Are PR efforts to Ethnic Communities worth it?

It seems the answer would be YES if you talk to Fred Sherman of Nexus Africa! In late November, I interviewed Fred, the host of Ottawa's newest radio show for the African-Canadian community. In his opinion, marketing and communicating to ethnic communities is becoming more important than ever. Tune into my podcast interview with him on the Magnifier.

If you do a preliminary search on the internet for the subject of "Public Relations to Ethnic Communities", there's a multitude of subjects that come up. In the United States, some press release distribution services now specialize in reaching them. BlackPR is one interesting example. Their's is a service that broadcasts your news release out to the African-America community throughout the United States. With what I believe is an estimated population of 8 million alone, reaching out with a specific and targeted message to this community is potentially powerful.

Toronto is now a city where 50% of the population was born in a country other than Canada. According to New California Media, 13 percent of the U.S. population now turns primarily to ethnic media. If you only pitch publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Time, you will leave out a huge chunk of your potential audience. More than ever, a complete media strategy requires reaching out to ethnic publications.

Many of Canada's political parties recognize this as well and will even appoint specialized PR professionals to reach out specifically to multi-cultural communities as well.

In a media relations campaign I did for the Canadian Ski Council, we took a very targeted approach in reaching out to ethnic media. Recognizing that many immigrant kids were not taking up winter sports like skiing and snowboarding, the Canadian Ski Council invited a group of underprivileged Toronto area kids out to the slopes for a school field trip. Focusing on Toronto's diverse media outlets, Action Strategies placed particular attention towards attracting those ethnic radio stations with an interest in sports with interesting results.

So in brief, to answer the question earlier of "whether PR efforts to Ethnic Communities matters", the answer is indeed YES!
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Mark Buzan is Principal and Chief Magnifier in Action Strategies, a full service Strategic Communications, Public Relations and Public Affairs Consultancy. Make sure to contact him for advice on reaching audiences you may or may not have yet considered in your marketing communications and PR campaigns. Drop him a line if you are looking for help in developing a public relations campaign. You can view his website at www.actionstrategies.ca.