So what are the key takeaways, and how do you kind of put this into practice and get going into having more of an inclusive kind of link building kind of strategy?

Update your personas

I’d say update your personas. So we as marketers all have our personas, our key audiences. We kind of get them worked out and we do that on a regular basis.

Always think about this audience; who’s missing? Who are we not thinking about? Who are we not catering to? Who could we be reaching out to that we’re not currently, that kind of makes sense and aligns with our brand and our business?

Talk to different archetypes

Then I’d say kind of really try and discuss your campaign ideas and your strategy with different archetypes, i.e., people that are different to you.

So if you’re a millennial, you might want to talk to Gen Z about a campaign idea to see if that kind of fits in with them. Perhaps talk about an idea with your kind of parents or grandparents or kids.

It’s really good to kind of think about how different audiences might receive a certain product, campaign or offering that you might be missing because you are not that audience. So talking to different archetypes really helps you kind of update and amend ideas to make them more kind of accessible and inclusive.

Look at trending topics

Then another one is jumping on sort of trending topics and news to find new audiences. There are always new topics, new trending topics where you could kind of find out what the new problem is. And if there’s a new problem that you can kind of answer or cater to, that’s another way of reaching out to new audiences that you might not have thought about, but actually is there waiting for you to kind of cater to.

Don’t just tick a box

And then I’d say, so the last final kind of two reasons would be don’t just tick box this. Don’t just make a list like, “Okay, we’ve got to do an inclusive campaign,” tick box. Make it part of your key strategy.

At the end of the day, this audience isn’t just a kind of standalone audience. They’re part of your strategy, and they actually need to align with you, your brand, and your offering.

You just need to think about who they are and how you should be reaching out to them in an authentic, organic way.

Be authentic

Which leads me to my kind of final point, which is to kind of be authentic with it. Do it where it’s at the core of your business, the core of your service, the core of your product, and your offering, and again, back to what I was saying in the beginning, it makes business sense.

Thank you for joining me on this Whiteboard Friday. My name is Isa. I’m a search strategist. If you want to talk to me about anything to do with PR, link building, outreach, or all things search, you can connect with me on LinkedIn, Twitter, or my website.

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