Commentary

Growing Hispanic Population Requires Brands To Rethink Search, Social Marketing

California Governor Gerry Brown estimates in his annual state budget summary that Latinos will become the largest ethnic group in California by March 2014, making up 39% of the state's population. This growth makes it increasingly important for marketers to know how to reach these consumers, many of whom do not speak or read English. BIA/Kelsey released data Tuesday that provides some tips.

Hispanic consumers are more likely to use mobile applications compared with search engines. In fact, this demographic is 69% less likely to use search engines on tablets and 61% on smartphone for local shopping -- but seem to rely more on apps, at 17% and 9%, respectively, per research from BIA/Kelsey.

Marketers that reach out to Hispanic consumers should pay attention to the population numbers and the way Hispanics connect with brands. The BIA/Kelsey research released Tuesday suggests that 48.5% of Hispanic consumers use mobile devices for local shopping, compared with 32% of non-Hispanics. In fact, Hispanic consumers use 5.1 mobile apps on average for daily shopping, compared with 2.7 for non-Hispanic consumers.

Some 23.6% of Hispanic consumers reported that they use tablets for local shopping, compared with 15.5% of non-Hispanics.

Within a 25-mile radius from home, 56.2% of Hispanic consumers turn to TV spots for information on local shopping. Some 57.3% of non-Hispanic consumers rely most heavily on online search. Hispanic consumers also rely on recommendations and word of mouth from friends and family, at 47.6%, followed by online search, 47.1%; newspapers, 40.5%; and print coupons, 39.4%.

Hispanic consumers also tend to use Facebook more overall, but less when it comes to comparing the use with non-Hispanic consumers. For example, 60.9% of Hispanic consumers rely on Facebook vs. 67.2% of non-Hispanic consumers. YouTube follows with 17.7% and 10.3% for Hispanic vs. non-Hispanic, Yahoo with 16.8% vs. 16.4%, and Google+ with 11.9% vs. 10.8%, respectively.

"Woman in Car on Mobile phone" photo from Shutterstock.

 

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