Why I call it “justice-focused” marketing

revised March 9th, 2024; adapted from an article originally published in 2021 as “Why ‘justice-focused’ marketing?" on the Accessible Yoga Training website

So many of us struggle with feeling like marketing is a narcissistic, icky, self-involved thing that we have to do in order to grow our work and reach new clients.

Marketing can feel like something we have to force, or like something that’s the complete opposite of why we got into the work we do in the first place—as if talking about and sharing our work publicly is somehow, at its core, contrived, disingenuous, or manipulative.

This is, of course, in large part due to the fact that marketing is inherently connected to capitalism, and we cannot separate our work from the systems of power and oppression in which we live.

We can, however, hold this truth and still find ways to orient towards marketing as a form of teaching, a form of relationship-building, and even a form of disruption. We we can focus more on those we’re in service of rather than ourselves—we be generous in our marketing and actually share something we often share with clients and in our work. When we teach something through our marketing in this way, we’re more capable of fostering connection, of reaching new audiences, and of building meaningful relationships on the digital plane. This is the exact opposite of what capitalism centers.

Of course, if marketing is about relationship-building and connection, if it’s about leaning into the vulnerable act of taking up space and talking about ourselves and our work, then our identities, lived experiences, and the culture in which we live are an inherent part of the practices of marketing and visibility.

We’re at a unique moment in our culture and history. The internet—and social media in particular, have shifted the landscape of what it looks like to grow our work in the world. This shift is evidenced in many ways, one most prominently being that social media profiles (aka entrepreneur visibility and digital visibility) is now tied to a form of social capitol. To me this means we have a responsibility in sharing ones values, speaking truth to power, and no longer perpetuating the belief that we can stay silent, remain neutral, or somehow separate the personal from the political.

I believe there is a need in the online business space for marketing support that is actually attuned to what it’s like to be a human being at this point in time amidst late-stage capitalism, white supremacy, increasing anti-trans legislation, the COVID-19 pandemic, multiple genocides, and other very real and traumatic events.

I believe that, with some degree of public visibility in one’s work, there is a responsibility to leverage that visibility when it comes to important topics and issues (such as human rights issues).

I recognize that some of us have more access to visibility than others, that not all of us are safe to be visible, and that privilege is playing a role in this conversation.

I also believe that social media can and does often lead to a degree of performative activism that is not leading to any meaningful change.

The marketing work I want to be part of, and hope to facilitate, is thus founded upon the following Assumptions. This framework was created by and adapted from the work of ​Dismantling Racism Works, and further inspired by my studies with and of teachers like Michelle Cassandra Johnson, Resmaa Menakem, adrienne maree brown, Mia Mingus, Patrisse Cullors, Angela Davis, Mariame Kaba, the team at Resolutions Northwest, & many others.

Assumptions

• We live in a toxic culture that affects us all; one dynamic of the culture is that we are discouraged from seeing it. One of our tasks is to learn to see our culture and how it teaches us to make normal that which is not and should never be normal.

• Power dynamics underlie everything; our marketing is not separate from this truth—power = systems of oppression such as white supremacy, capitalism, settler colonialism, patriarchy, and all of their individual and collective impacts.

• “Business as usual” is no longer an option and there is no such thing as a “safe” space—not in the world and not in our work or marketing.

• Intention is not the same as impact; we can have good intentions and still have a hurtful or damaging impact.

• Dismantling racism, cisheterosexism, and unlearning oppressive attitudes will and does take a lifetime. This work is a journey without endpoint. This work is a lifelong process.

• There is no way to talk about these systems without activating the trauma that is a very real part of living within them, and there is no way to show up to grow our work without engaging in these systems.

• Our roles and responsibilities are different based on our social location.

• Part of our work is to develop discernment about the exquisite balance between the personal and the collective. We work well together collectively when we tend to our personal work and our personal work makes better sense in the context of the collective.

• We have to believe in the possibilities of creating the world we want to see. We have to commit to learning from our mistakes and being accountable to this process. We have to love ourselves into who we want to be.

• None of this is easy and we have to do it anyway.