Guide to growth: Mining for inclusive keywords

As outlined in Guide to growth: Four strategies, there's an opportunity to grow your business in the face of constant change through Marketing with Purpose. By being more inclusive of your customers’ values and lived experiences, you can increase trust and improve advertising performance. 85% of people will only consider a brand if they trust  it.¹ Mining for inclusive keywords and using them authentically is one actionable way to increase trust and drive growth.

Creating inclusive advertising strategies is more important than ever. It's no longer enough only to advertise product features to a target audience because people’s expectations have shifted according to generational values,2 and people will buy from brands when they stand for something more than just their product, and when they align to their values.3 50% of adult consumers actively consider company values when making a purchase.4 63% of global consumers prefer to buy goods and services from companies that have shared values.5 There's a clear need to shift from merely focusing on the usual search terms for products, features, or services to mining for inclusive keyword sets as a key strategy for growth.

Mindset shift towards values

Values-led search queries are driving a change in the marketplace, as consumers identify companies that align with their priorities as part of their research process. 88% of people want brands to step up and help them with societal problems and their environmental footprint in daily life.6 Our research also found that inclusive advertising improves brand perceptions around trustworthiness, market leadership, and the likelihood to recommend a brand.7

If you want growth, you must start to rethink not only how people are shopping, but also how your campaigns consider a values-based purchase journey with evolved ad copy and keywords. Advertisers who can try on a new mindset with inclusive advertising can expand reach and will uncover more opportunities to connect with people. Shift from product-centric to human-centric to uncover keywords and expand your reach.
 

Shared values drive growth

Any good advertising effort begins with rich, relevant content rooted in product truth, but there's more needed to make good advertising great. People’s trust, respect, and loyalty for a brand grow when its advertising, product truths, and mission statement are aligned. It’s worth reflecting the beliefs, needs, and ​values of people in your advertising, but only when it's aligned to your brand values as well. When mining new keywords to build trust by looking for shared values between people and your brand, it's important for you to create ad experiences that make people feel your brand “is for someone like them.”1

How to get started: 

80% of people believe brands should play a role in solving societal problems,8 but many companies aren't prominently featuring their mission statements nor their corporate responsibility efforts on their websites, which could be used to demonstrate how they engage with the world, or how they take a stand. This is a missed opportunity.

If you don't already have an established mission statement, now is the time to identify your company’s core values. Consider the following:

1. Does your brand mission focus on values, responsibility, and inclusion? If not, consider doing so as these are the core building blocks of trust.
2. How are your brand values important to people?
3. Do your brand values align with people’s values to build trust, love, and loyalty?
4. Do you know what people are actively searching for? If not, examine search query trends.

Questions 3 and 4 above are the key to keyword mining for inclusive marketing. With some simple analysis of your Search Query Report (SQR), you might be surprised to see how your audience is engaging with values-led search queries.
 

Inclusive keyword mining

Mining inclusive keywords can make your brand appeal to new potential customers or make your current customers more loyal, but you might be wondering how you can do this. The process is outlined below, but since keyword discovery will vary between verticals, marketplaces, products, and services, let’s first calibrate some of the levers we have to pull with inclusive keyword mining. • Diverse set of keywords: Reflecting a full range of human identities and/or organisational differences, both visible and invisible (e.g., beliefs, experiences, backgrounds, ages, abilities, socioeconomics, faiths, ethnicities, sexual orientations, gender identities or expressions, languages, nationalities, and more)
• Inclusive set of keywords: Comprehensive; open to everyone; not limited to certain people; enclosing. Embracing inclusion is the act of intentionally creating a respectful, supportive, and empowering environment by engaging each other's strengths, experiences, and perspectives to achieve a common objective.

Now let’s dig into how to build and expand a diverse and inclusive keyword list. There are three basic tools to use:

• Microsoft Advertising Keyword Planner
• Search Query Report (SQR)
• Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) Search Query Report

While all three tools can help you expand your inclusive keyword lists, let’s focus on using the SQR, as it shows which keywords people are already actively searching to trigger your ads. Once you know these queries are already being used, the goal is to maximise opportunity by identifying queries on which you're not currently bidding.
 

Step 1

Confirm if you're bidding on all value-based phrases that are in your mission statement or related to your brand values. If not, add them to your list for keyword expansion.
 

Step 2

Pull a 60- or 90-day SQR.
 

Step 3

Filter for any search queries that have values-based keywords and variations you would like to identify. For example, but not limited to:

• Accessible
• Adaptive
• Authentic
• Black-owned
• Community
• Eco-friendly
• Equality
• Equitable
• Ethical
• Gay-friendly
• Genuine
• Inclusive
• LGBTQ
• Pet-friendly
• Progressive
• Supportive
• Sustainable
• Unique
• Valued
• Vegan
• Women-owned