Leveraging Hispanics to Assure Growth in the Next Five Years Requires a New Outlook By Terry Soto

By Terry Soto, Author of Marketing to Hispanics A Strategic Approach to Assessing and Planning Your Initiative

 

In a recent meeting with a VP of Multicultural Marketing, one of the top concerns that came across was the desire to sustainably position Multicultural Marketing in the company for the next five years and beyond.  In other words, this VP wanted to succeed in creating a formal strategic plan to integrate Multicultural consumers into all aspects of insights gathering, planning, strategy development and implementation to effect growth for the company’s brand portfolio.

As importantly, this VP was also concerned about the sustainability of the multicultural work already in place as new brand managers and directors join the company.

This type of forethought is just what is required of every company which has identified Hispanics as a growth opportunity. It is especially important because multicultural marketing in most companies is not integrated into the business as a business imperative and often lives as a separate effort which requires constant justification and resource sourcing to keep it going.

Much of my writing supports the value of full integration of Hispanics into business planning and implementation so companies avoid the vicious cycle of false starts and stops which in many cases result in companies walking away from Hispanic marketing altogether when budgets and resources are tight and in a revolving door of frustrated and demotivated Multicultural champions.

If you are interested in leveraging the Hispanic market to effect growth for your companies over the next five years and beyond, I recommend you reflect on and consider the following six steps:

1. Take a conscientious view of your attitudes, beliefs and comfort level when thinking about, understanding and reaching out to consumers who are different from you
2. Think about your ability to adopt a more realistic and global view of today’s consumer landscape
3. Take an objective approach in identifying and profiling consumers who represent viable buyers for your products or services regardless of their culture or ethnicity
4. Think about how applicable your company’s brand promise, strategy and tactics is to all your buyers / targets
5. Seek out and acknowledge the changes required to ensure relevance to and effectiveness among all target customers
6. Take an objective business position so you act with no personal agenda, but rather with an eye on the business opportunity

The consumer landscape has changed dramatically and as marketers we must step up our game adapt to this change. Growth will not come to those who wait and dig their heel in what is comfortable and familiar; it will come to those who take off the blinders, are willing to feel out of their element for a bit and those who take the required steps to create it.

 

Terry Soto is President and CEO of About Marketing Solutions, Inc., a Burbank, California – based strategy consulting firm specializing in helping her clients dramatically improve overall business performance by optimizing their strategies to succeed in the Hispanic market. terry@aboutmarketingsolutions.com

Excerpt from “The Biggest Problem Faced by Hispanic Marketers Today” By Terry J. Soto

We talk endlessly about the Hispanic market’s size, its language preferences, the deep and multi-segmented insights, the culture, and the “right media spend,” whatever that means. And, we continue to live in a Hispanic marketing world of soccer sponsorships, celebrities, concerts and festivals, media properties, in-language and in-culture creative and a host of other above- and below-the-line investments which seldom tie back to corporate growth platforms.

Let’s face it; internally and externally, we aren’t doing a good job of thinking and talking business first and marketing second. We complain about not being invited to sit at the “adult strategy table” to participate in the big conversations, but have yet to elevate “our talk” to the required levels – the levels that track with industry threats and big picture direction setting. And we aren’t having the conversations about using our deep market insights to help organizations become business ready to leverage company assets to their fullest potential.

As a result, we perpetuate a view of the Hispanic market as a separate endeavor and as the end in and of itself. Two problems arise from this approach – the first is the inability to attribute any portion of top and bottom line strategic growth to the Hispanic market. And second, we can’t justify the value of our existing efforts because they are irrelevant to the focal points companies have set for growth.

We must elevate our thinking. If we expect corporate America to “walk the talk,” we must be prepared to talk their talk – and to help them take more productive steps. So what are you doing to make a difference for your organization today?

Learn more.  Join the Society for Diversity and Terri J. Soto, Author and President of About Marketing Solutions Inc., for a webinar on How to Identify and Attract High Profit Hispanic Consumers to Your Brand on Wednesday, February 13, 2013 at 1:00PM (EST).  Register at www.societyfordiversity.org.

Also, read more about marketing to the Latino community at http://www.aboutmarketingsolutions.com.