Niche marketing during tough economic times

Marginalizing Hispanics as a “minority” is something of a misnomer: presently, US Hispanics comprise 15% of the population; by 2050, that number will double, making Hispanics the largest ethnic group in the country.More significantly for you as a marketer, the combined buying power of the 46 million Hispanic consumers in the United States is close to a whopping one trillion dollars. The number of purchases made by Hispanics between 1995 and 2007 grew twice as fast as that of non-Hispanics. Twenty-three million of these buyers are online: US Hispanic consumers spent $12.8 billion shopping the Internet in 2007, a number that’s projected to jump 90% by 2011. US Hispanics use search engines to research their purchases before they buy (and 44% of them know the difference between paid advertising and “organic” search results,) and they are more likely to use the Internet to find recipes, read news and blog postings, and download music than the general population.

Yet many companies persist in ignoring this market. Citing the down economy, they cut back on marketing to this huge emerging market segment, stubbornly imposing a false economy because they’re not forsightful enough to see the return on investment.

But let’s look at what actually triggers a purchase. Though companies may spend millions developing marketing plans and advertising campaigns, research indicates the most powerful driver still remains word of mouth. Moreover, word of mouth has a ripple effect: people talk about the commercials they see on TV and the Internet.

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Hispanic marketing allows a company to harness the power of word of mouth. US Hispanics, on the whole, live in a networked community. Advice is offered on the street, at church, in the grocery store. Need to know which pre-paid cell phone is best? Ask someone. Other marketing strategies are amplified through this information exchange and a satisfied customer becomes a brand recruiter. This phenomenon translates into the world of online social media, where Hispanics are present in ever greater numbers.

Simply put, Hispanic marketing offers more bang for the buck.

So how do you reach the US Hispanic market?

Well, first, of course, there is no homogenous “Hispanic market”: a Hispanic living in California may have a very different consumer profile than a Hispanic living in Florida or Texas, and search engine marketing (SEM) should target these differences explicitly. Niche marketing dictates that selected keywords for regional products and services resonate with their markets; both English and Spanish words should be tested to see which combination of the two is better for converting surfing into sales and maximizing revenues. US Hispanics also come from a wide variety of geographic regions: the content that acts as an entry page for a person with Latin American roots will be substantively different than that enticing someone whose family was from the Caribbean.

And like all consumers, Hispanic consumers will respond to outreach cues depending upon where they are in their own life cycle. A marketing blitz targeting younger consumers, and second and third generation of Hispanics might do best to focus resources on bilingual campaigns, social media and music sites while one aimed at seniors and first generation of Hispanics -- whose primary language is more likely to be Spanish -- might see better results with more traditional media like Spanish language newspapers and websites, radio and television placements.

One thing’s for certain: The US Hispanic market remains an underappreciated market. Those companies who have listened to the market cues and acted on them are a few steps ahead of the game. One sure way to boost your company’s profits is to tap into Latino buying power. If you dismiss this emerging market as merely a small “niche market” that may develop some day you are hurting your own bottom line.

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Hispanic Social Networking Activities Continue to Thrive

Since the dawn of the digital age, people have been drawn to the immediate virtual interconnection of the internet, its functions and its products. Millions of people use the internet not only as a source of news, opinion, and entertainment, but specifically as a route to maintain friendships, relationships, and communities, which otherwise would be impossible due to long distances or other complications. In particular, the advent of the social networking website has led to the domination of interpersonal relationships by the intangible presented on the screen. What is the relationship between the US Hispanic population, and popular (or unpopular) social networking sites, how do they consume online information, and how will their participation in these sites likely continue?

First, a distinction must be made between English speaking Hispanics, and non-English speaking Hispanics. Though the majority of Spanish speaking nations have a balance of English and Spanish linguistic ability present in (especially) the youth culture, this duality is not without exception. Many English speaking Hispanics are of second generation immigrants to the United states, or perhaps those of a higher educational range. Most Latinos in the United States who cannot speak English are older, and subsequently less likely to adapt to new technologies.

The Florida State University Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication recently did a study on ethnic and cultural influence on social media participation, and found that of a group of 2500 test subjects, each divided into five groups of English Preferring Hispanics, Non-English Speaking Preferring Hispanics, Non-Hispanic Whites, African Americans, and Asians, 36% of the English Preferring Hispanics reported visiting a social networking cite 2-3 times a month; this was the highest percentage featured out of all the ethnic subdivisions. Also, 46% of English Preferring Hispanics reported visiting Facebook or Myspace "regularly", again the highest percentage of the groups.

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These sites, Facebook and MySpace, along with Twitter, are the three largest social networking sites on the internet. Social networking sites, according to Time Magazine and Hitwise.com rank no. 1 in popularity of internet access in groups 18-24 years olds, with search engines coming in second, and then web-based email access and subsequently adult entertainment. Social networking sites are being accessed often by Hispanics in the United States and abroad, but why?

First, Hispanic culture, specifically native to South America, has a long history of community based organization. The individual is less important than the whole in Hispanic tradition, which has traveled through time and geography to hold true to Latinos in the United States today. Also, more Hispanics in the United States are younger than their non-Hispanic counterparts. According to the United States Census Bureau, the median age of the Hispanic population in the United States was 27.7 years in 2008. The median age for the general population, including all ethnic and cultural minorities as well as Whites, was 36.8 years old in 2008. This leads to the inference that there are more young Hispanics in the United States, and so more Hispanics may be able and/or willing to acclimatize to new technologies such as social networking sites. In addition, it is widely viewed that Hispanic cultures reinforce emotional rather than rational behavior, and thus are likely to participate in relationship building more easily than non-Hispanics.

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The Ethnicity and Ancestry Branch to Create “Hispanic in the United States” 2010 Census

Planning on releasing presentation in Spring 2011 using the 2010 Census

I, Sebastian Aroca, recently asked the Ethnicity and Ancestry Branch Chief Roberto Ramirez, if the branch was going to put together another “Hispanic in the United States” presentation for this upcoming U.S. Census Bureau and if the answer was yes, when do they suspect the PP to be created/released.

Chief Roberto Ramirez responded that his branch is certainly planning to update the PP using the 2010 Census. This is great news!

He also said that the PPT will be out sometime in spring of 2011 for it takes about 6 months to process all the data from the census. Wow, I didn’t know it takes that long!

For more information about the Ethnicity and Ancestry Branch, you can contact the branch Chief Roberto Ramirez (roberto.r.ramirez@census.gov) or call the branch at 301.763.2403.

Download last “Hispanics in the United States” presentation

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