Marketing to Hispanics – using the right words
Posted by Elena del Valle on May 19, 2006
By Juan Manuel Colome, founder and president, Infoseek Technologies Inc.
Juan Manuel Colome, founder and president, Infoseek Technologies Inc.
Photo: Infoseek Technologies Inc.
Hispanics are one of the fastest growing segments of the U.S. population and they are open to direct marketing offers. This year, there are 43 million Hispanics in the U.S. and nearly 4 million in Puerto Rico. But you have to talk to them with the right words. The Hispanic market has been riding the headlines for the past couple of years as one of the fastest growing sectors of marketing.
According to the third annual AOL/Roper U.S. Hispanic Cyberstudy, Hispanics are entering cyberspace at rapid pace with over 14 million US Hispanics online. Yet the companies successfully targeting them online in the direct response arena are few and far between.
Why is it that something which seems like such low hanging fruit is so difficult to make successful?
There are too many misconceptions about targeting Hispanics to mention, such as the thinking that translation is the key. I know many online marketers who have hired a translator to rewrite their email creative or landing page in Spanish and then waited for the leads to come rolling in. Translation doesn’t mean your campaign is going to work fabulously for every Hispanic on the planet.
The first thing you need to do is figure out which type of Hispanic you are selling to. If you chose U.S. Hispanics, you need to figure out which language they speak, such as Spanish speaking, English speaking or bilingual. For instance, your web site campaign for a diet patch may work great on Maria who is a 27 year old bilingual professional U.S. Hispanic woman, but it will completely be ignored by her Spanish-only speaking grandmother who emigrated from Mexico in 1937. Likewise, if you translate that diet patch creative into Spanish only, Maria, who tends to frequent English language websites, will never see your campaign.
If you do choose to work with Spanish speakers in the U.S., you have to make sure you use the right words. There are many words that may be fine for a Mexican but highly offensive to a Puerto Rican. The same would apply to English, where you can feature losing pounds to Americans in a diet patch, but a pound also signifies money to someone in the U.K. You don’t necessarily need to focus on dialects, as that would be too confusing, but there are many words that are still highly effective while being all encompassing.
Your creative should also match your target
All Hispanics know what other Hispanics look like, and they will not be easily fooled by an ad featuring any brunette. They have to identify with the model. You can still use a generic one-for-all model; just make sure she looks like the people you are selling her to. The same goes with other elements of the creative. You can make an emotional connection with the colors you use such as warm and vibrant colors from the Caribbean or the Americas, but only if it suits the concept.
Fulfillment in the right language is a must.
Back to our diet patch example, if your diet patch offer is not a part of a bigger outfit that includes a Spanish and English website as well as complementary brochures and a bilingual help desk, then failure is evident. Once you acquire those highly sought after customers, how are you going to keep them and how are you going to prevent a negative experience from dealing with a non Spanish speaking customer service department or receiving brochures in English?
Continuous communication must be in the preferred language
If someone came to your site via a Spanish language creative and they sign up for your newsletter, either give them the option to choose their preferred language or send it to them in the language that first brought them to you. After spending marketing dollars acquiring your leads and converting customers, don’t lose them because of badly executed retention measures.
The Hispanic market is ripe for the online marketing industry to target with success. That said, there needs to be proper planning to make sure that you know who you are selling to, how to sell it and how to support it. By planning your strategy well before executing your campaigns, you will be several steps ahead of your competitors who simply translate a website and expect the leads to start rolling in.
Juan Manuel Colome is founder and president of Infoseek Technologies Inc, an E-Commerce software development company based in Miami Florida. Infoseek Technologies develops and markets Turn-Key E-Commerce software that owners can manage and change from any computer with Internet connection. For more information online, visit InfoSeekTechnologies.com
Good job,
You have to choose your translators very carefully… For advertising purposes, they must have a creative and marketing background and experience. Susie Lopez who translates business letters, has only been exposed to one or two countries in her life, may not cut it.
Regards
Martha
I agree with Martha, also I’ve to select graeat translators for better advertising
thanks
How about everyone living in the US learning to speak the offical language which is English! That way we will not have to worry about chosing the correct translator and having a spanish customer service department. I wonder if Cuba, Venezuela, Mexico have press 2 for english at any of their customer service departments? I don’t think so.
lear to speak the language if you want to live in the USA and do business in the USA.
Regarding comment #3, I am a female Hispanic, first generation, hold a doctorate, I am a professional and, evidently, can read, write and speak English perfectly (without an accent!). However, I choose to live in “Spanish” through professional and social groups. Evidentemente, vivir en los Estados Unidos no significa tener que perder las raices. Uno construye su propia identidad, a traves de las decisiones personales que uno hace. Yo prefiero vivir dentro de mi gente y mi cultura, even though I am totally integrated both linguistically and culturally to the U.S. Market research that takes people like me into consideration is greatly appreciated. Translators of culture as well as language are travelers between sometimes vastly different mentalities!
Re. # 3 Comment: Enahorabuena Dr Teresa. Usted compra en Espanol and Eglish as well. Yo soy Ungaro i vivo en mi lengua culturalmente, sin embargo I buy in English living in Phoenix, Az 25 years already. My product explained briefly in Spanish y en 10 mas lenguas (ImmuneSentry.com). Puede usted explicar me, porque Hispanos order in English, although the Spanish text no explica how to order. Ezt mindeg furcsanak talatam, csak hogy magyarul is reagaljak. Perhaps, we are better off with English in commerce, pero en nuestro cultura, comunicando en nustro lengua, may leave us attached to our culture. By the way, 6 years old Norvegians learn 4 languages in school and shop in English only. Que tal le gusta usted? A Hungarian doctor.
It is mind boggling how languages cross all cultures; yet we are clearly understood but confuse those who are reading it. USA is a blending pot no longer a melting pot. What we put in comes out better and different flavor in any language! That’s what makes us so diverse :)