Reaching Latinos in a Digital Era

The advertising industry has come a long way from newspapers, magazines, flyers and mailers. With the entry of the internet era in the 90s, advertising initiatives expanded to web banners, click campaigns, and search engine results. The ability to reach consumers further advanced with cell phone and tablet technologies, enabling even easier access to social media, with mobile internet plus push notification marketing. Cellular devices, tablets and the web in general, have proven themselves as valuable venues for marketing. Many consumers now shop online more than visiting stores on foot, and online advertisements are strongly influencing this segment. But there are certain forms of shopping, such as in local bodegas, liquor or tobacco stores, that require face-to-face, up-close-and-personal store browsing. To reach Latino consumers where they shop in person, is a formidable challenge for advertisers.

Advertising has always been a powerful method for CPG manufacturers, business owners and providers to reach their ideal niche consumers. The Hispanic community are loyal readers of their traditional publications, and advertisers leverage newspapers and magazines to reach this particular niche. Print media was the best way to touch Latino consumers in their daily lives, and print marketing was for many years the most effective and cost effective, before technology upped the ante. For years the greatest advertising decisions faced by advertisers was how much money to allocate per column inch in newspapers. They relied upon subscription based (and other) statistics of readership to help determine advertising ROI.

Even billboards, which were previously traditionally static, have advanced to be electronic. Strategically positioned along major roads and highways, many billboards are now lit up and animated, some flashing varied advertisements. Billboard companies are pulling in revenue from multiple advertisers simultaneously, no longer limited to one static image for just one client.

Advertisers have even found unique ways to reach consumers on vacation. On a crowded beach in summertime, small planes can be seen flying overhead, toting banners behind them, and boats are floating along in the water, flashing advertisements.

In some hotels and shopping centers, ad screens can be seen flashing in the restrooms, above the toilets and sinks. Stores have, for a while already, been featuring ad screen TVs on walls, and that technology, too, now includes advanced customization abilities within an advertising network.

With technology rapidly advancing, advertisers are seeking out innovative, out-of-the-box ways to reach their market. And more recently, retail technology companies such as National Retail Solutions are joining the advertising arena with customer facing ad screens on the point of sale systems at the checkout counter. Reaching Hispanic consumers at the point of purchase during and out of transactions, these ad screens are promoting popular, traditional products, valuable community services and even in-store specials.

Today not only are advertisements mobile and digital, they are custom targeted based on searches and preferences. Advertisers are benefiting from artificial intelligence in assisting them with determining what preferences exist, based on previous history of purchases and searches.

With the help of technology, reaching the Latino community has become easier, more effective and less costly than in the past. As the U.S. continues to see growth in Latino populations, so too should advertisers increase their efforts to leverage technology to maintain valuable market share in these communities and benefit from increased revenue yield.

About Author

Elie Y. Katz
Founder, President & CEO • National Retail Solutions

National Retail Solutions (NRS) is a division of IDT (NYSE: IDT). NRS combines the reliability and loyalty of IDT and the Boss Revolution® customer base of over five million people, to provide a robust, powerful point of sale system and NRS PAY integrated credit card processing for independent retailers. With over 10,000 POS units deployed nationwide, NRS is quickly becoming the leading cash register ecosystem for grocery, convenience, liquor and tobacco stores.