• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, February 25, 2014

California Governor Gerry Brown estimates in his annual state budget summary that Latinos will become the largest ethnic group in California by March 2014, making up 39% of the state's population. This growth makes it increasingly important for marketers to know how to reach these consumers, many of whom do not speak or read English. BIA/Kelsey released data Tuesday that provides some tips.

Hispanic consumers are more likely to use mobile applications compared with search engines. In fact, this demographic is 69% less likely to use search engines on tablets and 61% on smartphone for local shopping -- but seem to rely more on apps, at 17% and 9%, respectively, per research from BIA/Kelsey.

Marketers that reach out to Hispanic consumers should pay attention to the population numbers and the way Hispanics connect with brands. The BIA/Kelsey research released Tuesday suggests that 48.5% of Hispanic consumers use mobile devices for local shopping, compared with 32% of non-Hispanics. In fact, Hispanic consumers use 5.1 mobile apps on average for daily shopping, compared with 2.7 for non-Hispanic consumers.

Some 23.6% of Hispanic consumers reported that they use tablets for local shopping, compared with 15.5% of non-Hispanics.

Within a 25-mile radius from home, 56.2% of Hispanic consumers turn to TV spots for information on local shopping. Some 57.3% of non-Hispanic consumers rely most heavily on online search. Hispanic consumers also rely on recommendations and word of mouth from friends and family, at 47.6%, followed by online search, 47.1%; newspapers, 40.5%; and print coupons, 39.4%.

Hispanic consumers also tend to use Facebook more overall, but less when it comes to comparing the use with non-Hispanic consumers. For example, 60.9% of Hispanic consumers rely on Facebook vs. 67.2% of non-Hispanic consumers. YouTube follows with 17.7% and 10.3% for Hispanic vs. non-Hispanic, Yahoo with 16.8% vs. 16.4%, and Google+ with 11.9% vs. 10.8%, respectively.

"Woman in Car on Mobile phone" photo from Shutterstock.