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Marketing Know-How Hispanic Marketing Do's and Don'ts Population statistics notwithstanding, there is a definitive way to gauge the growth of the Hispanic demographic in the United States. "The number-one selling condiment in this country is salsa, not ketchup," says Dennis Borst, president and COO of Patriot Marketing Group (asi/291551), who does plenty of business with Hispanic TV and radio stations in Los Angeles. "In L.A. proper, Hispanics are the majority, and therefore Hispanic local TV and radio are all the top-rated shows in L.A. There are 90 radio stations in L.A., and if you look at the ratings book, the top four to five are all Hispanic." Los Angeles is a microcosm of the entire United States. Nationally, Hispanics have surpassed African Americans as the largest minority group in the country. Today, 15% of Americans are Hispanic, including 20% of children. America's Hispanic population is projected to exceed 50 million by 2020, and its buying power stands at $700 billion today with projections reaching $1 trillion by 2010. "They have a lot of money – more money than the entire country of Mexico, one of the ten largest economies in the world," says Dr. Felipe Korzenny, professor and director of the Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication at Florida State University. "Hispanics are not a demographic; they constitute a culture. They are a unique intersection of Spanish heritage due to the dominance of Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America by Spain for over 400 years, plus the very influential Catholic religion, and most obviously, the Spanish language." Here are some do's and don'ts for capitalizing on this lucrative market: *Keep family in mind. Juan Guillermo Tornoe, a Hispanic marketing expert and blogger, has seen plenty of marketing mistakes in his day. In 2004, a beer maker launched a billboard campaign in the southwestern U.S. that featured its newest brew. The tagline read, 'Finally, a cold Latina.' Many local Hispanics were outraged. "That is very offensive for the son or brother of a Latino woman," Tornoe says. "They were insinuating that Latinas were hot or sleazy. If you're talking about my mom or my wife or my daughter, I'd be extremely ticked off at the campaign. Be very sensitive of what you do." Indeed, family is crucial to Hispanics, and the perception that a family member has been disrespected can be devastating to a marketing campaign. "People don't understand the closeness and the respect they all have for their parents and grandparents. It's very important," says Dennis Borst, president and COO of Patriot Marketing Group. *Understand cultural nuances. Dr. Felipe Korzenny, professor and director of the Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication at Florida State University, says that many American-based companies have had difficulties understanding the Hispanic market. "One typical example of a misguided approach was the Best Buy campaign in which the father was used to represent tradition and fear of technology in the household," he says. "The ad agency failed pretty badly here in their understanding of the culture. While the parents may be traditional, you don't make them lose face in front of their kids, because the culture respects elders fundamentally."

Product Spotlight   Free Webcasts Supplier Webcast: How to Have a Successful Trade Show Click here to view. Distributor Webcast: September - Supercharge 4th Quarter Sales Boost your holiday and 4th quarter sales with the hottest new products, styles and trends. Get holiday gift ideas, tips for selling awards and strategies for designing the most creative sales incentives for 2009. Click here to register. Distributor Webcast: October - How to Sell Clients on a Price Increase Don't let rising prices affect your sales or your profits! Learn how to proactively communicate price increases with clients and ultimately sell more and make more! Click here to register. Distributor Webcast: November - Prove to Your Clients That Promotional Products Work! Preview the results of ASI's revealing new study on the effectiveness of promo products. Learn how to use this information to acquire more clients and sell more promotional products to existing clients. Click here to register. Distributor Webcast: December - Become a Master at Selling Apparel Programs Get a sneak peek at hottest wearables and fashion trends for 2009. Catch this preview and get selling tips for the latest looks and hot new imprinting techniques that will convince your clients you're the "hippest, hottest" distributor around! Click here to register.   Free E-Newsletters Counselor® PromoGram® Advantages™ Hot Deals Wearables Style Successful Promotions® Trend Report™ Stitches Small Business™ Embroidery Business Insights™ Uniforms Trends Report™   Industry Magazines Counselor® Advantages™ Successful Promotions Stitches Wearables Uniforms

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*The one-size approach doesn't work. Mark Ziskind, COO of Caliendo Savio Enterprises (asi/155807), understands that when it comes to marketing to an ethnic minority group, one size does not fit all. "The growth in America is primarily Mexican, but there's also the Cuban and Puerto Rican," Ziskind says. "They have distinctly different levels of pride in their homeland."

