How to Market to People Not Like You: "Know It or Blow It" Rules for Reaching Diverse Customers

Chapter 11. Hispanics/Latinos: North America's Fastest-Growing Ethnic Minority

There is a large, national, wireless telecommunications company that you know. They're big, successful, and they're everywhere. Perhaps they are your carrier for your mobile phone—it's quite likely. I was at a marketing conference for the telecommunications industry, and I was the keynote speaker. My topic was the tremendous importance of the Hispanic population. For the telecommunications industry, this consumer group is huge, absolutely a goldmine, because not only are Hispanics the largest and fastest-growing ethnic minority in the United States, they also index higher in the purchase and use of mobile communications devices than any other race or ethnicity. The Hispanic population is a "perfect storm of opportunity," and everyone at this conference wanted to learn more about how to market effectively to this market segment.

After my presentation, several people came up to me to chat and ask questions. One woman introduced herself as a marketing executive for this large, national wireless company.

She stated that she enjoyed my presentation and that no one in her company needed to be convinced of the value of the Hispanic consumer market. She said, "What we struggle with is how to reach this customer. We know how important they are—we just don't know how to market to them. In fact, we made a huge effort a couple of years ago to reach Hispanics and it was a big flop, so we know we did something wrong. ...