¿Hable Español En Línea?
Are you a web worker whose business involves web sites? If so, how often do you think about Hispanic consumers? According to a recent report from Forrester Research, this segment of the population is 44.3 million strong — 15% of the United States as a whole — and 49% are online.
Analyst Tamara Barber shares some interesting data. For example, according to recent survey work done by the firm, Hispanics outpace non-Hispanics on adopting advanced mobile phone features. She observes that “even Spanish-dominant mobile phone owners top non-Hispanics” on media and messaging capabilities. They’re more likely than non-Hispanics to have mobile phones with built-in cameras, the ability to play video, the ability to play music, the ability to access the Internet, to send and receive pictures messages and send and receive email. The chart below lays out some details.
Source: Forrester Research, Inc. (c) 2007 Forrester Research, Inc.
The language and cultural aspects of Hispanic consumers define a unique set of needs they have. For example, language dominance at home is a major influence on behavior in the area of technology adoption and usage. Since 61% of Hispanic adults speak primarily Spanish in the home and another 16% are bilingual, ignoring the Spanish language aspects of your Web planning means you’ll be “missing or frustrating” 77% of this market.
Online Hispanics actually consume digital media more voraciously in some categories than online non-Hispanics. That includes messaging, listening to Internet radio or streaming audio, downloading music, using social networking sites, downloading video and publishing web pages. And Hispanics who prefer Spanish online actually make up 51% of this Hispanic online audience.
Barber writes: “Companies claim to be serious about their Hispanic customers, but most fail to serve them well online.” She offers three steps to evaluate your opportunity for reaching online Hispanics:
- Size your market for online Spanish-preferring consumers.
- Master new customer profiles.
- Commit to a multi-channel Spanish-language service.
As she concludes, “This opportunity will only expand as this fast-growing consumer segment comes online.”
Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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The title should be
“¿Habla español en linea?” (Do you talk spanish online?)
or
“¡Hable español en linea!” (Talk spanish online!)
Business opportunities with Spanish-speaking individuals continues to increase dramatically. Certainly this is not an opportunity to miss out on.
If people want to explore this avenue PLEASE get real translations or use native speakers to provide copy – On my blog for Spanish learners there is an example of what online translators do http://slowspain.wordpress.com/2007/12/10/crossroads/
Here in Spain there are so many Spanish companies with really bad websites in English – unintelligible most of the time and probably giving a worse impression than if they were just in Spanish.
Que piensan de http://www.descubrimos.com? Es un prototipo de shopping online para el mundo hispano.
I’d like to see more demographic data because there seems to be conflicting info about this market. Last month the Los Angeles Times wrote a piece based on research done by the Pew Hispanic Center saying that by the third generation children of Hispanic immigrants primarily speak English at home and that the preference to use English increases the younger they are. So…is the target market we’re talking about, which I’m assuming is young people, really going to be seeking out information in Spanish? I’m wondering out loud and playing devil’s advocate, so don’t hurl stones at me. :)
I recently launched a bilingual blog, with separate pages in English and Spanish, and so far the bulk of my traffic is headed to the English side, despite my attempts to get traffic from Spanish-only sites. Granted, I haven’t been at this that long but the differences that I’m seeing at this early stage are interesting.
I think the researchers might also have found, if they looked, that the phone is the only Internet capable device that they use regularly. That’s not a negative thing at all, and much of the world that doesn’t regularly use cars to move their equipment around are going this way. It is important to cater to mobile platforms in order to reach a wide population!
This is only one facet of the Latino/Hispanic market. 33.5 million Hispanics speak only English or are bilingual! That is why I do what I do at hispanictips.com
And don’t forget about the other 360-some million Spanish speakers who don’t live in the US; of those about 60 million use the internet regularly and could still be part of your audience/market.
Your post makes me smile – in a good way. As a brazilian, who speaks portuguese and not spanish, used to read blogs in english, and with several friends here that read your blog, I thought this post brought some interesting consideration for your american audience, but for me, the sensation was “Really? Do I why need to be prepared for other languages and cultures?” I think this concern must be part of the business strategy too. Or it will be like when Wallmart came to Brasil with “snow skies” – in a country where doesn’t snow – and “baseball bats” where we don’t play it. Sorry by the poor English… and keep going the good work.