How to make your marketing more accessible

Accessibility has two primary definitions that are widely acknowledged: the quality of being easily obtainable and usable, and the quality of being easily understood and appreciated. These are qualities that marketers significantly value in their messaging.

However, a dictionary definition and the day-to-day reality of a term don’t always align. When we discuss accessibility, we are often referring to anything that aids individuals in understanding or interacting with content. It's about ensuring others are not at a disadvantage or have less of an understanding due to a disability.

For instance, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 430 million people globally have disabling hearing loss, while 1.5 billion people worldwide have varying degrees of hearing loss overall. Similarly, colourblindawareness.org states that 300 million people globally have Colour Vision Deficiency, commonly known as colour blindness. The International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) reports that 43 million people globally are blind. And these numbers just refer to hearing and vision impairments!

As marketers, the aim is to reach as many people as possible. If you aren't reaching these individuals, you are missing out on opportunities to engage with them. A disability doesn't exclude someone from your ideal customer profiles (ICPs), but you can miss them simply by not considering them in your approach.

How can I make my marketing more accessible?

There are several basic steps marketers can take to improve accessibility.

Captions and transcripts

All video and audio products should have captions or a linked transcript. Even if your audio platform doesn't support captions, you could publish a transcript on your website and link to it from the podcast description field. AI transcriptions and captions are improving, but they still need to be checked for accuracy. Don’t forget about people who can’t see your content either — if information appears on screen in a video but isn’t in the audio track, include a note in the video description so blind or low-vision users can understand what was shown. 

Alt text for images

Alt text is commonly used for SEO purposes, but it is also vital for people who are blind or have low vision. Screen reader software will read the alt text aloud to the user, helping them understand the image. This is also beneficial for people on older devices or slow internet who may not be able to load the image. The alt text needs to be descriptive to be useful — a short sentence describing what you can see in the image is ideal. 

Contrasting colours 

When considering colours for a rebrand or a campaign, ensure the background and foreground colours contrast well. This assists those with colour vision deficiencies or low vision in reading your text on a coloured background.

Are there any tools available to help me make my marketing more accessible?

There are various tools and resources available to help create more accessible marketing content.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)

This is the ultimate guide and gold standard for digital content and accessibility. It is essentially an encyclopaedia of accessibility compliance. The WCAG provides detailed criteria for making content more accessible to people with various disabilities, including blindness and low vision, deafness and hearing loss, learning disabilities, cognitive limitations, limited movement, speech disabilities, photosensitivity and combinations of these. 

UK Government Website 

The UK government website provides an array of guidance and tools for digital accessibility. They have shared practices they use internally to ensure their digital content is accessible. This includes methods for creating accessible documents, designing for different users' needs, and testing for accessibility. The shared resources can help marketers benefit from the extensive research and practical application that the government has put into ensuring their processes lead to accessible content.

WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind)

WebAIM is a non-profit organisation that offers a variety of resources to make web content more accessible for people with disabilities. One of their tools is the contrast checker, which allows you to input foreground and background colours to check if the combination provides enough contrast for people with visual impairments.

Colorblindly 

This is a Chrome extension that allows you to simulate different types of colour blindness, including Deuteranomaly (reduced sensitivity to green light), Protanomaly (reduced sensitivity to red light), and Tritanomaly (reduced sensitivity to blue light). This tool enables you to see how people with different types of colour blindness experience your content, helping you to make necessary adjustments.

Rev.com 

This is a reliable paid captioning/transcription service. Rev.com offers fast and accurate services, making it easier for marketers to provide transcripts and captions for their audio and video content. This ensures that those with hearing impairments can still access and understand your content.

Ensuring your marketing materials are accessible may seem like a daunting task, but the benefit of being able to reach a wider audience, and knowing that you’re making the world a little bit more inclusive is worth the effort. 

Making your material is user-friendly from the outset is crucial. It's significantly more difficult to retrofit accommodations for inclusivity than to incorporate such considerations during the design phase. 

Just remember to test your content before launching. Can you understand videos with the sound off? How about with only the audio and description text? Can you visualise an image from its alt text without looking at it? Is the contrast between text and background colours sufficient? These little checks can go a long way in ensuring that your audience can access your content.