The Latino population in the U.S. has grown to over 54.6 million people, now representing 17% of the population. They are also some of the earliest adopters of new technologies, and have $1.2 trillion in spending power. They are the ideal target for marketers; however, they are often forgotten in the marketing mix. If you want to connect with your Latino audience, here are some ideas to get you started.
Provide culturally relevant content.
Latinos connect well with many different topics, but it’s important to remember cultural differences that can add to your content and make it more relevant. You should research different holidays, events, and milestones that you can use to strike up a conversation.
Realize that it is never okay to repurpose content that was meant for a non-Latino audience and simply translate. Direct translations read poorly – and Latinos will definitely know!
Spanglish isn’t all that bad.
Many marketers seem to think that in order to reach Latino audiences, everything has to be Spanish. This is where (if lacking resources), brands can fall into bad translations and repurposed content. Many Latinos are bilingual and comfortable with usage of both languages.
Keep in mind that images and links should follow suit. If you have a Spanish post and link to English content, that can be very confusing for the user.
Integrate everything.
It is important to make sure that once you’ve created your awesome culturally relevant content that people can actually read it. So it’s important to integrate your content among all different technologies and make sure it translates well. Double check that your sites and links work for mobile, social, and tablet usage.
These are just a few ideas to think about, and quite honestly, these can apply to many other audiences as well. In multicultural marketing, it is important to rethink your strategies to avoid any of your ideas getting lost in translation.
Interested in learning more? Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois recently addressed their own multicultural approach to social in a Social Media Week Q & A.
