Companies rein in marketing spending during a sinking economy, many advertisers are likely to step up efforts to reach minorities online in the coming months, researchers say.

While budgets are getting set for the new fiscal year. Companies are taking notice and planning thier efforts towards the "Hispanic Internet Market" "African American Internet Market" and the "Asian American Online Market" Many marketers are preparing campaigns to target these markets online.

Current multicultural online marketers that target minority groups, 95%  to Latin Americans, 76% African Americans, and 38% target the Asian markets, according to a survey released in November by the trade group Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and marketing agency Mkgt. That's up from 86%, 60%, and 35%, respectively, in 2003, according to the research.

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 70% of African Americans are now online, making them the fastest-growing population of Internet users since 2003, when only a little more than half were online. Hispanics are second-fastest-growing and now boast a 79% penetration rate—higher than any other group. By comparison, three-fourths of non-Hispanic whites are online, up from 64% three years ago.

"Multicultural Online Marketing" - To be effective, advertisers can't just translate their mass market campaigns into other languages. One must understand their cultures and traditions.

Example: Microsoft Windows Vista, the company noticed that Hispanics respond well to parental control features, so it finetuned their online display ads to leverage those features for Hispanic audiences.