Financial Product Opportunities

by Candace Kennedy candace@ethnictechnologies.com

Financial Product Opportunities in Today’s Ethnic Markets.
Identifying the Best Prospects and Retaining the Best Customers

For financial marketers, Americas ethnic communities present opportunities to win new customers today and a position for future growth. Ethnic Technologies, the global leader in multicultural marketing, research, data enhancements, and analysis used Empirics, a behavioral segmentation solution for financial services marketing, to take a look at the major ethnic groups and two hot marketing topics in today’s financial services marketing:

- Switching auto insurers
- Obtaining financial products via direct mail

For the ethnic marketer’s acquisition and cross sell campaigns, Empirics provides the advantage of targeting those households that “look like today’s buyers,” assuring that their offers get positioned competitively within these markets and retain valuable customers.

Top Findings Include:

· Texas is the most lucrative market for targeting African American auto insurer switchers via direct mail offers. While Texas has 5.9% of African American households, they represent 11.3% of most likely switchers and 17.3% of direct mail buyers. In contrast, Illinois has 6.1% of African American households and only about 4% of most likely switchers and only 4.3% can be addressed via direct mail..
· California has about 30% of the Hispanic households that are most likely to be shopping their auto policy.
· California and Texas constitute nearly half of the Asian American auto insurance “switchers.”
· Nearly 42% of the African American households most likely to obtain financial products via direct mail live in NY, TX, and MD.

Contact Ethnic Technologies for a free report: U.S. Ethnic Groups: Top 10 States for Targeting Financial Offers. mailto:candace@ethnictechnologies.com

Auto Insurer Switching
GEICO’s computer-generated gecko is one of today’s most widely-recognized spokes-species. Add campaigns by insurers such as Allstate, Travelers, and Progressive into the mix and you have heightened consumer awareness, creating opportunities for auto insurers to win customers within ethnic communities.

These campaigns may have raised consumer awareness, but how do you identify how many and which households are most likely to switch? The E-Tech enhanced Empirics segmentation for switching auto insurers is based on current switching behaviors in the market. The behavioral segmentation allows marketers to see how not only how big today’s “switcher” market is but also how best to target them.

What We Found

There are nearly 1 million households in the three major ethnic groups that E-Tech enhanced Empirics rated most likely to switch auto insurers. Each of these households represents:

· The most attractive market to target in acquisition campaigns
· The insureds most at risk of “moving their business” to a competing insurer

Here are some highlights on auto insurer switching in the major ethnic groups:

African Americans: Texas may rank 5th in the number of African American households but it ranks first in the number of African American households identified by E-Tech enhanced Empirics as having the highest likelihood of switching auto insurers. The Lone Star State also has the highest index (concentration) for auto insurer switching among the top 5 African American states.

Hispanics: California has about 25% of Hispanic households but E-Tech enhanced Empirics determines that the state has about 30% of all Hispanic households that are most likely to be shopping around on their automotive policy. Add Texas to CA’s total and you’ve captured over 50% of the Hispanic households’ auto policies most likely to be in play.

Asian Americans: Empirics determined that California and Texas constitute over 50% of the “switchers” in this ethnic group. Together, they represent about 38% of Asian American households.


· The most attractive market to target in acquisition campaigns
· The insureds most at risk of “moving their business” to a competing insurer

Obtaining Financial Products via Direct Mail

Financial marketers are competing for insurance and investment dollars via many different channels: direct mail, online, personal selling. It’s a multichannel world and Empirics provides a behavioral segmentation that identifies the best opportunities for the financial marketer using direct mail. This segmentation is designed to evaluate markets and target prospects based on the criteria of acquiring multiple financial products (other than credit cards) such as life insurance, auto insurance, investments, banking products, and loans.

What We Found

There are nearly 1,400,000 households in the three major ethnic groups that are E-Tech enhanced Empirics-rated most likely to obtain financial products via direct mail promotion. This is a prime market for insurance and investment firms to identify and target the best prospect for their direct mail offers. Here are some highlights:

African Americans: Nearly 42% of the African American households most likely to obtain financial products via direct mail live in NY, TX, and MD. Georgia may have the largest number of African American households, but it is not in the top financial direct mail markets for this ethnic group.


Hispanics: Want your financial direct mail offer to “hit” nearly 70% of the Hispanic households most likely to use direct mail to obtain new financial products and investments? Target households in CA, TX, AZ, and NM. These four states all show high concentrations of Hispanic households who are more likely to use direct mail in managing their financial affairs today.


Asian Americans: E-Tech enhanced Empirics determines that California, New York, and Texas constitute over 60% of today’s highest potential direct mail buyers/investors in this ethnic group. Asian Americans represent an attractive market and there are nearly 1 million households that score above average for financial direct mail use.

