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April 20, 2003 at 08:00 PM
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Marketing insurance and financial services to the Chinese market is really rooted in common sense.
Marketing is all about knowing your customers–whats important to them and how your company can help. The ability to target the Chinese community stems from understanding who they are, whats important to them and how you can tailor your services.
Asian-Americans are the third-largest minority group in the United States. Between 1990 and 2000, the Asian-American population grew by 72%, while the total U.S. population grew by 13%.
Asian-Americans also have higher incomes than other demographics. Twenty-two percent of Asian-American households earn $100,000 or more annually.
Unlike some other minority segments, however, the Asian-American community as a whole does not share the same experiences or language, so trying to create a message for the entire Asian community wont resonate.
Besides a customers background–Chinese, Korean or Filipino, for example–its also important to consider the age or generation of the client.
In the Asian-American community, there are first generation and 1.5.
Whether a first generation Chinese-American has been in the country for a long or short period of time, they still prefer to be communicated to in their own language.
I have been living in the United States for a long time, but I still use the Chinese Yellow Pages and read the Chinese newspaper. I prefer to be targeted in Chinese.
The 1.5 generation is somewhat more acculturated. They prefer to get their information in English, which is one of the reasons many Asian affinity portals are actually in English.
Other considerations that need to be made are for language differences. Although all of China has the same written language, there are many Chinese dialects. So, it is very important to use the right tone depending on what your customers demographics are.
