Expand your marketing realm
Keys to successful ethnic marketing

In today’s tough economy, being creative with your marketing choices may be the key to surviving and succeeding. With nearly 10% of the Michigan population speaking a language other than English, these Limited English Proficiency customers constitute a huge market segment that is often overlooked. Here at B&A, we help companies break the traditional mold and design marketing solutions to attract clients from ethnic markets. Today, we are sharing a few tips on how to achieve this goal.

Ethnic marketing employs personal marketing strategies that best reflect the cultural values, beliefs, and norms of the ethnic audience you are targeting.

An understanding of diversity is crucial when developing strategies for ethnic marketing. Here are 4 mistakes of conventional marketing:
1. Forgetting to make your message culturally on-point for your target audience. Ethnic audience differs greatly in their cultural and religious beliefs, customs and norms. Messages appealing to a Mainland Mandarin Chinese speaker, at the same time, may leave a Mam speaker from Guatemala completely disinterested.
2. Putting all the members of your target audience in the same category. Example: Translating your materials in “Spanish” without determining which variant of Spanish would be appropriate for your target audience (Cuban, Mexican, South America, etc.)
3. Viewing diversity as a matter of image building and forgetting to follow through. Example: If in your translated materials you list a phone number for your target ethnic group to call, make sure to have appropriate language resources in place when they contact you. Nothing ruins a first impression more, than a mishandled telephone contact.
4. Approaching diversity as a requirement. Example: If you create a folder of linguistic resources only to complete the requirements of your accrediting organization, and in reality never use these resources, your potential ethnic clients will never know that you exist and will go to your competitors or may not even find the services or goods you’d be able to offer them.

It is important to customize your marketing message to appeal to the shared cultural norms, values, traditions, and beliefs of the group that you seek to reach. For that purpose you must:
1. Understand and appreciate the cultural uniqueness of your target group.
2. Build bridges with community leaders and other organizations working within the community.
3. Consider the level of ethnicity of the group you are targeting. Value the cultural beliefs, symbols, and practices of your target group.
4. Value differences in languages, accents, practices, and social conduct.
5. Keep in mind the difference in marketing approach, including the importance of word-of-mouth and interpersonal communication.

Marketing is of vital importance when attempting to create programs for diverse, multi-need audiences. Bromberg & Associates will help you identify and reach your goals on this path. To get started contact Bromberg & Associates Translation Agency for a consultation or to retain one of our interpreters who specialize in over 60 languages locally and 150 languages worldwide. Call (313) 871-0080 or visit the website at www.brombergtranslations.com.