The global disability marketing is gigantic. It is about the size of China having 1.3 billion population and 2.3 billion potential consumers that include friends and family of the disabled people. This sector controls more than $8 trillion of annual disposable income. Reaching disabled customers and their close acquaintances should be your business’s top priority irrespective of your industry.
No matter what industry you are in, there is always a small portion of disabled customers that you tend to ignore. Think of eCommerce, SaaS, retail, entertainment, sports, health, advertising, etc. Disabled people are everywhere, and they’re part of your target audience with or without your knowledge.
You can reach, connect, and serve disabled potential customers with the help of following marketing tips and techniques.
1. Make Your Website Accessible
This is the first and basic marketing technique. You need to make your website accessible for disabled customers so they can use it hassle-free. If your website doesn’t load properly or has even minor accessibility issues, it will turn disabled visitors away.
Your website must be disabled-friendly, and it can be achieved by improving UX, UI, content, structure, and everything else. The problem with most of the businesses is that they genuinely want to serve people with disabilities, but their website and products can’t be accessed by disabled customers.
You need to be proactive and must take actionable steps to make your website accessible.
It isn’t a big task anymore as accessiBe is an AI-powered web accessibility solution that will make your website accessible on autopilot. It has a powerful accessibility interface that disabled customers can use to interact with your website. Check this article to see accessiBe in action.:
2. Personalized Email Marketing
You might be building an email list, but you might not have a lot of disabled subscribers. One major reason is accessibility. If your website isn’t accessible, disabled visitors won’t be able to subscribe or they might face issues in getting subscribed.
Once you have solved the accessibility issue on your website, disabled people will be able to use your website. This is the perfect time to build an email list and segment it.
You need to send highly customized emails to disabled subscribers. Ask your subscribers to share information about disabilities so you can send them personalized emails.
Here are a few practical tips to make emails accessible:
a. Use a plain-text email version
b. Write descriptive subject lines
c. Use large font and contrasting colors
d. Minimize the use of images
e. Use proper alt text
f. Email design must be responsive
3. Partner with Disabled Influencers
Finding local micro-influencers that are disabled, and partner with them. This is one of the best ways to connect with disabled customers in your niche. People tend to follow and buy from people that look like them or share similar attributes.
You can find disabled influencers on all the leading social networking platforms. There are a lot of lists of disabled influencers available on the internet. A simple query will reveal hundreds of them.
4. Hire Disabled Individuals
Do you hire disabled individuals? If not, you should.
Having the representation of disabled persons in your workforce improves creates a culture of serving and working with persons with disabilities. Hiring disabled sales staff or front desk staff makes it easier to attract disabled customers. A survey revealed that 92% of disabled individuals prefer dealing with a company that hires disabled persons.
Hiring disabled persons turns out to be an effective technique to reach customers with disabilities.
5. Partner with Disability Organizations
Having connections with local disability organizations, NGOs, and government institutions helps you reach a massive customer-base quickly. Attending and arranging events related to disabilities and getting in front of your target audience helps them remember you and your brand.
Conclusion
It isn’t hard to reach disabled consumers. Develop a supporting culture and marketing strategy to connect and serve disabled individuals irrespective of your industry. Disabled individuals are found in every market, you just need to target them appropriately.
