Spanish-language E-mails Better Connect with Hispanics
May 2007
By Hallie Mummert
multipage
A new report from Forrester Research, Hispanic Consumer Technographics, states that 51 percent of online Hispanics in the United States prefer Web sites that provide information in Spanish. Further, 23 percent of this online audience requires information in Spanish to conduct information-gathering and transactional activities.
Considering that most e-mail marketing is geared to drive traffic to a Web site, it’s not a big leap to assume that Spanish-language e-mails also would be preferred by online Hispanics. “Since the Hispanic market still is under-served in terms of either Spanish-language communications or at least culturally relevant messaging, these consumers are not as used to e-mail marketing campaigns and targeted banner advertising,” says Lee Vann, founder of Captura Group, an online marketing agency in San Diego that specializes in reaching Hispanic audiences. As such, when marketers correctly use these channels to reach out to Latinos, this audience responds well. For example, Vann points to a keynote given at the Direct Marketing Association’s Directo Days conference in April by a top executive at Hewlett-Packard, who stated that her firm’s online advertising efforts to the Hispanic market consistently outperform campaigns targeted to the general market.
Vann finds performance on e-mail marketing campaigns to Hispanics to be on par with that of the general market, meaning efforts to existing customers work best while prospecting is more of a gamble. Beyond serving their Hispanic audience by offering their e-mail messages in Spanish, Vann also recommends marketers leverage the viral aspects of e-mail to grow ROI; this market tends to share information with friends and family, he says.
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