion initiatives—referred to as D&I—have become more common, but that doesn’t mean they are well-understood or always effective. For travel brands, diversity is important internally, but it’s also vital to show realistic representation in your marketing. Influencer marketing, in particular, is a key way to prioritize diversity. Let’s explore.
What is Diversity?
Diversity describes all the things that make us unique, often including ethnicity, skin color, gender, sexual orientation, religion, physical attributes or abilities, and socioeconomic status. The reality is that humans are incredibly complex and diverse. But in public spheres—and marketing—we tend to see a lot of sameness.
In recent years, many brands have taken a stand and vowed to increase diversity, both internally and externally. They’ve incorporated diversity initiatives into their core values and strategic plans. While we still have a long way to go to see actual representation in media, entertainment, and marketing, progress is being made.
The Importance of Diversity in Marketing
Why does diversity matter? It’s actually a multi-pronged answer, covering social and business reasons.
1. Consumers demand it
Not only do today’s consumers demand to see diversity and real-life representation in their social media feeds, but they also expect their favorite brands and influencers to take a stand on social issues.
Research shows that 40% of consumers expect creators to use their platforms to raise awareness and participate in social change conversations. And 71% expect brands to promote diversity and inclusion in their online advertising. This even has an impact on spending behavior, with 59% saying they prefer to buy from brands that stand for diversity publicly.
And this will only grow. 94% of Gen Z—our youngest generation of consumers—expect companies to speak out about social issues. This isn’t just a trend. It’s the new norm.
2. It’s the right thing to do
For many brands, diversity and accessibility have become brand values. Not just because consumers are vocal about it, or because it has proven business outcomes, but because it’s just the right thing to do.
It can be hard to sus out which brands are authentic and which are posturing. But many companies are acknowledging their role, and accepting their responsibility to be good corporate citizens.
Part of this manifests in how you market your brand, the partners you keep, and whether you put your money where your mouth is. Influencers who are advocates for social causes are great partners; they can amplify impact beyond the confines of traditional marketing. Just make sure their values and your brand values are in alignment.
3. Representation matters
A survey from Meta found that most consumers (71%) expect brands to promote diversity and inclusion in their advertising. But the majority (54%) said they do not feel fully culturally represented in online advertising. Members of diverse communities and marginalized groups feel most impacted. (And some even spoke of commonly seeing negative stereotypical representation).
This, unfortunately, isn’t surprising. But it illuminates that representation does matter. Gen Z will be the last generation to be mainly white, according to U.S. Census Data. That means that what we typically see with representation doesn’t actually reflect the full diversity and uniqueness within the U.S. population. This is a problem.
Without actively aiming to represent your customer base, you’re neglecting them. And this has influential and dangerous impacts on society.
4. It’s good for business
This has come up a bit already, but the truth is diversity is good for business. Not only are consumers more likely to trust brands that are committed to diversity, but representation also appeals to more audiences. This can enhance your credibility and trustworthiness, which has a direct impact on brand loyalty and your bottom line.
Hubspot’s State of Consumer Trends report found that 37% of consumers chose a product based on the brand’s commitment to diversity and inclusion in the past three months, up 23% from last year.
But this also has the opposite effect. We’ve seen an increase in boycotts of brands that don’t prioritize diversity—or that attempted and failed.
How to Create a More Diverse and Inclusive Influencer Program
Many consumers are drawn to influencers because of their inherent relatability, compared to more traditional forms of marketing and advertising. But a big part of relating is representation. For this reason, diversity is incredibly important in influencer marketing.
But brand-creator partnerships are struggling to demonstrate diversity. Just 28% of consumers across the UK and US believe that brands’ influencer marketing campaigns “adequately reflect diversity in society.” In contrast, nearly two-thirds of marketers think their influencer content does adequately represent diversity. This paints a pretty clear picture of the current challenge.
How can a brand ensure that they’re being diverse and inclusive with influencer marketing? It comes down to partnering with diverse influencers, prioritizing diverse audiences, and creating accessible and tailored content.
