The key to marketing is to relate to your audience. But, how?

Brands are always on the lookout for the latest marketing trends and tactics that can be used to target their audience. The challenge with chasing trends is that they move fast and so do the tactics. Although, one thing that you can note is that understanding and relating to your audience is crucial. 

Relating and segmenting your actions to suit your audience gives your brand trust and more of a chance to convert. However, as audiences may vary, especially in their culture, ethnicity and more, we need to adjust to each of these areas specifically. This is what we call multicultural marketing.

How do you define Multicultural Marketing?

Multicultural marketing is a marketing strategy that targets audiences by taking into account their ethnicity or culture. This approach gives you more relatability and shows that your brand recognises differences and embraces them. Moreover, showing that you’re multicultural isn’t just a tactic to gain trust, it has become a must-have for brands in 2022.

Why is it important?

When creating a marketing campaign, it is important to understand and take into account different cultures and ethnicities to appeal to different groups and ensure you are being culturally sensitive.

In a recent survey, 75% of participants agreed that they are more likely to purchase from a brand that has people who look like them represented in the ads^[1]. It was also found that diverse imagery (51%),  and inclusive language (44%) are two of the most essential components of the marketing message^[1]. This shows that people find it important to feel included and relatable when buying from a brand - which can be achieved through multicultural marketing.
 

What’s the problem?

Although multicultural marketing has now become an essential part of a brand, many have still not realised it. Even if they have thought about this, it’s often believed that it can be achieved with general market efforts. It can’t. A diverse team is needed to provide diverse and personalised perspectives on these strategies. 

Many corporations are lacking representation in their workforce which leads to non-diverse and inclusive marketing campaigns. 13% of brands in a 2018 survey think that they can reach everyone with general efforts and 14% believe that purchase triggers for their brands are the same for everyone^[2]. This unawareness can lead to campaigns that don’t work and reduce the brand’s potential to reach more audiences. 
 

So, how do you achieve multicultural marketing?

• Have a diverse and multicultural marketing team

Speak your client’s language, and by this, it is not only literally but also culturally. To do this, you need to know how it is to be in their shoes. However, if the content is done by a team that has no one to contextualise the specific ethnicity or culture, it can be seen to have ulterior motives. 

So, make sure to have someone on your team who has knowledge and life experience to ensure your marketing campaign’s accuracy and relevance to a certain ethnic group.

• Research, observe and interview ethnic groups that aren’t in your team

We understand that sometimes you can’t find everyone from every ethnic group in this world. In this case, you can do market research on these groups. However, this is not always enough. So, make sure to perform research interviews to get first-hand knowledge for your campaign. The main goal here is to know your target audiences within your target market and develop as in-depth an understanding of them as possible. 

• Check, check, check, and check again!

As you may not know all the details and challenges these ethnic groups may have, make sure your campaign doesn’t contain sensitive content that could offend. Before launching it, run your creatives and strategies by some friends who represent the group that you’re targeting. See if they can find anything you may not. 

Bringing your brand to the world with Mo Works

Mo Works has a diverse multicultural team that speaks over 10 languages. Our team brings perspectives from different backgrounds and cultures to produce multicultural work. Complemented with a diverse high-quality range of projects we have done, our team is equipped with the skills, creativity, and passion to deliver your brand effectively to the world. 

Let’s work together!

Reference

1. Iterable. 2021. 6 Insights From Iterable’s 2021 Consumer Psychology Poll. https://iterable.com/blog/6-insights-from-iterables-2021-consumer-psychology-poll/
2. Clifford Chi. 2019. Multicultural Marketing: What It Is, Why You Should Do It, and How to Do It The Right Way. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/multicultural-marketing