"One big point here is to understand who they are vs. where they came from or what color they are," he says. "Good multicultural marketing is almost colorless."

*Spanish or English? Mike Juels, founder and president of Juels' Corporate Images Inc., says that companies seeking to market their products in Spanish must do their homework. "The potential for language or translation problems is a major difference in the Hispanic market," he says. "In many cases, direct translations of words from English to Spanish yield a totally different reference."

Besides, advertising in Spanish may not be as essential as one might think, as many first-generation Hispanics may not even speak it. "Language is important, especially for immigrants who feel more comfortable speaking in Spanish, but culture is most important," Tornoe says. "This generation of Latinos looks Latino and has a name that's Latino, but if you talk to them in Spanish, they may not understand you. But that doesn't mean they don't have many things deeply rooted in their hearts and minds that are very Latino."

For other ways to pump up sales this fall, sign up for a FREE Counselor Webcast, "Supercharge 4th Quarter Sales," on September 11 at 2:00 p.m. EST. Click here to register.

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Keys to Success

Six Ways to Maintain Profit Margins

The gears of the economy are struggling to grind forward. Transportation, oil and shipping costs are reaching all-time highs. Businesses are cutting costs and personnel in anticipation of a difficult year. And in the ad specialty industry, suppliers are being forced to raise prices as costs on all goods from Chinese factories are increasing rapidly.

At a time like this, ad specialty distributors may be tempted to make concessions when it comes to their profit margins. "A year ago, I'd be speaking from the perspective of disinflation. Now, salespeople are selling in a period of economic instability and price increases," says Jo-an Lantz, executive vice president at Counselor Top 40 distributor Geiger (asi/202900). "So, what worked at increasing margins a year ago may or may not necessarily be as effective today, because we are now in a new market, a new economic climate."

Just because the waters are getting rough doesn't mean that distributors will be required to sell themselves short. Here are six tips to maintain solid profit margins – and increase poor ones – in uncertain times.

Tip #1 – Attitude is Everything
Barry Hults is the founder and director of The School for Professional Marketing in Markham, Ontario, a firm that specializes in coaching distributor owners on techniques for increasing their gross profit margins without losing clients. Hults once turned a small distributorship into a $10 million entity with an average profit margin of 39.8%. Now, he helps distributorships who are mired in the 25% range raise their margins to the 38% to 40% level – and shows them how to maintain that margin regardless of the economic cycle.

Hults says his number-one ingredient for turning profit margins around has everything to do with a positive attitude and an aura of self-confidence. "It's not an issue of numbers," he says. "It's an issue of value and how you perceive value, and how you can communicate that value to your customers," he says. "The successful salesperson comes in and looks successful and confident, and presents himself in a different way than the guy who has a low opinion of himself."

Valuing your own product is vital to your clients' perception of that value, according to Hults. "It's a psychological issue. When people don't value their own work in their own minds, it's harder to establish a positive mindset in their customer's minds," he says.

Tip #2 – Develop In-Depth Relationships
Chris Vernon, president of The Vernon Company (asi/351700), a Counselor Top 40 distributor, pinpoints one aspect of dealing with clients that is a common predictor of whether a salesperson will sell at high margins: relationships.

"The most important aspect of selling at high profit margins is not waiting for a customer's call and being just an order taker," he says. "A top sales professional must develop a close working relationship with her clients and bring significant value and solutions to the customer's marketing challenges. In our experience, our top account executives study and keep close tabs on our client's business strategies and provide solutions and ideas to help them grow market share and improve their bottom line."

That's why it's important to find account executives who are willing to do their homework and put in the extra hours, according to Vernon. Account executives that generate the highest margins aren't afraid to put extra work into a project because they know it will command a deservedly higher margin.

Tip #3 – Cheaper Isn't Better
According to Hults, far too many of the distributorships he coaches believe that they have to sell cheap to get their foot in the door. Not only does this send a signal to clients that your product isn't top quality, but Hults says it's difficult to get out of the low-price pit once you start there. "If your culture is to sell cheap, you have to change that culture, and that means changing your salespeople," Hults says. "Once you get beyond that, the steps are fairly simple."

