If your growth plans includes tapping into the Latino market, you’re probably taking into some consideration how to implement your plans for a positive ROI. These can range from using internal staff, translating English campaigns to Spanish or hiring a subject matter expert or an agency. All these are viable options to look at. Regardless of what option you choose to go with, three tactics that you should consider carefully are:

Audience:

The Latino market is growing and changing. Now you have different segments with different cultural values going from traditional to non-traditional with shades of grey in between. Treating everyone equally will not resonate and capture their attention.

What can you do? Segment your audience by cultural orientation and focus on aspirational values to engage and develop messages. Remember that one message does not fit all.

Mobile:

“Hispanic consumers see mobile technology as critical to support their mobile lifestyle”- Price Water Coopers

Latinos are mobile mavens and are using smartphones to engage with brands on a deeper level. They are more socially connected with friends and family according to the latest report from univison.com. They are actively seeking out deals and making purchases – all day long on their smartphones. Look at some of the numbers from Google, Univision and eMarketer research:

• 81% of Hispanic mobile subscribers own a smartphone.
• 80% more likely than their non-Hispanic counterparts to actually purchase the products they see advertised on their mobile devices.
• 20% more likely to download and 18% more likely to video stream than non-Latinos.
• 68% of the respondents who search at least monthly do so on their mobile devices to find the information they need.
• 11+ hours each month watching digital video.
• 39% more time watching video on their smartphones each month vs. total population.

What can you do? Think mobile first, then create content that is engaging, easy to consume, and helps your audience move towards their aspiration and intentions. Remember that Latino generations differ on the digital channel purpose and how they are used.

Influence:

Latinos want to hear from people like them.

Culturally, Latinos are well connected in their personal lives on and offline with influential networks of friends and family. The power of word of mouth is an influence driver to their purchase decision.

According to Keller Fay Group, Hispanics are talking about 20 more brands per week than non-Hispanics. Further, Univision reports that 79% of online Latinos have a presence on social media sites and they share 5 times more often than non-Hispanics via social media. What is more interesting is that 35% of the content they share is more likely to be clicked on by others.

What can you do? Develop a communication program that sparks conversations on and offline with content that is sharable. This can involve working with influencers to share your content or create user generated content that supports your brand, implementing a twitter chat, Google hangout or on the ground event.

Whatever option you choose to implent to grow with the Latino market, start with understanding your audience, thinking mobile first, and  answering the following questions- What do you want others to say about your brand? What are you doing to promote conversation around your brand?