Overview

When most companies think about international expansion, they almost always think this has to be done abroad. But, did you know that a whopping 35% of the UK population were born abroad?

And by creating creative marketing strategies targeted at minority groups within your own country, you could simultaneously improve your brand loyalty and increase sales. Well, that’s where ethnic marketing comes in!

What is Ethnic Marketing?

Ethnic marketing, also known as multicultural marketing, involves creating marketing campaigns targeting specific foreign nationals or ethnic groups living in your home country. Using Ireland as an example, this could be creating separate campaigns for the general Irish population and having one focusing on copy written in Portuguese with content designed to resonate with Brazilian values. Or creating a special campaign for Muslims celebrating Ramadan.

How is ethnic marketing different from international marketing?

International marketing targets people abroad, within their native country, e.g., an English company running iSEO campaigns. Whereas ethnic marketing markets to people within your borders, e.g., running a campaign targeting Poles living in the UK.

Why is it important?

We get it; dealing with international marketing is hard enough.

Why would you want to try ethnic marketing? Well, the statistics speak for themselves. 86% of all localized campaigns outperform their counterparts in conversion rates and CTR (click-through rate = the number of people clicking on ads).

As a marketing manager, ethnic marketing is also an excellent way of getting those all-important results that’ll see your career flourish. Plus, as ethnic marketing isn’t all that well-known, you’ll definitely get brownie points for thinking outside the box!

But as an SEO or marketing agency, why is it important to you?

Well, you’re here to get impressive results for your clients.

And if you can find creative ways to do this, they will love you forever! Marketing managers are generally not well-versed in international and ethnic marketing, so it’s a fantastic way to add value. You might wonder, “but I’m an SEO who only speaks English. How am I meant to do that?” but don’t worry.

Companies like Argos are here to help you do just that, as international and cultural expertise are our bread and butter, so don’t be afraid to lean on us.

How is Ethnic Marketing actually done?

There’s no better way to dive straight in than with a practical example. So, to do this, let’s look at how you’d target Poles living in the UK. There are 696,000 Polish people living in the UK in 2022, so that’s a substantial number of people to target. Plus, Polish is spoken by 55 million people worldwide and is the second most spoken language in the UK, so that’s a lot of purchase power.

Messaging

Before you start, you need to do cultural research to ensure what you’re writing will resonate with your target audience. A suitable place to start with this is Hofstede’s cultural dimension theory.

Hofstede was a sociologist who created a way of measuring the culture and collective characteristics of people from different countries.

Source: Hofstede Insights

Power Distance

Power distance refers to the fact that societies are not all equal and measures how accepting individuals are of hierarchies and the fact that power is distributed unequally.

As Poland scores 68, that means Poland is a hierarchical society and accepts that everyone has their place without the need for justification. This means that in the workplace, for example, employees are expected to respect their bosses, so going out with a campaign encouraging people to stand up against those in power won’t go down very well.

Individualism

Individualism is whether a society is more “I” or “We” focused. Individualist societies only look after themselves and their family, but collective societies belong to “in groups”.

Poland scores 60, which means they’re an individualist society. This means that Poles tend to look after themselves and their families, and promotions at work should be merit-based, for example. So, marketing collective benefits for mobile phones vs. individual benefits won’t work very well on Poles.

Masculinity

A high masculinity score shows that a society will be driven by competition, achievement, and success, defined by being the winner/best-in-field.

As Poland scores 64, it’s a masculine society, so it’s better to do campaigns about success rather than using happiness as a success metric, for example.

Uncertainty Avoidance

This metric is self-explanatory and describes how societies deal with uncertainty.

As Poland scores 93, they have a strong dislike of uncertain situations. So, marketing a risky product to Poles, like risky investments, isn’t going to be successful.

Long-Term Orientation

Long-term orientation describes whether people from a particular country think more ‘here-and-now’ or look toward the long-term. Normative societies (with a low score) prefer traditions and social norms over long-term innovation.

Poland’s score is 38 here, which means they’re very traditional. So, having campaigns that focus on traditions will be immensely popular.

Indulgence

High scores of indulgence show that people are less able to control their desires and impulses, while lower scores show a culture that is more restrained.

Poland is classed as a restrained society with a score of 29, which means Poles are more prone to being pessimistic than other higher-scoring nations. They believe they have to follow social norms, and it’s bad to be overindulgent, so selling luxury brands to the average Pole isn’t going to prove as successful as it might elsewhere.

So, as you can see, a lot goes into cultural messaging. But to succeed, you need to understand how people think, what motivates them, and what messaging you need to create for people to buy.

Additional considerations

Religious holidays

We understand that people tend to avoid discussing politics or religion in business, but embracing religious holidays can significantly increase brand loyalty and sales. People love feeling seen, so selling cheesecake for Shavuot or candles for Hannukah could make your Jewish customers feel special. And for poles, you have Tłusty czwartek – Fat Thursday, for example.

This is the last Thursday before Lent, and Poles traditionally eat donuts. So, if you work for Tesco, you could have some cool posters and social media posts, which’ll definitely attract the attention of your Polish customers.

Traditions

Just like religious holidays, traditions vary vastly from place to place. Using the UK and Ireland as an example, we’re both neighbours and speak the same language, but our traditions and national holidays are completely different. You have St Patrick’s Day vs. St George’s Day, St. Stephen’s Day vs. Boxing Day, and plenty of other examples. This is why when doing ethnic marketing, you can look at what types of holidays and traditions exist for a particular group, and create campaigns around that, e.g., selling super soakers for Wet Monday!

Channels

Another thing to note is that channels vary by country, which is also true for ethnic marketing. Chinese people living abroad still use WeChat. And if you’re targeting Poles living abroad, you need to check which social media platforms are favoured to learn which channels people will use to keep in touch with friends and family back home.

Final thoughts…

It’s a shame no one has really tapped into the potential of ethnic marketing because multicultural spending power is upwards of 2.4 trillion dollars in the US, which is massive! So, think outside the box, give it a go, and we’re sure your metrics will show you just how much potential ethnic marketing truly has.