Lantz says the easiest way to be confident about your product is to buy from only the best. "People who have the highest margins are working with the very best suppliers, not necessarily the least expensive product there is," she says. "That goes with self-confidence and selling your services. There's no connection between lowest price and high margins."

Tip #4 – Ditch Unprofitable Clients
Most end-users are willing to pay more as long as the products and service are top-notch. Unfortunately, like some distributors, there will always be clients that think cheap is always the way to go. To maximize profit margins, those clients should be fired as quickly as possible. "If a sales rep is truly committed to selling at higher margins, they have to be willing to walk away from low margin sales, resist the temptation to sell themselves short," says Fred Albrecht, co-owner of Proforma Albrecht & Co. (asi/116308).

Vernon agrees. "There are many fish in the sea. There is no compelling reason to work with people who don't appreciate what you put into your presentations, your creativity and your superior level of service," he says.

Working with new customers allows distributors who are mired in the 25% range to start anew, Hults says. "Think about margins with the customers you have now and the customers you're going to gain starting tomorrow," he says. "It's fairly easy to set the price with new customers. It's a clean slate and then it becomes a habit.

Tip #5 – Custom Items are a Winner. Getting in on a custom project for a client can certainly help to increase profits. "When you see custom, bundled products, programs that have literature, and interactive Web sites, you see higher margins," says Lantz.

"We've found the best margins are found on unique custom designed products that don't provide easy comparison shopping," says Vernon. "Over the years, we have developed hundreds of Vernon exclusive products and services for our clients that aren't easily found in the industry, so this allows our account executives some better margin opportunities."

Tip #6 – Sell to Mid-sized Businesses. "There is a relationship in size of business," Lantz says. "Highest margins seem to be in that sweet spot of business size where the businesses are over 1,000 people but not necessarily employing 10,000 people. With businesses that have 1,000 to 2,000 employees, it suggests there's a relationship between margins. That suggests a consultative approach rather than a transactional approach."

Want to learn more? Register for a FREE Counselor magazine Webcast, "How to Sell Clients on a Price Increase," on October 21 at 2:00 p.m. EST. Click here to register.

Wearables University

Fall Fabrics Defined

As the weather turns toward cooler temperatures, you need a clear understanding of the fabrics that keep promotional apparel recipients warm and cozy.

What key terms should you watch for when shopping for warmth? Look for garments with insulation, which serves as a type of barrier and indicates a fabric will protect the wearer from the loss of warmth or the penetration of cold. Also, garments designated as heavyweight are a good bet. Heavyweight fabrics are thicker and warmer, and frequently brushed on the inside for added comfort and warmth.

Performance fabrics may also offer protection from cold-weather blues. Look for materials that have been engineered for thermo-regulation and/or have wind- and water-resistant features.

Some specific fabric types defined at FabricLink.com that will serve wearers well when the weather gets frigid include:

• Corduroy is usually made of cotton, utilizing a cut-pile weave construction. Extra sets of filling yarns are woven into the fabric to form ridges of yarn on the surface.
• Donegal tweed is a medium to heavy, plain or twill weave fabric in which colorful yarn slubs (knotty lumps for effect) are woven into the fabric. It's frequently used for winter coats and suits.
• Down is a soft, fluffy fiber from the under-feathers of ducks, geese or other water fowl. Used primarily for insulation in outerwear garments, it offers the best warmth-to-weight ratio.
• Flannel is a medium-weight, plain or twill weave fabric typically made from cotton, a cotton blend or wool. The fabric has a very soft hand, with a soft, fuzzy surface of brushed fibers. End uses include shirts and pajamas.
• Fleece is a soft fabric with a nap or pile, either of woven or knit construction. End uses include coats, jackets and blankets.
• Melton is a heavyweight, dense, compacted and tightly woven wool or wool-blend fabric used mainly for coats or jackets.
• Merino is a type of wool that originates from pure-bred Merino sheep. The best Merino wool comes from Italy.
• Mohair hair fibers come from the Angora goat. End uses include sweaters, coats, suits and scarves.
  

If you're hungering for more apparel education, check out Counselor magazine's FREE Webcast, "Become a Master at Selling Apparel Programs," on December 9 at 2:00 p.m. EST. Click here to register.

In addition, to see the latest in promotional fashion, go to asicentral.com to watch "Fashion Finds," a selection of educational videos featuring Wearables Editor Nicole Rollender.

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