Just ran across this story from Inc. The important point to me was the quote toward the bottom from Antonio Swad, an entrepreneur of Italian-Lebanese descent. Many years ago he opened a pizzeria in a neighborhood with a high proportion of Latino residents, and this is his perspective on using demographic knowledge to boost business:
People look at the growth of the Hispanic community in the U.S. and their eyes will glaze over when they see the disposable income numbers…[but] this is a community that you need to serve primarily and sell to secondarily.
How did Mr. Swad accomplish that with his pizzeria? You might actually remember one of his tactics, as I recall reading a story about it a few years ago. He began accepting pesos as payment, which spurred the expected outcries from xenophobes and isolationists (those are the nicest terms I could think of for these groups). And Mr. Swad’s enterprise now? An empire of nearly 100 restaurants in 6 states.
Filed under: entrepreneurship, Hispanic Society, Marketing Tagged: | hispanic demographics, market research
This a great piece of information. The American market has a hard time selling to us because we aren’t people that can be easily bought. We have to know you to buy from you. Great post thank you!