Translation
(Online/Offline)If you live in the United States, we certainly don't need to inform YOU that there are just a few folks walking around speaking Spanish...
...in nearly every state, city and town...
The real statistics can be had in this rather enlightening presentation given by Forrester Research on June 14, 2007 showing that, even though Hispanic Americans CAN speak English, they PREFER to be, and BUY MORE if they are, communicated to in their own language.
Hmmm..... Interesting.
Here's the skinny on the data:
28.2
million self-identified Hispanics in the US
13.9
million are on-line
7.1
million (51%) of the online users are considered "Spanish-Language Preferring" (which more than likely
means that their English is fairly poor)
Download or just view the presentation (in pdf format)
using the link above for all the details, then
pick your jaw up off the floor
after you see the market share that you are losing
by NOT catering to this huge (and growing) targeted group...
They have money and they wanna spend it!!
Although a comprehensive "multi-channel" Spanish marketing campaign should be in the pipeline for long-term...
...the short-term solution (which will ease nicely into the long term strategy)
is to, at the very least, get your current website into Spanish,
with a button on your English homepage
for them to click to the Spanish site...
DO NOT, repeat, DO NOT put the Spanish words next to or under the
English words on your English site! That's a big no-no!
Next, hire one native Spanish speaker to take any phone calls or emails
from the customers that WILL contact you...
That's the bandaid...
...until you can get completely up to speed with this massive market
and implement the long-term plan!
The good news is, that this group (Hispanics) is very brand loyal and is really searching for those "gem" companies that are willing to
pay attention to them...
It's worth saying again... They have money and they wanna spend it!!
The bad news is, that your site isn't in Spanish yet!
Email us for a quote right now, this is what we do really well...
(No fear, our work is guaranteed)
Take a look at this fascinating chart on World Internet Statistics
and the different languages of online users in 2007... Wow!!
