Accessibility solutions must be a key component in today’s day and age, yet, brands worldwide fail to incorporate these solutions in their marketing campaigns. This means these brands are depriving themselves of the business they could gain from at least a fifth of their target audience.
Inclusive marketing has been the buzzword in the marketing world in recent years. Organizations tend to reach out to audiences across various gender identities and social and economic classes, but they often tend to turn a blind eye to people with disabilities.
While this can be a huge financial loophole, it also comes across as ignorant, and no brand wants to be labeled as such.
This article will dive into the importance of accessible marketing solutions, why you should implement them, and how you can go about doing so.
The Importance of Accessibility-Focused Marketing Solutions
Before we dive into what accessible marketing is, here’s a statistic – Failing to incorporate accessibility solutions in your marketing campaigns leads to your business missing out on being able to reach almost a billion people worldwide.
Now, you have an idea of how important accessible marketing is. This concept ensures your marketing channels, such as emails, websites, newsletters, and so on, after the needs and conveniences of those with disabilities.
One example of an excellent product that catered to the needs of children who were blind or sight impaired in some way were Lego’s Braille Bricks. These were a collection of Lego bricks with braille that aimed to help children read in schools across the United States.
What stood out about this campaign is that it not only aimed to reach out to visually impaired children and help them enjoy a process of play-based learning but also learn Braille codes in their native languages.
Accessible marketing is crucial for several reasons, some of which are explained below:
People With Disabilities Are a Market With Massive Potential
According to the Centre for Disease Control (CDC), one in four people in the United States has some form of disability. This translates to a fourth of the country’s population, which is a huge market for a brand to not miss out on.
Several studies have also shown that most people with disabilities are heavily disappointed with brands’ websites and the level of accessibility they offer.
While this might not come across as a major drawback when put so simply, the reality is that they aren’t afraid to look elsewhere when it comes to spending their money. So, every person your marketing campaign fails to cater to is a potential customer lost.
If You don’t Provide, You Lose
According to Level Access’ report titled 2021 State of Digital Accessibility, almost 38.6% of employees reported that their product’s accessibility heavily contributed to purchases by their customers.
This means that a significant chunk of brands have incorporated accessibility solutions in their marketing channels in some way, which in turn is contributing to increased sales.
In such an environment where brands are working on improving their accessibility, one that fails to do so will simply be losing customers to its competition.
How Can You Introduce Accessibility Solutions in Your Marketing Plans?
The biggest question that would now come to mind is, “How can I make my marketing efforts more accessible to those with disabilities?” The good news is that several brands have already paved the way for several solutions that you can incorporate.
However, before we dive into these, it’s essential to remember that accessibility shouldn’t just be a small aspect of your marketing plan but its backbone. Customers can see through shallow initiatives, and a brand introducing a few namesake accessibility solutions won’t do much good in the long run.
Having said that, some effective accessibility solutions you could take inspiration from include:
- Involve the key stakeholders: The first step to incorporating accessible marketing channels is to involve the key stakeholders of this effort in the process. Share your plan with people who are either hearing, visual, or mobility impaired so they can give you feedback on how you can improve or redirect your efforts in the right way.
This can go a long way in ensuring you’re not just pushing what you consider to be accessible marketing onto people with disabilities but rather ensuring that these changes are actually effective. - Put yourself in your target audience’s shoes: This step can come in handy if you can’t run your campaign by people with disabilities. In this situation, you must understand how a user will have to interact with your website in terms of movement, what they’ll need to see to understand the content, what sound it’ll have to produce so that visually impaired people could benefit from it, and how much time will a user put into understanding your content.
With the answers to these questions, you should find yourself closer to creating a more inclusive marketing experience for those who are impaired in some way. - Use the right tools: Marketing is no longer manual work that takes hours to implement; the same goes for including more accessible elements in your content. Using the right tools can go a long way in getting you started. For example, a tool like Inclusive Components explores common interface components and presents more accessible versions that you can then implement in your marketing.
Another example is Color Oracle, a simulator that shows what a colorblind person sees on their screen when looking at your marketing campaigns. This helps you design content in a manner that makes it easier for them to access.
Key Takeaways
To summarize, for marketing to be accessible is the need of the hour, not simply because it gives businesses the benefit of reaching a much wider audience but also because it creates a ripple effect in the long term. The more inclusive your brand is, the more goodwill it will generate over the years.
People with disabilities have massive spending potential, and failing to cater to their needs will simply lead to them switching to your competitors, making the need for accessibility even more pressing.
Lastly, there are several ways in which you can include accessibility solutions in your marketing, but it all starts by involving the key beneficiaries of these efforts in the process from the get-go. Hurix’s accessibility solutions are a fantastic resource to look to if you want to make your marketing efforts more inclusive.
