What if for women, marketing is actually turning
away the very people that you would love, love, love to work
with? In today's episode, I'm going to talk all about why I really
try not to use gendered language in my business and how
you can maybe decide if that is the right path for you or
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membership. Hi. Hello. Welcome back to another episode of the Mindful
Marketing Podcast where I'm all about simpler, smarter marketing for busy,
busy people. And when I say busy y', all, I mean busy.
I am nearing the end of my
journey as a mom of babies. I am done
having babies. No more babies for me. Literally impossible at this point.
And my youngest is going to daycare, y'. All. I am low key,
sad and also kind of excited. Mixed feelings all around.
But my time is opening back up again. I have got lots of ideas for
the things I want to work on and this is part of it.
Talking more about kind of like the
inclusionary language or excluding language we use in our marketing
and really digging into diversity equity inclusion topics.
I got certified as a diversity equity inclusion business
owner and marketer back in 2021. And so it's
a lot of things that I kind of apply and implement in my business
just naturally. And now I want to talk more about why that is.
So let's take you back in the day. I started my business in 2014
and even back then when I started my business I never
said I am a social media manager for women.
Okay? I my entire brand was pink, y'. All. Like
totally pink. Very feminine coded, fem coded and
but even back then I never said for women because I worked with
all genders and it kind of felt like
something I was doing back then that didn't really. I didn't really have the words
to explain it because it was definitely different from my
peers. A lot of my peers were marketing themselves as, you know,
a coach for women or a therapist for women
or even, you know, a lot of, you know, that's
when a lot of gems and fitness centers were rising in population and they
popularity. Sorry. And they would market themselves as for women.
And so it's a very popular thing to do. There's a lot of women business
groups and things that I was joining, but I just couldn't
bring myself to market my business as for women.
And it wasn't until, I think this was around 2020. So before I
got my certification, one of my business friends, Liz
Goddard, posted something on social media about gendered marketing.
And it really clicked for me because the way that
she explained it, and I tried to go back and look at the post, y',
all, but there are too many posts. But the way for my. From
my memory, the way that she explained it was that when you market your
businesses for women, you're actually excluding everyone
else. When really what you're saying is you don't want straight
men. It's real. Like, when people are marketing their
businesses for women, a lot of times they're trying to send this
signal out about who they don't want. And they really may be including
all sorts of identifications in that
process, like all sorts of people that they actually would like to work
with. They just don't have the words to explain that.
So I want to talk about how to navigate that. How I've navigated that, really,
over the years. But before I get into that, I do have to frame this
episode with a bit of a disclaimer,
because this is not like, I want to cancel you party. This is
not a, like, you're doing it wrong kind of scenario. This
is really a question, an exploration, if you will, an
invitation to think about things a little bit deeper, to
think about things a little bit more exploratory. You know, I
want to invite people in. Yes. To our spaces, But I
also want to make sure we're very careful about the words that we use.
And I also want to say, I do not get this perfect. There are
certain words that I know are insensitive, and I am
actively trying to erase them from my language, and they still pop out
sometimes. I have talked about this on this podcast before, but I
love a good y' all moment. But when I used to Say,
address a group of people. I would say, hey, guys. Hey guys.
What's up? It is in my lexicon. I've been saying
it that way for 30 years. So at the ripe
old age of 35, sometimes this old dog is hard to learn new
tricks. And so sometimes the hey guys slips out.
I've been focusing in on y' alls and folks and friends,
so that has been great journey for me. But the other one that I really
struggle with is saying the word crazy. Like, that's so crazy. I
used to say that all the time. It's insensitive. So now I'm like, that's
wild. Thank you, Bob the Drag Queen for those
words. But it really is for me,
a signal, an invitation to invite people into
the conversation. And instead of excluding the very
people that I want to feel welcomed in my space.
Okay, so let's start off with a few statistics,
because this isn't just me sharing my opinion.
It's really kind of how we're shifting as a culture as well.