Whatever your next financial acquisition or cross sell campaign, E-Tech enhanced Empirics can target it to today’s best market. customers, and prospects.

San Diego!

by Lisa Radding lradding@ethnictechnologies.com

Next week is the DMA National Conference and Exposition in San Diego, CA. As I pack my bags, I’m thinking about the name San Diego.

We usually don’t think about the name of the American city to which we are traveling at any given time. When booking a flight, we type “San Diego” as the destination, thinking of it as just another American city, albeit a beautiful Californian one. “San Diego” feels simply American, as does “New York City,” “Houston,” or “St. Louis.” We don’t think about the name being of Spanish origin (or St. Louis being of French origin), and whether or not that reflects the current character of the place. As we travel through the mixing bowl that is the United States, however, Spanish (and other) influences resonate in the place names of this country.

I spend most of my time at Ethnic Technologies researching people’s names rather than place names, but there is substantial overlap between the two. According to the San Diego Historical Society, the city’s name arrived with the Spanish explorer and diplomat Sebastian Vizcaino in November 1602. Vizcaino’s journey by ship from Acapulco took six months. When he arrived, he named the city after his flagship. The name was also in honor of the November feast of San Diego de Alcala (a Spanish Franciscan).

Diego is the Spanish form of James. It is sometimes a shortened form of Santiago, or Saint James. Perhaps when we meet someone named Diego, or Santiago, we immediately conceive of his ethnic origin, since those names tend to remain in the Hispanic community. Yet I would argue that with the place name San Diego, despite the Hispanic flavor of the city, our first thoughts are not of Spain (or Mexico) but of beautiful American California. It is interesting how a distinctly Hispanic name can feel very American. And on that note, I resume packing.

Connected: U.S. Hispanics are Mobile and Online

The Hispanic market is growing online – fast. Although other ethnic groups are flocking to the Internet and cell phones, Hispanics in particular are accessing the web at the rate of over 1 million users every year. This means Hispanics are connecting twice as fast as the general market (14% growth vs. 7%). Plus, the growing Hispanic middle class (income of $50,000 +) is super connected with 88% of households online.
Hispanics are early adopters of mobile technology with 31 million mobile users. By age 15, over 60% have a mobile phone and by age17, it rises to almost 80%. This vibrant culture loves personal, instant communication.
Something else to consider, over half of all Hispanics are going online through their mobile phones. Mobile devices facilitate communication, entertainment and learning. These personal devices are becoming indispensable to the majority of Hispanics in the US and Canada. “Living a connected and spontaneous life is a fundamental Hispanic value and desire.” as one agency put it….
Hispanics of all ages are averaging an amazing 14 hours per day with an internet-based or wireless device; that’s almost twice the time as non-Hispanics.. However, Hispanics are “cord-cutters”– no landline – preferring cell phone only use. It’s estimated that nearly half of the mobile users are CPO. Hispanics have developed a “relationship” with their mobile and/or online devices: It is their online communication and entertainment center.
Historically, the value-conscious Hispanic market often makes purchase decisions based on price. However, when it comes to technology, the opposite appears to be true. Hispanics are increasing use of online shopping with 53% of the market making an online purchase at least once a month . Additionally, almost all Hispanic users of Internet services check and compare prices online.
Culturally relevant and pertinent content, as well as language selection, is important to the Hispanic market segment. Roughly half of the Hispanics online prefer Spanish language access regardless of age and 40% of younger Hispanics (age 18-34) enjoy Spanish content. When provided with copy in both Spanish and English, many readers read both forms of copy. Entertainment has strong appeal; this includes sports - 37% listen to Internet radio vs. just 30% of non-Hispanics - and 36% of the Hispanic market downloads music vs. just 29% of non-Hispanics. The Hispanic consumer values content and will spend accordingly, thriving on “bite sized” entertainment. The Hispanic market has vast interests including; sports, fashion, retail, travel, financial, heath, technology and automotive.
Word of mouth, viral marketing is another key to successful Hispanic marketing; leverage this social networking opportunity and consumer language preference selections whenever possible.
Many Hispanics are small business owners and prefer carrying two mobile devices; one for work, one for personal use. The Hispanic landscape is less crowded, for now, but is expanding in scope and influence.
The opportunity for online and mobile is big, diverse, young and growing. Hispanics are eager to engage, now. They are responsive to multi-channel campaigns including out of home, direct mail, and call center as well as online. Tuning into the needs and desires of the Hispanic community yields exceptional results and nearly double that of any other market segment.

Contributed by:
Peg North 866-333-8324 EXT: 114 Pnorth@EthnicTechnologies.com