What's your take on how to effectively market to multicultural audiences? As Gusto caters to small businesses, and minority- and women-owned SMBs are the two fastest-growing market segments, how do you strive to engage diverse-owned businesses?

Seek out underrepresented groups, listen to what they’re saying—and not saying—and amplify their voices to be even louder internally. Never stop thinking about your work as an ally. Be thoughtful in how you represent your customers in your marketing materials. Be honest. Work to educate yourself so others don’t have to.At its core, this work is all about customer empathy. All kinds of people run businesses, and almost all people who run businesses have the same fears that keep them up at night. ...Read More

Three things to add here that could be helpful: First is branding and values. Don’t be afraid to showcase your values before you get to a specific campaign, especially while thinking about your audiences. For example, in Brazil women are still very underrepresented In tech, both as founders as well as product and engineering people. We had this great internal initiative where we raised the % of women on our tech team from 18 to 29% in Q2 amidst a hiring spree. We decided we should talk about tha ...Read More

language, empathy and understanding your customers even communities perspectives is super important. Because people listen to what their peers are saying.   Today authenticity is most important as consumer movement has become stronger thanks to social media and multitude of ways in which ordinary people can have a voice and amplify the good and bad about a brand.  Finally -- I would also focus on the "how " you communicate, whether the message is "translateable" into other languages without loos ...Read More

This is a terrific example of why it's important to think less about what your customers do, and more about what problems they face. A huge part of being relatable is demonstrating an understanding of what keeps someone up at night, and how you can help them sleep soundly. As an example, let's consider a ten-employee plumbing supply company in Milwaukee, WI, but with two different owner profiles: Profile 1: 50-year-old white guy who went to vocational school out of high school, became a plumber ...Read More