So 64% of consumers take action after seeing
inclusive marketing. And it's even higher for my
LGBTQ2s + community and
marginalized groups, like, for example, I am a black woman
running a business. So when we use inclusive
marketing, consumers, those are the people who purchase your
products. It sends a signal out to them that they can
purchase and feel comfortable. 64%.
Okay, 64%. This is increasing over
time, especially with the younger generations,
Gen Z, Gen Z and below really
put their buying dollars behind brands that they feel have
the same values as them. And inclusive
intentionally and not just, you know, checking off a
box is something that's very important to them.
Another stat is inclusive marketing leads to
3.5% higher short term sales and
15% higher loyalty. And I will have all of the links in the show
notes for the the data points and the references that I use
in this episode. Because there's a ton of stats in here that's in
the show notes. You can find it on online dre.com when I
think about the buying power, like if we want to be objective,
it's like we're as a culture, as a community,
moving this direction just naturally. And so if we
want to kind of take the feelings out of it and focus on the facts,
that's where we are. People buy from brands that they feel
are aligned with their values. And when you say, for instance,
that you are a web designer for women, you
may be excluding non binary people, you may
be excluding trans people, you may be
excluding gender Fluid people. And if
that is your intention, go off says, that's for you. But
if that is not your intention, you may want to take a look
at your language there and see who you are
excluding. Okay. Another thing to
think about is that 61% of consumers say they'll stop buying
from a brand when they feel excluded. Okay. When
they feel excluded. And I struggle with this just from like a
black woman standpoint, sometimes
there are brands that feel like they're not marketed to me. And I don't know
if they know this, but sometimes when I look at the way
that they use photos, the way that they
choose their words on social media, it feels
like they're marketing to, for example, white
women. And I go, I don't know if this brand is
for me or not. Right. And so I will not purchase from
a brand based on that as well. And I'm not alone. 61% of
consumers say that when they feel excluded, they don't want to buy from that brand.
So the tldr of this is that in some cases,
saying for women might help you feel specific enough
to include people, but it also might be quietly
closing the door on the people who would have walked through it. So
if you're using inclusive language to be strategic.
Absolutely. For example, I mentioned earlier the gyms.
Women feel safer in women only gyms. That
study has actually been proved. Okay? So if you're saying you are a
gym, a fitness center for women, that can actually help you
more that it could hurt you. If you are a web designer, though,
saying you're a web designer for women, I do want you to think about
why you're using those terms. And if you are inviting in a
certain group of people or if you are excluding other people who
you would potentially have worked with anyways. Now,
I said in 2014 that I
chose not to use gendered language. And I really struggled with why that
is. And it. And thinking back on it, it's because I like working
with all genders and I like working
with a variety of people, men included. One
man in particular who I remember distinctly.
He's a celebrity now, y'. All, Brian Michael Smith. You look him up. He's on
Lone Star 900. He is a trans actor. And
I worked with him before he was famous, y'. All. And
he's so cool. Just like the coolest dude ever.
And we worked on this project that was essentially
he was doing a short indie film project that was a
web series about police brutality in America.
This was around 2017, 2018. So very hot
topic. The comment section was, omg,
some of the worst comments I've ever seen. Being a social media manager.
But my team and I, we worked on that project. We helped the
launch campaigns, we designed the launch campaign. We helped with the initial
launch and all of the nasty comments. We actually did shifts because
after responding to comments for like three hours straight
of people being just absolutely belligerent,
we needed a break. We needed a break. So I remember we, my team and
I, we did shifts and we managed that whole project.
And it's so cool. He gave me an amazing testimonial afterwards. It's on
my website, and anytime I see him pop up in my newsfeed, I'm like, reshare,
because he's so cool. I would not have worked, I
don't think, with Brian Michael Smith if I
had said I was a social media manager for women. Okay?
