7 reasons to target the Hispanic Market

Good post by Gus Razzetti from StrategicSense laying out 7 reasons he uses to neutralize the most frequent rejections about marketing to the Hispanic market.

1. Hispanics represent a huge segment (don’t get caught by the word minority):
-- About 1/3 of U.S. population is either Hispanic, Asian or Black (doesn’t include 4 million Puerto Ricans).
-- 23 metro areas have more Hispanics than whites.
-- 326 counties where ethnic minorities are the majority—many of the largest, such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Santa Clara.
-- Only 1 in 5 new households in the U.S. in 2009 were non-Hispanic whites.
2. Latinos presence keeps growing
-- Hispanics contributed 52 % of population growth since the year 2000
-- There are 9 births for every death. For non-Hispanic whites, the ratio is 1-to-1.
-- By 2015, population 3 largest ethnic groups will be: 110.5 million and Hispanics will represent nearly 50% of population
-- 80%+ of the U.S. population growth in the last 10 years has come from ethnic minorities.
3. Hispanics do have money to spend
-- Hispanics plus Asians contributed 2/3 of annual spending growth in 2010.
-- Hispanics form 16% of the population but nearly 50% of consumer spending growth in 2010.
-- Due to younger age, longer life expectancy and robust spending, acquiring multicultural customers today are worth far more than non-Hispanic whites.
-- Latinos over $2.5 million and Non-Hispanic whites less than $2.2 million over their life span when acquired today.
-- Buying power of Hispanics and African Americans is around $2 Trillion dollars, larger than Brazil’s entire economy was in 2009.
4. Latinos will have a bigger impact in your future than you think
-- 92% of retirees are non-Hispanic and American’s depend increasingly on Latino taxpayers.
-- Hispanics voted for Obama over McCain by 2-1 margin
-- Nearly 20% of congressional districts that will hold elections during the upcoming midterm cycle have a Latino population of at least 25%
-- Increasing levels of naturalization along with trends in voter registration results in an increasingly important electorate: politicians are catering more and more to Latino interests.
5. Hispanics are influencing mainstream
-- Online Hispanics have proven to be tech-savvy media trendsetters.
-- 40% of Latinos are creators (333 Index vs General Market) creating their own content: publish a blog or own website, upload videos/music, etc.
-- According to Ken Muench, 31% of the new Oxford English Dictionary words reflected crossculturalism, and many are food and entertainment-related, such as anime, telenovela, guayabera, taqueria, huevos rancheros and cilantro.
-- 75% of hip-hop music is sold to White youth.
6. Latinos have a strong (bi) cultural connection
-- Don’t overestimate the impact of US born or second generations, only 8% of Hispanics are assimilated.
-- 70% of Latinos are Bicultural and 22% still unacculturated.
-- 80% of Biculturals say that it’s very important for them that people know that they are Hispanic.
-- 95% agree that being a part of the Hispanic community in the US is extremely important to them.
-- 80 percent of Hispanics are bilingual and about 20 percent are dependent on English or Spanish.
7. Hispanics respond positively to specific (inclusive) marketing efforts
-- The uniqueness of this segment’s mindset and values requires relevant marketing efforts.
-- In culture campaigns tend to perform much better than adaptations
-- Sensis reports results of 200-300% difference in Hispanic response to digital ads.
-- 64% have responded to direct mail advertising compared to just 46 percent of the general U.S. population in the same period of time.

Sources: US Census Bureau, Geoscape, Ad Age, Mobile marketer, Pew Hispanic, AOL, Sensis, DraftFCB.