Grassroots approaches to reach the Hispanic audience: Nontraditional approaches to measure ROI

July 5, 2005
By Ana Rita González

While media relations continues to be a staple of the PR profession, other approaches are often required to effectively reach target audiences and generate the desired impact. This is especially true when the objectives of a program go beyond influencing perception to generating changes in behavior — driving the adoption of new products or services through an experiential approach.

Grassroots programs are powerful tools, allowing marketers to establish relationships with an audience where they live and play. In today’s cluttered media environment, they also allow a laser focus on target audiences by being intensely tailored to a demographic, cultural subset or community.

Relationships and personal connections are crucial to Hispanic populations. In many cases, community leaders and other local influencers serve as advocates and counselors who help newcomers become integrated not only into a neighborhood, but also into the cultural system of a city. Local communities often play the support role of an extended family, more so for Spanish-dominant populations who still preserve close ties to their countries of origin.

Given these factors, culturally sensitive and relevant grassroots approaches are effective when reaching out to the Hispanic community. Health-related companies and consumer services have achieved great success utilizing this model to cultivate relationships in the cultural and language context of their audience.

When Brita wanted to communicate the benefits of its water filters to Hispanic households, the company enlisted Hispanic “ambassadors” who believed in the need to provide a healthier drinking water option for their families, and who already drank bottled water since they distrusted the quality of tap water in their communities. Ambassadors were recruited to discuss the benefits of adopting Brita water filters for the health of their families. The program first launched in a test market and then, based on results, was rolled out to an additional l4 markets.

Pfizer’s commitment to improving communication between patients and their health care providers led to the creation of the Partnership for Clear Health Communication and its educational campaign, “Ask Me 3.” The campaign helped bridge the health literacy gap by offering simple guidelines in Spanish and English on how to start a conversation with a doctor to get a clear understanding of health concerns. In its first two years, the program has reached 900 organizations, and has distributed more than 700,000 free educational materials. The program reach is sustained in large part with a grassroots program that aligns organizations, doctors, hospitals and community leaders in the common goal of promoting more informed patient/doctor discussions.

The high usage of emergency room services by Hispanics at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami prompted the need to promote a more rational use of health services for local families. Taking advantage of the back-to-school season, a series of health-related educational materials were developed in Spanish and English, focusing on basic information and tips for parents on children’s safety, first-aid, nutrition, exercise and other health-related issues. These materials were easy to understand and act upon. They were distributed throughout the hospital as well as in Jackson’s community clinics, and also shared with all school principals in the county’s public elementary and middle school systems.

By ensuring that the Spanish language materials were not just straight translations from the English version but also culturally appropriate — emphasizing food choices and family activities relevant to Hispanic populations — the materials were enthusiastically embraced by the Spanish-language media and consumers. As a follow-up to this successful project, Jackson Memorial Hospital is now partnering with the Miami-Dade Park and Recreations Department to implement a summer program to promote health and safety in a fun environment for children, including Hispanics, in the county.

These are just three examples from a growing body of evidence that demonstrates grassroots programs can be incredibly powerful in conveying messages that cannot be fully represented in media stories. In many cases, however, these programs do require a strategic implementation supported by local and national media relations and other PR tactics, depending on the goals and audiences.

As PR professionals, we are trained to measure success. While circulation figures and other data are often used as a gauge for media relations programs, evaluation methods for grassroots programs require creative approaches that truly encapsulate their effectiveness.

When considering a grassroots program, these are some effective and easy-to-implement evaluation tools:

Surveys
A well-thought-out, short survey goes a long way in collecting data to determine how your message resonated with a particular group. These can be executed by phone or in-person. Depending on the timeliness of the results gathered, you might want to consider deploying street teams in high-traffic areas such as malls, community centers or parking lots. When conducting a series of seminars or town hall meetings, in-person surveys after each session are extremely effective in providing a quick assessment of message delivery and comprehension. Pre-surveys also provide effective benchmarks to measure impact of new campaigns or messages.

Distribution numbers
If collateral materials are created as part of your communications campaign, distribution numbers are well-accepted as a measure of message reach. For instance, if you developed a three-fold brochure and sent 500 copies to your local community center, then if the piece is properly distributed, you can assume each copy reached at least one individual. On the other hand if you place a poster on a community health bulletin board or a doctor’s office, by acquiring the average number of people who visit that location in a regular day, you can quickly estimate how many people viewed your message.

Community testimonials
When working with a group of community leaders, health educators, teachers or parents to reach community members, further engage them in the program by asking them to provide testimonials about their experience, or develop a synopsis of key insights captured from their interactions. You can record those quotes and incorporate them into your evaluation report. If working with social marketing or consumer education programs, it’s also acceptable to provide minor incentives to program participants that will aid in data collection and program continuation.

Focus groups
If your communications program is aimed at national audiences, conduct regional focus groups to ensure the validity and relevance of messages and strategies. If the campaign seeks to reach a Spanish language-dominant audience, you must conduct focus groups in Spanish too. This may increase costs from having to translate transcripts from such focus groups, but is well worth the cost to know that your messages and strategies resonate with that audience.

As the economic, political and cultural power of the Hispanic community continues to rise in the United States, savvy marketers will invest now in gaining the expertise they need to communicate with these audiences. Adding grassroots programs to the marketing and communications mix will yield impressive results and increase both credibility and access to this increasingly important target audience.

Ana Rita González is senior vice president and partner of FH Hispania/Fleishman-Hillard Miami &Latin America.

Source: PRSA's Public Relations Tactics