Marketing to the African-American Community

Marketing insights

If you want to work with African-Americans, don't assume that every traditional marketing method works. Allyson Bailey-Leonard, a financial professional with the Greater Texas Agency of the Prudential Insurance Company of America, estimates that half her clients are older African Americans. She cautions that cold-calling prospects is "definitely is not the way to go—I haven't found any success in cold calling."

Instead, she says, earning prospects' trust is a critical first step. Bailey-Leonard builds that trust in several ways. One is though speaking engagements in organizations, such as churches or the Urban League, in which her target market is active. Her participation with those organizations makes a favorable impression and creates opportunities to meet prospects. For example, she says, if you are in nonprofit or social organizations and speak to those groups, prospective clients are more likely to start a conversation that doubles as an interview with you.

Small business forums are also valuable marketing environments, says Bailey-Leonard. She points out that African-Americans tend to be entrepreneurial and many want to start their own businesses. "A lot of my speaking engagements have been centered around entrepreneurial activities or how to get a small business started: business continuation, strategies, how to keep that business going," she says.

LeCount R. Davis, CFP, a financial advisor with an eponymous firm in Potomac, Md., estimates that 60 percent to 70 percent of his clients are older African-Americans. Many of his new clients come from existing clients' referrals, but like Bailey-Leonard, he's active in community organizations.

"I do believe in seminars and clinics but still, when it comes to the faith-based organizations, I do quite a bit of financial literacy seminars and clinics. From there I've been able to get new clients far quicker than I thought I would be able to do it."    -LeCount R. Davis, CFP

Davis also avoids cold calling. "We don't do any cold calling at all because African-Americans usually do not respond to cold calling as much as you may think they do because they're suspicious of it," he says. "And with the media exposing some of the problems with people taking advantage of the elderly, the elderly get more suspicious of it because they've got to guard against it."

Another option that Davis suggests: Firms should consider hiring African-Americans to bolster their marketing efforts to that market. "I think this is true in all ethnic groups that we tend to be clannish," he says. "We usually deal with people whom we can relate to directly because our problems are usually unique and different. You've got to understand the person first and when you're dealing with financial planning and the production of income from any services, you're dealing with people first before you deal with the product."