Ethnicity Marketing
By Brian Berg

Want to reach non-assimilated Spanish speaking households?  Many sources tout accuracy… here’s the whole enchilada.

Ethnicity Data
Not all mailing lists targeting ethnicity are the same.  Some mailing list sources attempt to predict the ethnicity of a household or its primary language solely on the spelling of the last name.  With today’s technology, we can do better.

Accuracy
Accuracy is a function of demand.  As demand for ethnicity data grows, our ability to reach our target market also grows.  Though many providers of modeled data tout the best, we can safely boast a 95% accuracy rate with our records.  We can do this because the process by which this data is captured is partially verified via telemarketing, the results are measured and the model is adjusted.  Another statistically valid sample is then telephone verified.  This is done over and over with minor adjustments to the model as our accuracy becomes consistent.

Multi-Dimensional Database
Our unique multi-dimensional research guarantees you the most accurate targeting system available from any source.  This is most beneficial when working with the Originators and Developers of Ethnic, Religious and Language Identification.

Comprehensiveness
We address the entire problem of proper ethnic identification by going to great lengths to identify all ethnic groups, not just the groups where there is a clear current marketing interest.  In doing so, we avoid mixing one ethnicity with another.  For instance, many approaches offer Asian categories such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese.  But how can these offerings assure you that names that properly belong in other ethnic groups are not mixed in with the major groups they do offer?  An example of this might well be Myanmar (Burmese) mixed in with Chinese.  Names such as Ma Ne Tun, Ba Thaung, or Maung Khaing are Burmese names, not Chinese.  They do not speak or think in Chinese, and are probably not receptive to offerings geared specifically to Chinese people.  For names that are common to 2 or more ethnic groups the method we use is to look at the middle names to be used as a tie breaker.  An example of this would be Peter Yu, he could be either Korean or Chinese and there the middle name comes into play.  Peter Mei Yu would be coded as Chinese and Peter Hak Yu as Korean.  John Smith could be English or African American depending on geographic location but John Big Eagle Smith, from his middle name would be coded as Native American regardless of his geographic location.  Middle names are also used to define different religions within a group, for example Sikh or Hindu.  Other examples include "Russian", where competitive approaches seem to have lumped all "Soviets" together under that term, "Yugoslavian", where one might well find Croats Serbs, Slovenes, and a number of other ethnicities, "Czechoslovakian" where Czechs, Slovaks, and a smattering of Magyar, Polish, Estonian, and other groups might be found, and most specifically, "African American", a specialty deserving its own explanation as an advantage.


Hispanic Country of Origin
By incorporating name research and geographic locators we can determine Hispanic Country of Origin from twenty-one countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Spain, Uruguay and Venezuela.

African-American
First, a clarification of terminology.  There are African- Americans and other people of African descent residing in the United States, including Ibo, Hausa, Zulu, Xhosa, and many other ethnic groups.  We use the term "African American" for convenience, but would work as well with an international list as an "African" list.  Traditionally, marketers had to rely upon direct response lists such as subscribers to publications geared to African-American audiences or upon encoding systems which could identify English, Scotch, French, Irish, Welch, and Dutch surnames that resided in traditionally non-white neighborhoods.  So you had your choice of either pretty good quality without quantity, or a little more quantity without as much quality.  Large numbers of African-Americans could not be reached as either they were not subscribers or they could not be identified using the surname approach.  We offer higher quality and vastly improved quantity.  By using first names uniquely given to African-Americans, being able to identify African first and last names, including analysis of Islamic first names used in conjunction with borrowed surnames or African surnames, we are able to identify African-Americans no matter where they live with an accuracy rivaling direct response lists.

Open Ended
Because we utilize an expert system approach to name analysis, even if the names on a list are hyphenated, slightly misspelled, or is brand new to this country, there is a good chance we will correctly identify it.  For help in your next direct marketing campaign, call us today or click here for an immediate response to any of your questions.