Brand Managers: 3 Tips To Creating An Effective Multicultural Marketing Strategy

As a Brand Manager, your ability to engage different cultures with every marketing effort is critical to your firm's success. As an Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) Graduate Student at Medill-Northwestern University, I came across these two articles that discuss the importance of Multicultural Marketing as well as what Brands should be doing to successfully reach and engage this market.

The first article is titled “Your Next Big Opportunity: The U.S. Hispanic Market” and is written by Lisa Gevelber, VP of American Marketing at Google. This article points out that U.S. Hispanics are an underserved market despite the fact that they will make up “ 30% of the population by July 1, 2050” and that they are also leaders in adoption of digital technologies. Also, the article explains that most brands don’t have a marketing strategy for Hispanic audiences and most agencies  “Were advising clients to invest in reaching them either somewhat or not at all.” Therefore, to secure long-term growth, brands should take action and leverage the opportunity to reach them through digital channels and with cultural relevant messages.

Source: http://www.permanentculturenow.com/

The second article “The Digital Marketing Revolution's Multicultural Core”  is from the Huffington Post Blog and is written by Cesar Melgoza, the CEO and Founder of Geoscape. The author explains that even though, marketers are starting to understand the importance to leverage digital media to reach and engage audiences, they still need to understand the importance of making multicultural audiences a key component of their digital marketing strategies. For example, Hispanics are not only the single-fastest growing population of young buyers in America but they “over-index on smartphone ownership and digital media streaming” and are “the leaders of today’s digital marketing revolution”.

Based on these two articles and my graduate learning in the Medill IMC Program, these are the three tips I recommend to creating a multicultural marketing strategy:

·       Integrate Multicultural - Make these influential cultural groups an essential component of your marketing strategy

·       Research Cultures - Study multicultural audiences to speak their "cultural language" and engage them in relevant ways

·       Leverage Digital - Reach and engage multicultural audiences where they are

Multicultural audiences like the Hispanic Market will keep growing in the U.S. gaining more economic power and cultural importance. Therefore it is imperative for Brand Managers to leverage this opportunity and make Multicultural Marketing a central component of their Marketing Strategies. Furthermore, by studying the different market segments within and leveraging digital and mobile technologies, Brands will be empowered to create “cultural relevant” messages that successfully reach and engage these Multicultural Audiences across effective channels.

Author: Isabel Mora

I am an Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) Graduate Student at Northwestern University and I have over eight years experience working with clients from a wide range of industries. I am passionate about uncovering powerful consumer insights to help brands tell more meaningful and relevant stories. You can follow me on Twitter @Icmora or connect with me on LinkedIn