US Hispanics: Online Market Opportunity
The Direct Marketing Association recently released the 2005 Hispanic Market Report that highlighted three significant facts for marketers:
U.S. Census projections indicate that the Hispanic population will triple to over 102 million by 2050
Hispanic-Americans are increasing in affluence and are among the most credit-worthy customers in the United States
Hispanic-Americans have a purchasing power currently greater than 600 billion U.S. dollars which is expected to grow to one trillion U.S. dollars by 2007
The following are some important points when considering executing an online campaign targeting US Hispanics.
Appeal to Hispanics’ “passions”, namely music and sports. Marketers’ association with those lifestyles helps propel their brand in the Hispanic market. Examples are All Access Entertainment and McDonald’s Fiesta Broadway, which is an event marketing program catering to Hispanic’s passions of music and sports.
According to a recent AOL/Roper ASW U.S. Hispanic Cyberstudy, online Hispanic consumers are purchasing new cars at four times the rate of the general population, 46 percent of online Hispanics are using the Internet to design and customize their car of choice and locate a dealer for that car, and 48 percent of online Hispanics have bought a new car within the last three years.
Marketers can now target online Hispanics in Spanish as Overture listings are syndicated on Yahoo! en Espanol.
To execute any Hispanic marketing program, you must plan it strategically as opposed to just jumping into it because the market is “hot”. Many companies have fallen into this trap and when the initiative fails, they blame it on the market rather than on a lack of strategic planning.