Probably not now. That being said,
most of my community happens to be
women. Okay. I think because I am a woman, I attract
women clients naturally. Especially as a black woman, I
attract black women clients. I would never say I market
for black women only because Brian Michael Smith is a great example of someone
who is absolutely fantastic to work with. And I don't know if I would work
with him had I had used that exclusionary language in my
marketing. So I work with
humans point blank, period. And I'm very open about
that. And so in my branding, yes, it's
still very femme coded to this day. I don't use my on brand pink
as much because to be honest, y', all, I wear pink a
lot. And so having a pink outfit and pink background was too much pink,
even in this. If y' all aren't watching the video, I have, like a pink
headscarf on right now because pink is my color.
However, I don't need pink in my branding, so I actually went with, like, a
more jewel tone. I have, like a gold tone that I use
a lot in this, like, deep teal color and like a
deep maroon color. Things that go really well with my skin go really well with
me as a background or so me in the foreground, those colors in the
background. And so I chose my brand colors to
highlight my natural characteristics. I, in the way that
I talk is very fem coded. My
clients, again, do tend to be mostly women. However, even
the men that I work with tend to be very open, shall
I say? Like, I'm thinking of my one client client who was a fitness
instructor, and he was a
great client. Most of his brand was marketed
towards women. He owned a company. Actually, I would say it was pretty about, probably
pretty even men and women. And I wouldn't have worked with him. Got an
amazing testimonial. Again, if I had marketed
myself as a social media agency for women or social media manager for women.
So I think I want to challenge you all to think about that in your
business. What are you actually trying to say when you add
the for women to a tagline when you're
trying to describe your business? Okay, now
there, here's some more stats about this, because the
4Women branding is actually.
I don't know if declining is the right word, but
it's definitely shifting. So back in my
day, let's say between 2010 and 2020,
it was like girl boss central. I do think that there is a time and
a place for this. Again, don't get me wrong, it's a very nuanced conversation. There
is a time and a place for girl boss central because to be honest,
most businesses are owned by men, especially the big men.
Sorry. Especially the big businesses are run
and owned by men. So it feels
quite natural to actually create a space for women, especially
women business owners, women entrepreneurs. Last year,
for instance, I was nominated, for instance, in the women Entrepreneur Business Business
Award here in Niagara region. I was nominated for the
entrepreneurship award. And I do think there is a time and a place
for that. And I think that it honestly feels very
empowering. And so I'm not saying there isn't a time
and a place for that. However, labeling everything.
Hashtag girlboss is on the decline
because some brands kept slapping the four
women on everything instead of doing the actual work of making
it it inclusive. So, for example, there is
a brand y' all may know. Bic. Y' all know the pens. Bic.
They came out with this line of pens that said
pens for her. Okay, I. I hate stuff like
this so much. Pens for her. What's the difference? They're pick and they,
oops. Cost more. Like what? And
so to me, it's like things like that where brands are trying to
market to a specific demographic, demographic of people just by saying pens
for her, pens for. And
they tanked. They bombed. They don't exist anymore. Because people,
humans were like this. This does not need to be gendered. Right?
It's not something that needs to be gendered. Pink pen.
Men can use pink pens and anybody, any human can use a pink pen.
Okay? That doesn't need to be for women and it
definitely doesn't need to be more expensive, AKA the pink
tags. Right. And so when you add four women to your
branding, I want you to think about if it's rooted in purp
or if it's just some sort of stand in where you're like, I want to
work with people like me, okay? This requires
deeper work. So let's talk about what that is. I want you
to think about leading your business with values instead of
labels. It's what I do in my business. I would never start
off by saying all of my labels to someone
hoping that they want to work with me. Because honestly, I
do work with a variety of businesses. For example,
I consider myself agnostic. Okay? Religiously,
I don't know. I don't know. I'm not saying there's nothing, but I don't know
what it is, okay? I'm just a little human here in this great big wide
world. I have no freaking clue. However, I have worked with
clients in the past who are religious and have very strong religious perspectives.
I would never say I only work with people in a certain
religious demographic because that doesn't fit my business.
Instead, I lead with values. You know, if a, if
a brand were to come to me, there are certain signals I send out
to help them decide for themselves if they want to work with me.
For instance, right now in my Instagram bio, there's a rainbow flag.
Intentionally, if that bothers you, we aren't going to be friends.
