According to Advertising Age magazine, pro- fessional marketers are hiring more specialists and spending more money than ever to reach the exploding multicultural market. However, the magazine points out that even the experts are divided over how best to attract the atten- tion of multicultural consumers, and they’re not sure whether they’re getting good returns on their investments.
The magazine cites a survey commissioned by recruiting firm Heidrick & Struggles that reveals
that a great deal of confusion exists over how to most effectively target Hispanics, Blacks, and Asians. In fact, one longtime ad exec said that marketers don’t understand the ethnic market any better than they did 20 years ago. Although everyone seems to recognize the importance of multicultural marketing, getting management’s support for such efforts can be a monumental challenge.
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Start your multicultural marketing program by having your advisory board review your current advertising and public relations efforts. Obtain feedback about how appropriate your marketing approach is for the new customers you’re trying to reach. Perhaps your approach is fine as is, but don’t count on it; your present campaign probably wasn’t designed for multicultural audi- ences. (See Chapter 2 for details on forming an advisory board and on painting a picture of your business’s typical multicultural customer.)
Tracking your results
You can’t gauge the effectiveness of your marketing efforts if you haven’t gath- ered any data, because you need a baseline from which to measure success.
Gathering data when you don’t know what you’re looking for is a little like hunt- ing for mushrooms in the woods when you don’t know which ones are edible — it can be a waste of time at best and dangerous at worst. Here’s the type of data you need to gather to measure the success of your current campaign:
How many customers call or visit your business on a daily basis?
What are the ethnicities of these customers?
What’s the average dollar amount each customer spends?
What sorts of results are you expecting?
Answers to these questions, along with estimates of the size of your multicul- tural market (see Chapter 2), will give you a clearer idea of just how big your potential market is, your share of the market, and whether the results of your marketing efforts are living up to your expectations.
You can collect data on the effectiveness of a specific marketing effort in several ways:
Design a special coupon for each publication you advertise in. When you collect the coupons, you can tell which publications they came from.
Ask your business telephone service provider or hire a marketing company to provide you with a service that tracks call-ins. Such a ser- vice allows you to assign a special phone number to each ad. When a customer calls that number, the system records the number that the customer called, and you can track where callers are seeing your ads.
Instruct your frontline staff to ask every customer how they happened to hear about you and tally the results.
Conduct ethnic consumer focus group interviews to determine the impact of various components of your marketing program.
After you have gathered the necessary data, enter it into your handy-dandy spreadsheet program or whatever software you use to analyze market data.
You can compare your expectations to the real numbers to get a general idea of whether your current marketing campaign is a roaring success, a costly flop, or something in between. The next section shows you how to calculate the actual return on your investment.
Calculating your ROI (return on investment)
Though you can get a vague sense of the return on your investment (ROI) by observing changes in the demographics of who shows up at your business, you should calculate the actual dollar amount of the return on your invest- ment. It’s a pretty easy formula:
ROI = (Payback – Investment)/Investment × 100%
For example, if you generate $3,000 additional sales through a newspaper ad campaign that cost $1,000, your ROI is 200 percent:
ROI = ($3,000 – $1,000)/$1,000 × 100% = 200%
This means for every one dollar invested you received two in return, which is truly a sign of a worthwhile campaign, compared with the return on other advertising media as well as previous marketing attempts.
Generally speaking, the higher the ROI, the more successful your marketing cam- paign. If you’re losing money or your ROI falls short of your goal, however, don’t scrap it entirely. Sometimes a few minor tweaks can deliver the desired results.
You can also assess your marketing success in terms of market share. First, do some general market research, as we explain in Chapter 2, to find out the per- centage of ethnic families and consumers in your marketing area. Then answer this question: Based upon your company’s overall market share, are you getting your share of ethnic consumers? As long as your multicultural market share is pretty comparable to your overall market share, you’re doing fairly well.
Aiming Your Campaign at Your Target Market
A common mistake, even among professional marketing people, is to take a buckshot approach to marketing by targeting “multicultural customers.” For your marketing materials to have the most impact, however, you’re better off
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aiming at a smaller target — not only an ethnic group, but a group within that group. This subgroup may consist of people with a different level of acculturation or socioeconomic status or a specific age group. (For more about acculturation, see “Adjusting for different cultures and levels of acculturation,” later in this chapter.)
Make an effort to connect with local ethnic organizations, including chambers of commerce and houses of worship, as suggested in Chapter 4. In addition to increasing your exposure to different cultures and customs, these estab- lishments are good sources of information, and they may have business lists that you can get on for a minimal donation or fee. Supporting other ethnic programs and events can generate a high level of loyalty for your business and products.
In the following sections, we offer some guidance on how to build a more targeted campaign. See Chapter 2 for details on how to determine your business’s target market.
The changes to your marketing campaign need to be more than skin deep.
