In our previous blog post regarding elements of a winning Hispanic market strategy we discussed the fundamental need for Hispanic initiatives to establish a solid foundation within a corporate structure. This includes alignment with corporate objectives, establishing measurable campaign metrics and assuring that there is a knowledge base of how Hispanic consumers interact with the brand and category.

We next turn our attention to outward facing elements that are visible to consumers and stakeholders including Go-To-Market strategies, communication and outreach investments, and crucial support from sales organizations and point of sale partners.

The development of a Go-To-Market strategy entails leveraging the understanding of the target audience gained during the research portion discussed in our last post. Hispanic consumers may engage differently with your product than General Market consumers. They may be new to the category, whereas more established consumers may have engaged with your brand for many years. A traditional General Market campaign may require just enough support to keep your brand top of mind, banking on established brand awareness compared to Hispanic market initiatives that need to create ground-up brand visibility and education.

This difference may require a level of ‘investment spending’ in support of Hispanic initiatives that is no longer required among General Market consumers.

Budgeting for communication and outreach initiatives will be driven by several factors: Whether a level of ‘investment spending’ is required in order to jump-start awareness and trial among Hispanic shoppers, and leveraging findings from consumer research that point to competitive presence and where the brand ranks in the category. Other elements may include:

·  Implementation of market test strategy: Review sales data and identify similar markets for A/B testing strategy, with a robust Hispanic program developed and implemented in one of the markets with pre- and post-campaign measurement of sales lift and brand awareness levels.

·  Collaboration with retailer partner for implementation of a robust in-store sampling and coupon program supported by geotargeted digital and media support. Sales teams have an important role to play in this approach in order to minimize out of stocks and assure retailer collaboration and compliance. Following this approach, analyze product movement and velocity among retail locations with high Hispanic population density vs. locations with fewer Hispanic consumers.

·  Media investment: Today’s digital landscape facilitates message customization and audience targeting by language and by audience profiles. Opportunities ranging from collaboration with local influencer to the use of traditional broadcast media provide brands with hyper-local all the way to national opportunities depending on budget considerations and desired market presence.

Support from the brand’s sales and distribution team is a crucial element to successful campaign execution. A properly executed campaign will generate increased sales and product movement – potentially higher than forecast – that may result in out of stocks for all consumers. Timely collaboration with sales teams also let them inform category buyers of upcoming Hispanic programs, in many cases generating goodwill among buyers for the extra sales and promotional support driving more sales at their stores.

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.