I put my pronouns in my email signature and
they're on my social media. Whenever there's a chance to put them, I put
them though, because if that bothers you, we're not going to work
together. I still. You do this on my application forms as
well. When I'm hiring someone, I still do this. It's
optional, right? You don't have to put it in. But I find that people who
are upset by it always have something to say.
And so when I say, you know, what's your name? If you feel comfortable, what
are your pronouns? They always say like, why do you need to know this
information? If someone doesn't feel comfortable, nine
times out of 10, they just skip it, right? Just skip it and move on.
And then most people put their frickin pronouns just so I can
know how to address you. I even ask for other things, like
how do you pronounce your name? You know, I want to get to know you.
I want to make sure that we are on the same
page here. And if that bothers you, well, we're probably
not going to work well together anyways. Some other things I
do in My marketing is I talk about who
I work with without necessarily putting a label
on it. So for example, in this season of my life, I'm a mom.
I've got a three year old and a one year old. I'm busy. The way
that I teach marketing has always been we're going
to take the shortest path with the highest output because,
yes, you could do all of the things. We don't have time to do that.
Okay, so what is going to get you the most impact in the shortest amount
of time? That's where I'm at. So I use that in my marketing. Marketing that
fits your real life, simpler, smarter marketing for busy people.
I used to talk a lot about being a lifestyle business or being
a heart led business. Some people like that. A soft
space for ambitious entrepreneurs who don't want to burn out.
The people who have no problem posting their Instagram stories
10 times a day, they're not my people. They don't need my
help. The rest of us who are like, I accidentally went two weeks
and I didn't post anything and now I'm panicking because, well, I didn't
post anything for two weeks. What do I say? Y' all are my people.
And so I use that language in my marketing to help describe
my people without excluding
necessarily a certain group of people, but really
calling in the people who I really want to work with. Okay.
I also use a lot of inclusive languaging
visuals and case studies to show diverse
identities and live in experiences. For example, I recently
taught an Instagram Stories masterclass in my membership
at the Mindful Marketing Lab and I'm hosting my Instagram
bootcamp soon. I don't have dates yet.
When I do work like this and I create a
character, I make sure my characters are
diverse. Okay, I used to do Lucy.
Okay, this is Lucy. Here's what she does.
Lucy is not as diverse as I am. She's not as
diverse as my people are. So now I use different names.
Kenesha, Aria, and Darius. And I actually had
someone reach out to me afterwards and said, thank you for naming your characters
with diverse names. I can't tell you how many times it's like Brad.
And I'm like, yeah, I do that intentionally because
I want to reflect my values in everything that I do.
For some other big brand examples here that I
like learning from. Fenty
Beauty is another example. They, when they
launch, marketed themselves as Beauty for All. They often
use all sorts of people in their marketing, all
genders in their marketing. They have a wide range of
colors and they did $100 million in their first
40 days of launching. Okay, so there's the stats and
facts. One that didn't do so well.
Tarjay. Omg. And they're trying. They are trying
so hard. But they really need to redo their diversity team because
they fumble the ball almost every pride month. And
when they release their pride collections, they're terrible.
It's like. It's like they didn't consult the people that actually
want to purchase their pride paraphernalia,
if you will. And so they fumble the ball
consistently and. And people don't buy them
for that reason. And I can guarantee you there's some big wigs in some
office somewhere that goes, huh, our pride collection isn't selling that well. We tried.
It's not working. It's like, you didn't try hard enough. You didn't try hard enough.
Another brand that I love, though, is Dove. The Dove soap.
I use it exclusively because my skin is very sensitive, like
my emotions. And they very consistently use all
size people in their branding, which I
appreciate and love. And they do a lot
of campaigns around real beauty, so they, you know, oftentimes
showcase what real people can look like.
And now we relate, we associate those
two things. Dove soap, real beauty. Like, they go
together because of their marketing
and they're doing an amazing job, I think, of really
establishing a brand identity for what's basically soap. It's.
