B2B Marketing for a Multicultural Audience
B2B marketers often take a one-size-fits-all approach when targeting small business decision makers. Their target audience is often portrayed via broad archetypes that are not representative of the real audiences they are. This is impacting the effectiveness of B2B marketing: Business decision makers say that over 80% of the B2B marketing they see is bland and generic.
Today, business is more diverse than ever before. More than 50% of new small businesses in the U.S. are started by under-represented groups; in 2019, for the first time ever, the majority of working-age new hires were people of color. On top of that, multicultural business decision makers have power over billions of dollars in B2B spending.
Below are six strategies B2B marketers can implement to better connect with B2B decision makers.
Be Inclusive: Multicultural SMB marketing doesn’t mean the work is only shown to specific, isolated segments. When insights are shared across cultural groups, you can create larger SMB campaigns infusing shared multicultural insights. When the insights are shared with the whole audience the communication can be representative through diversity and inclusion.
Be Aware and Sensitive: Multicultural awareness and sensitivities are increasing at a rapid pace. Rely on a Multicultural committee with multiple and informed points of view during the creation of the campaign so your brand doesn’t miss the mark.
Show Tangible Solutions: One of the main disadvantages minority business owners face is financial access, but they also over-index in technology. When designing offers or promotions with incentives, think about what is most relevant for your audience.
Leverage Context: Multicultural business owners and consumers share the same cultural signals. When creating a campaign or strategy research consider the B2B and B2C multicultural landscape, so your brand can own an untapped area.
Show up Locally: Most minority small business owners donate to local nonprofits, becoming key pillars of the community. Join forces with your divisional sales department and partner with Multicultural Business Associations. Work with local businesses to integrate your brand in the neighborhood.
Tailor to Industries: Since 80% of businesses say that comms tailored to their industry are more effective, you should customize your efforts based on which multicultural groups over-index in each industry. Focus on how your solutions work within that industry while showing diverse multicultural representation in the delivery.
As you can see there are multiple ways to approach multicultural businesses. Each brand, based on the industry, territory, and maturity needs to assess the biggest opportunities but can take a crawl, walk, run approach with the strategies above. Start with the first few and continue implementing the rest while your brand becomes more inclusive and relevant to these audiences.
Ibon Iraola is senior creative strategist at Digitas USA
