Direct recently spoke on the potential of the Asian American demographic for direct marketers with Saul Gitlin, executive vice president of strategic marketing services/new business for New York-based agency Kang & Lee. Successfully communicating with this segment means crafting campaigns that will not only speak to them in their language of choice, but letting them know you are uniquely focused on their needs, he said. For more of our conversation with Gitlin, see the July edition of Direct.
DIRECT: What mistakes do marketers make when targeting this audience?
GITLIN: I think the biggest mistake is for anybody to assume that whatever they’re doing in terms of marketing to the general population just needs to be translated and served up to the Asian American population.
DIRECT: What creative aspects should a marketer consider when designing a DM campaign for Asian Americans?
GITLIN: Anything that can convey the culture from a layout standpoint will enhance the relevance of the package. And in direct mail, a culturally and linguistically relevant outer envelope will drive open rates through the roof. If you can imagine the Asian letterbox, they are getting very little direct mail that is uniquely targeted to them. If they get 20 pieces of direct mail and one has an outer envelope that says something in Chinese, and you hit a Chinese household, chances are that’s the one they
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