May 2011 Newsletter: A Growing Multicultural Market

South Hackensack, NJ
May 12th, 2011
E-Tech May Newsletter
by Candace Kennedy candace@ethnictechnologies.com

In 2010, The Census counted 50.4 Million Hispanics, 38.9 Million African Americans and 14.6 Million Asians living in the USA. If anything, numbers like this should get your attention and entice you as a marketer to start building a brand loyalty among these high growth segments of our population. These estimated population numbers should be used as a reference or starting point for any successful direct marketing campaign targeted towards these consumers. Remember the numbers here reflect the estimated total populations for each group and for any direct campaign your target market with be much lower. The use of highly actionable data, utilizing intelligent research and market analytics down to the granular levels of Ethnicity, Language Preference, Religion, Assimilation and Gender helps guide any successful multicultural initiative. Adding key intelligence about your consumers, both current and potential, is the main ingredient for growth.

Conventional wisdom in today’s multicultural climate says that America is a melting pot of many different races, cultures, religions and beliefs. Try mixing up ten different cheeses in a pot then try to find the different taste values of each. It is very difficult to do. The same idea applies to identifying the different races, cultures and religions that make up our nation. The segmentation system that we habitually use simply divides the population into color or racial categories: White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian. A better approach is to see the diversity in America as a mixed salad, where each ethnicity is a different ingredient and can be identified. This method, if used properly applies to the many ethnicities and different cultures in our nation and each can be identified.

Marketers, researchers, advertising agencies and the media often market to Hispanics as a separate group from Whites, Blacks and Asians. When you take an in-depth look at the Hispanic population in the United States they often associate with one or more of the aforementioned racial groups and those racial groups can be correlated to their country of origin or cultural identity. An individual or family from Puerto Rico does not exhibit the same cultural identity or buying habits as those of a family that has immigrated to the US from Mexico. If that is the cases then why do marketers, researchers, advertising agencies and the media often approach Hispanics as a whole with the same exact offers, disregard their country of origin and then complain that their campaigns were not successful? Even the dialect of the Spanish language they speak differs.

The same issues arise and in greater depth when attempting to target the Asian community, the "One Size Fits All" mentality is often the method used and low response rates and product interests are the norm. With so many different Asian countries of origin and Asian languages of preference currently residing in the US, it is the smart marketer that embraces technology that allows them to identify all ethnicities, countries of origin and languages that are available. An offer tailored to a Chinese American living in San Francisco, CA should differentiate from one being tailored to a Korean American living in Fort Lee, NJ or a Vietnamese American living in Houston, TX. Now if you add into the mix the different levels of Assimilation and Acculturation, the buying habits and traditional cultural customs the individual embraces are all over the chart.

Many ethnic and religious groups in the United States maintain a strong cultural identity. They are often attracted to communities with their same ethnicity, communities in which many traditional cultural customs are maintained. Given that the ethnic diversity in the US is far more reflective of a global landscape, it is even more important for marketers to fully understand cultural differences, language preference, purchasing habits and other socioeconomic information and integrate those variations into their everyday marketing strategies and tactics. The time for the “One Size Fits All” methodology is gone, embrace the fast growing multicultural segments within our population and build your brand loyalty now and into the future.

Schedule a meeting with your E-Tech sales representative during the All for One Marketing Summit 2011 presented by DM Days. Stop by and visit us at booth #1100.