Ethnic Marketing: Marketing to Your Own Culture
A few years ago I set out to become a world renown marketer. Well, that hasn’t happened yet, but what has happened is me learning about the power of marketing to my community. Marketing is like an umbrella with different tents that protect you from the rain. As I have began my journey of becoming a world class marketer…lol, I have begun to understand what marketing truly is and what it is not.
Many people start out their marketing efforts marketing to anyone and everyone they see fit. Most veteran marketers know that marketing to a specific niche or group of people gets you in the door. Black Marketers who seek to market to other communities, leave money on the table by not marketing to their own people, first. Ethnic Marketing is not a topic of discussion that goes on much in the black community, but it should be. We really need to understand this topic more than we do.
Is Marketing to Your Own Culture a Negative?
Black Marketers have been trained to look at marketing to their own culture as a negative thing. Urban Marketing is not taught in schools. The concept is there, but a lot black marketers refuse do it. So, while black marketers are running away from their culture, white corporations are running to yours and getting your money. White Corporations are marketing to black youth, black women, and black men in a unique way. They are providing the necessary goods and services that the black community needs and wants. Corporations spend millions, if not, billions of dollars trying to figure out how to market to the black community. Even though most of the time these corporations aren’t getting it right.
Which is one of the reasons, Diddy is in a heated battle with GM (General Motors), over its ad spend amount with black owned businesses.
Ethnic Marketing, is really niche specific marketing to a group of people, that look like you. In the black community, we have been trained to look outside our culture to market our products and services. Its a lot of money in the black community. We just don’t see it! Major corporations seek out black owned ad agencies to better understand our market, so they can tap into our dollars. Unfortunately, Black Marketers aren’t seeking out the necessary information to understand the black consumer and how tap into the black dollar, like the corporations do.
Ethnic Marketing has you looking at marketing to your own culture in a negative way.
The Self Hate In Your Marketing
A lot of the fear, in marketing to your own culture is inspired by years of self hate. Many black marketers don’t have a sense of culture or understand it for that matter. They don’t like what they see in the mirror. Ethnic Marketing is where the money is and will always be. You don’t see very many Chinese or Asians trying to market to black folks. But, they sure do take your money, in exchange for their goods or services. Other cultures have studied black folks well enough, to understand your likes, dislikes, your needs and wants. Hence, the reason they get your money in ways you haven’t even imagined.
Fear, rejection, and lack of support keeps pushing black marketers away from doing Ethnic Marketing. The black community is hard to please. As a result, many black marketers would rather do without the headache of servicing the black community. And just go market to the white community because its deemed much easier, and they pay without the hassle. The fact still remains, that we in the black community really don’t know how to market or service our own communities.
Conclusion
Its important that black marketers get in touch with their language, culture, and history to fully understand that you are the money. People want what you got even if they don’t say it out loud. Other cultures are marketing to your community everyday and making millions in the process. If you don’t fight back and start marketing to your own people, black people will continue to depend on other folks to provide them with their goods and services. At the end of the day, that is just death to a culture of people who could be solving their own problems, by marketing to their own people.
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