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Marketing to Spanish speakers

Delivered September 4, 2019. Contributor: Tamara P.

Goals

To understand how best to market to Spanish speakers and how financial or retirement services are targeting them.


Early Findings

General best practices for marketing to Spanish speakers

  • There are a few recent reports that outline some general best practices when marketing to Spanish speakers. They include this report from Lionbridge, and this one from the Dalai Group.
  •  Understand the different between Hispanic and Latino, and understand the regional differences. Become familiar with the different local cultures and the nuances between them.
  •  Include Spanish talents, imagery, music, and other aspects of culture. Some 88% of digital-using "Hispanics pay attention to online ads that include aspects of their culture—regardless of the ad’s language."

Best practices for older Spanish speakers and retirement marketing

  • You can market to "traditionalists" - ie older Spanish speakers - via Spanish-speaking TV and radio stations, as well as Spanish websites. This demographic is less likely to speak fluent English, "Your marketing strategy should emphasize these traditional Hispanic cultural values and traditions including food, family, and holidays."
  • Only 14% of Hispanics are of the baby boomer generation (ie 65 to 73 years old).
  • Marketers often devide Spanish consumers into three categories: Hispanic dominant, bicultural, and U.S. dominant. Those over 50 fall into the first category.
  • Hispanic Dominant: This demographic tends to speak Spanish at home, and consumes media in Spanish. They were mostly foreign born, and have a mean age of 40. On average, they’ve lived in the U.S. for seven years.
  • According to the U.S. Census Bureau, of all ethnic groups, Hispanics are least likely to seek out medical services. "This may be linked to a number of factors, including access to health insurance, an aversion to discussing health matters, and a preference for family remedies over impersonal clinical visits. "
  • Hence, the Dalai Group recommends "highlighting low-cost care options in your marketing materials using a warm, personal tone that places an emphasis on family."

    • Case studies, retirement companies

    • We found that there are few to no existing case studies about retirement or financial companies marketing to Spanish speakers or to Latinos. Even more broadly, there were only a few case studies about companies marketing to Latinos, such as this one about a Microsoft campaign.
    • Microsoft used popular Hispanic influencers in its campaign and placed ads in top Hispanic newspapers.
    • Their campaign drove in-store traffic, online engagement, and improved perception of their brand as relevant.
    • An initial scan of Fisher Investment's tweets over the past month for example, show no posts in Spanish. An x-ray search of their account for jubiliación (retirement in Spanish) also showed no results.

    Proposed next steps:

    You need to be the project owner to select a next step.
    Our initial research shows that there isn't any information available for the precise demographic of Spanish speakers over 50 years old, with $100,000-$350,000 in assets. It also shows that finding or compiling case studies or examples of financial or retirement firms marketing to Spanish speakers is unlikely to yield any results. Given the best practices found so far, we think it would be useful to compile lists of 1) the top 10 US-based Spanish language newspapers and magazines and 2) top 5 radio stations and top 5 television stations 3) Top 10 websites
    We could also compile statistics and insights into *how* Spanish speakers are coming across ads and products - that is, their main sources of information and how they are using it. For example, data about the platforms Spanish speakers use, apps, how they consume television, and who refers them to products. We would aim to provide at least 7 insights on different aspects of their information or ad consumption.
    Finally, we could also continue our research provided above, and compile more in depth findings about best practices for marketing to both Spanish speakers, to baby boomers, and to people about to retire. We would aim to provide 1) details for implementing the best practices found for the first, and 3 for baby boomers and 2) 5 for people specifically looking to retire.