Partner with Diverse Influencers
This might seem obvious, but it’s common for unconscious bias to creep into the process of finding influencers. Even if you intentionally try to recruit influencers from diverse backgrounds and perspectives, especially from underrepresented groups, you may not be succeeding.
But if you can achieve diversity, you’ll create an influencer program that’s rich, representative, and effective. Gone are the days of stereotypical sponsored content; consumers today respond to authentic and relatable stories and experiences. If they see themselves reflected in the content, they’ll be more likely to trust the recommendation (and hopefully complete that booking!).
As you plan your next influencer campaign, keep diversity top of mind. Look to influencers who reflect the demographic of your target audience. And remember that diversity isn’t just gender or ethnicity, it’s about representing the world we live in, including age, physical ability, socioeconomic status, lived experience, and lifestyle.
But be aware of tokenism, of partnering with diverse influencers just for the appearance of inclusivity. Your diversity efforts must be authentic or your audience will see right through it, potentially causing harm to your brand.
Prioritize Diverse Audiences
Audience and influencers are often a package deal, so by committing to a more diverse influencer pool, you may already be exposing your brand to more diverse audiences. But the diversity of your audience must also be a priority.
Within any travel category, there are typical audiences. For example, budget travel may imply a younger audience with limited funds. You’d be doing your brand a disservice by just focusing on this subset of the audience. There are so many other diverse audiences within it, like middle-class families who don’t have the extra funds to take trips that aren’t “budget,” or seniors on a fixed income who want to see the world in their golden years.
The benefit of influencer marketing is you can find wonderful creators who cater to your target audience, through all of its nuances and varieties. If you only stick with your typical budget travel influencer, you’re missing out on casting a wider net and appealing to more travelers within your target audience.
Create Tailored Content
Being intentional about diversity in your influencers and audiences then lends itself to more diverse and targeted content. Your diverse influencers will all bring their unique style and approach to the content creation process, meaning you’ll have opportunities to cover topics, locations, and perspectives that only those influencers could execute.
Here are a few things to keep in mind for your influencer content:
- Use inclusive messaging. One benefit of having diversity in your influencers is they can help ensure your messaging, language, imagery, and context are appropriate to the target audience
. - Tailor your content. Using diverse influencers, especially micro influencers with niche audiences, allows you to create highly targeted content, tailored to specific people.
- Avoid stereotypes and tokenism. Authenticity is the foundation of influencer marketing, and that’s especially true when trying to bring more diversity and relatability into your program.
- Trust your influencers. Rather than dictating the messaging, trust your influencer partners to be genuine about their experience with your brand. Let them take their followers along in a way that’s meaningful to everyone. They know their followers and what types of content will resonate.
- Be accessible. Inclusion means it’s for everyone. This includes those who are hearing or sight impaired, or have mobility issues. Ensure your influencers are using captions and creating content in a way that meets or exceeds accessibility requirements.
- Understand cultural nuances. If your influencers or audiences represent other cultures, be aware of significant holidays, values, religious perspectives, etc. As you create content, ensure that you aren’t being insensitive or inappropriate. This further shows respect for others and should be the case for all your marketing and sales efforts, not just your influencer program.
Drive Travel Bookings with Diverse Influencers
By partnering with diverse influencers, prioritizing varied audiences, and creating tailored and meaningful content experiences, travel brands can demonstrate and live your D&I initiatives. But at the end of the day, you’re still a business with revenue goals.
To continue investing in your diversity-driven influencer program, you’ll have to demonstrate success. And that means bookings.
Read next! Can Influencers Drive Bookings in the Travel Industry?
Final Thoughts
Diversity and inclusion are crucial for modern brands. Not only do consumers demand it, but it’s the right thing to do and has a positive impact on business success. Influencer marketing programs, in particular, are a great place to start.
Contact us if you need help creating a more diverse influencer marketing program for your travel brand.