It's just so right. But they're really
calling in their people. And I
make the choice now intentionally to use the soap because of the way that they're
marketing themselves. So I'm not saying you have to make big,
massive, huge, you know, rebranding changes
to what you're doing in your business. I just want you to ask yourself
a few questions and really understand if you're making an
intentional choice in the language that you're using and know that
this, this is a process. There is no finish
line. Somebody told me recently that I'm too woke and
I will never be woken up. And I was like, I hope not. There's. There's
not like an end point to being
what I think is just a human living in society. I'm
constantly learning, changing, and growing. And I hope you're doing the same. So
a few questions to ask yourself. Do you actually want to only
work with women or do you want to work with some clients who make you
feel a certain way? I think this is super important question to ask. For
example, are you looking for more feminine clients instead
of just women? Because you could be excluding a whole group of people.
Are you looking for clients who think a little bit differently or
have a certain set of emotional regulation skills?
You know, really think about why you're adding that four women label on
there. Next question. Does
your language match your values and your
community's lived experiences? Okay. Your language,
what you're using in your marketing, does it match your
value system? So another one that I struggle with here
is I love to use hey girl. I think I even said it in this
episode. Hey, sis. I have to stop myself from
saying that all the time because it is exclusionary to some people I work
with with, and I don't want them to feel
excluded. So this is something that I'm working on. I have been
replacing it with hey babe, which I love. So, yeah,
that's something that I'm a work in progress on. Next question is,
am I using gender as a shortcut for, like, vibe and
energy? Think about this. Are you trying to cut corners?
Because you're cutting corners could be really
excluding a lot of people. Would someone trans, non,
binary, or gender expansive feel like they've been belong here?
That is a question you have to ask yourself. Because if the answer is
no, like they don't feel like they belong, ask yourself
why, because there are spaces where that. That does need to be
edited. Sure. And if you can't answer that,
it's really time to go back to the drawing board and look at that. And
then lastly, am I excluding folks I love to work with just
by how I've worded things? Okay. Think about
that as well. Okay. My final thoughts on this.
I don't think marketing can be neutral anymore. Okay. I
do not think marketing can be neutral
any longer. Every buying decision we
make in 2025, the year of Beyonce,
is and has to be intentional.
Okay. Will you get it wrong? Absolutely. There are people
all the time that are like, they come to me for marketing consulting and they
say, andrea, I'm hiring you because I don't want to get this wrong.
And my first response is always, well, you still may get it wrong because we're
all learning, right? Your community, every community is unique.
And if you, as long as you're open to
hearing feedback, gathering that feedback and adjusting,
then I promise you, you're going to be a better person by the end
of it. And I know we live in cancel culture. The people
who get canceled usually are getting canceled because they're not listening.
Okay. I have seen numerous times where someone gets called out
or called in on something spec and it's all in how they
respond, which helps mitigate any
backlash. When there's a lack of response, when there's no response, or when the
response is diminishing, belittling, whatever, what have you,
that's when things go off the rails. Okay? So, yes. Does it require work?
Of course it requires work. Everything in business requires work. This just one area
of it. And I encourage you to think about that.
I also want you to think about the difference
of being for women and being
exclusive to women. Okay, so for
women or being inclusive for women, same with
men, same with non binary folks, same with anyone on the gender
spectrum. What is the difference for you,
you personally as a business leader, and then for your business, if
you can't answer that question, you have some journaling, some meditation, talking with your peers
and work to do. Okay? And you can invite your community into this
process as well. Get curious about it as well.
There are certain things that you can do to really open
up that lane of communication. But ultimately, for a lot of
you listening to this podcast, your business
is really your personal values. So your business values are your personal
values. And so you really have to look deep into what your values are
and make sure that they're accurately reflected in your business. All
right. I hope this episode has helped you really think about some things. It's
something that's been on my mind for a while, and it's something that I'm
hoping a lot of people start thinking about more as they create new
offers. I'll be back again next Tuesday with another episode. In the
meantime, make sure you rate and review on Apple podcasts. And Spotify
helps keep us in the top 100 marketing podcasts. And that's all because of your
support. I'll see you next week. Bye for now.