The Dos and Don'ts for Expanding Into the Hispanic Market

Whatever you do, please do:

1. Get a commitment for Hispanic marketing from the very top of and throughout your organization. Yes, the CEO. The CMO. The board. Otherwise, it will just be another mid-level checklist item, one that quickly falls off the list when things get tough. Oh, and find your champions within the higher ranks. People who will make sure they defend your interest in this market when the budget cutting comes. It always does.
2. Frame the discussion as not a nice-to-do, but an imperative … an imperative that will have positive impact on sales, profits and, ultimately, shareholder value. Ask Walmart. Bank of America. Sonic Drive-Ins. McDonald's. Toyota.
3. Avoid falling for lip service. If your company can't seem to make a financial commitment to Latino marketing, it's simply not committed. There is a big difference between commitment and interest. Yes, fight for a budget.
4. Do your homework. It is important that you make the necessary analysis in order to ascertain the viability and relevance of your particular product or service offering among Latinos.
5. Find out who your best Hispanic customer is. Yes. It's part of doing your homework. Investing in a segmentation model for your particular category is one of the best things you could do. But, build it well, build it to last.
6. Look at your service model. Is it Hispanic-ready? Are you ready to serve this customer? You need to understand that this customer will react to your invitation. So, be ready. Your being committed to service is key.
7. Avoid going straight to tactics when devising your Hispanic initiative. It's not just a matter of translating your general market executions (there is more on the don'ts side of the equation, so keep reading).
8. Go beyond the test paradigm. That's so '90s. Wake up. It's 2009. We have an African-American president. Odds are we will see a Gomez or a Hernandez on the ballot someday. And you want to test a Hispanic program? You can rest assured your competitors aren't testing; they're doing. If you're going to test anything, test copy, and invest properly in research on the front end.
9. Find a partner. Ideally, an agency that will have the intellectual, strategic and executional firepower to take you from A to Z. Find someone with experience, a track record is necessary. Please do avoid relegating this to the "resident Hispanic" in your organization who is ill-prepared to contribute meaningfully to your plan beyond the "I would say it this way or that way" comment. Just because someone is of Hispanic origin or speaks Spanish does not qualify them to be your sole source of information, opinion and counsel.

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