The U.S. Hispanic market continues to grow at a rapid pace and creating a winning Hispanic market strategy is a must for companies looking to expand beyond the mainstream consumer market. Over the next several posts we’ll discuss the essential steps for creating a winning strategy for reaching a market that exceeds $1.5 billion in annual buying power.

Having worked with dozens of local and national companies, we have identified some of the key elements of winning market strategies employed by successful advertisers in the Hispanic market. While strategies and tactics differ by industry, we can identify several key elements necessary for a robust, long-term Hispanic initiative:

Alignment with corporate brand. Hispanic outreach efforts are most successful when aligned with a company’s brand and values. For example, a company with dedication to customer service must apply a similar commitment to Hispanic customers by showing that it also cares about their needs and wants. Similarly, a company whose core values are integrity, innovation and teamwork will want to demonstrate these attributes through its Hispanic outreach efforts.

This is important for two major reasons; Hispanic consumers do not live in a vacuum and are exposed to companies’ efforts and will expect similar level of knowledgeable and in-language customer service as other customers. In addition, the company’s own personnel will expect that the company speaks ‘with one voice’ across all consumer touchpoints. For example, a customer service team will expect in-language customer service training in order to deliver the same level of service to Spanish-preferred customers as English-speaking customers receive.

Alignment with corporate objectives. What are your company’s goals for 2023 and how will these objectives be accomplished? Successful Hispanic initiatives reflect and support corporate objectives through a unique understanding of the consumer’s language and culture preferences, and a commitment to relevant and compelling efforts.

Moreover, by being closely tied to achieving corporate objectives, Hispanic efforts are more likely to maintain funding levels and corporate commitment over the long term.

Establish campaign metrics. Whether your company has a longtime presence in the Hispanic market or considering first-time efforts it is imperative to establish goals and metrics to measure progress and accomplishments. In our experience it is best to establish a multi-year set of objectives that can expand based on program performance and accomplishments. This long-term approach minimizes expectations that results will be generated quickly and commits the organization to a consistent presence in the market.

Campaign metrics and objectives are most successful when developed in collaboration between marketing and sales or retail teams that are responsible for driving bottom-line results.  Close collaboration between teams helps assure continued commitment to Hispanic initiatives from senior management.

Consumer and category insights. The last element to kick off 2023 strategic planning is developing a clear picture of how Hispanic consumers interact with your brand and its category. Is there a high level of awareness, or is your brand a new category player? Have your competitors established a presence in the market? These insights into how consumers interact with your brand and competitors are important factors to consider in program objectives and budget planning.

At Sherpa Marketing Solutions our approach is to conduct an inventory of available client data including sales information, distribution, marketing materials, and current customer demographics. This process level-sets internal resources and provides a foundation for development of go-to-market strategies.

In our next installment we’ll discuss how we leverage this internal assessment to develop marketing materials and outreach efforts.

Sherpa Marketing Solutions, founded by Carlos Cordoba, is a certified MBE / SBE / DBE communications agency dedicated to helping clients turn marketing challenges into growth opportunities. The Sherpa team is based in Southern California and across Latin America. Carlos may be reached at ccordoba@sherpa-marketing.com.