Yes, you do need to revamp your ads and displays to make them more appeal- ing to your prospective multicultural customers, but you also need to get your timing right, scale back your verbiage for high-context cultures, adjust for dif- ferent levels of acculturation and cultural beliefs, avoid potentially inflamma- tory language or stereotypes, and translate your ads into the language of your target market. Perhaps most important, you need to make sure you have staff on hand who can serve the hordes of multicultural customers that your mar- keting efforts will draw to your business. In the following sections, we show you how to attend to all of these tasks.
Getting the timing right
Great salespeople, particularly those who specialize in retail sales, never miss seasonal opportunities, such as Christmas, or special days, such as Mother’s Day or Valentine’s Day. At least they think they never miss these opportunities. Salespeople who lack cultural competency often miss out on these same opportunities in the multicultural marketplace because they’re unaware that customers from other cultures follow a different calendar. For example:
Mother’s Day (Día de las Madres) is observed on May 10 in Latin American countries, rather than on the second Sunday in May as in the U.S.
In mainland China and Taiwan, Valentine’s Day is observed in July rather than February. Valentine’s Day is so special in Japan that the Japanese celebrate it on two days. On February 14, only women give gifts to their
On December 26, Kwanzaa, the African American celebration of traditional African values of family, community responsibility, commerce, and self- improvement, is celebrated but has nothing to do with Christmas.
To get more in tune with differences in other cultures’ calendars, check out our cross-cultural holiday calendar in the appendix. Also, consult with an expert from the culture you’re targeting to make any further adjustments to your marketing calendar.
After you identify holidays and other dates of importance to your multicul- tural clientele, do some research to find out more about these special days and the customs that surround them. By developing a better understanding of these occasions, you’re in a better position to ensure that your advertise- ments and promotions are in line with the spirit of the holiday.
Trimming the fat: Less is more
Marketing people often are tempted to deliver as much information as possible about their product and its benefits, but many multicultural customers come from very high-context cultures where less is more. As we explain in Chapter 3, these folks rely more on nonverbal communications, facial expressions, and body language to convey meaning, instead of being obvious and redundant with words. In low-context cultures, such as the United States and Germany, ads tend to be wordy and in your face. High-context cultures prefer ads that more subtly convey the message with graphics and implied meanings.
Take a look at the two ads shown in Figure 5-1. The low-context Oil and Natural Gas Industry ad (Figure 5-1a) relies almost exclusively on words as well as facts and figures to convey meaning and persuade. The ad includes a photo, but it’s so small that it’s almost invisible and really doesn’t directly relate to the ad copy. The high-context Citgo ad (Figure 5-1b) relies mostly on the picture to convey the meaning. Words are kept to a minimum. The image dominates the ad and is designed to stir emotions and create good feelings about the advertiser. Unfortunately, the multicultural kids in the picture are in the back and nearly invisible — almost as an afterthought.
The moral of the story: Say less, sell more.
Adjusting for different cultures and levels of acculturation
Every culture has its own “thing” or more appropriately, its own “things” — certain values that influence people’s behaviors, including how they shop for and decide to buy goods and services. But keep in mind that these cultural influ- ences can diminish over time as future generations become more acculturated.
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Figure 5-1:
A minimalist approach is gener- ally more appealing to custom-
ers from high-context cultures.
b
a
In the following sections, we explore some of these more influential values and highlight specific instances in the real world.
A sample of value-related tendencies
Almost all cultures on the planet have been around a lot longer than the American culture, so they’ve had time to develop long-standing values, such as these:
Established cultures may prefer tried-and-true products as opposed to new-and-improved ones. The Latino, Asian, and Middle Eastern cultures have long histories and tend to appreciate longevity.
African Americans have developed their own music, dance, foods, and other cultural basics. They want to know that you’re an integral and long-standing part of the community before trusting you with their money. Because of their history, they can be a bit mistrustful at first until they see that you’re committed to them and not just their money.
Asian Indians and Pakistanis tend to gravitate toward products that are perceived to be “high class.” They’re also willing to pay for the higher quality and prestige these items offer.
Russians can be very frugal given the shortages many have experienced in the recent past in their home country. They tend to have traditional European tastes which are different from American preferences.
A look at family structures
According to Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, “Happy families are all alike;
every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” This is certainly true, but even happy families tend to differ across cultures. Consider the following examples:
The average American family used to consist of a father, mother, and one or two children, but today it’s much smaller than in the past.
Hispanic and Asian families regularly consist of a father, mother, several children, grandparents, and often cousins. Children tend to live at home longer than in traditional American families, and they may even continue living there with their spouse after marriage. (This practice can actually save you money on marketing because you can reach more people with the same advertisements.)
African American families are predominately of two types: traditional family structures, much like Anglo American families, and female head of household families. Make sure the images in your advertisements convey the type of family you’re selling to. In the African American culture, god- parents can be an integral part of the family structure to help encourage children and teach strong values by setting a good example. You may want to include them in family photos in your marketing materials.