Hispanic Web Marketing - An Emerging Strategy
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Major marketers in the United States have recognized the importance of the Hispanic Market since the early 1990’s. Back then, only Fortune 500 companies with multi-million dollar marketing budgets started targeting this promising vertical segment through Hispanic TV, radio, and print advertising.Although still in its infancy, Hispanic marketing proved to be a crucial facet of many campaigns as marketers realized that Hispanics consume a disproportionate amount of certain products and services in relation to their discretionary income. This is especially true for industries that provide a connection to friends and family back home- such as telecommunications, wire-transfer services, and travel related services.
Back then I was part of a newly developed Hispanic Marketing Team at AT&T. AT&T had realized that targeting this emerging vertical would mean access to customers who spend almost twice as much as the general market on traditional long distance. Although AT&T had been somewhat successful in reaching this market through traditional media, it had not made any significant inroads in reaching Hispanics through direct marketing.
My challenge at AT&T was to develop new and innovative strategies to reach Hispanics in order to curb the attrition that was occurring as a result of major competitors’ aggressive efforts in this market. One of the most valuable lessons that I learned was that in order to acquire and retain these valuable customers, you need to present them with culturally relevant information in their own language. It was not enough to translate materials that were designed with the needs and interests of the general market in mind. This revelation proved to be a very profitable one! Once we started developing culturally relevant copy in Spanish targeted at these specific segments, we managed to stem the attrition from the competitors and our direct mail response rates went through the roof. Hispanics were not used to receiving mail in Spanish that had them specifically in mind. It was not unusual to have response rates of 5% to 10% when traditional general market response rates were only 1% to 2%.
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