In launching a Spanish language version of its website, CVS is attempting something that only Best Buy has been able to pull of, successfully launch and support a robust Spanish language e-commerce site in the long run.

Supporting a large Spanish language website is difficult because they are expensive and the market for them is relatively small. According to Google, the new CVS Spanish website consists of 67,000 pages, mostly of which are product SKU’s. Creating and maintaining the content and images on all those pages is a complex, expensive and long-term proposition. In addition, a substantial marketing budget will be required to drive awareness and usage of the site. The price tag for all this can reach several million dollars per year.

Generating a return on investment

In addition to the cost, generating a return on a large scale Spanish language website is tricky because the market is relatively small. According to comScore, there are a total of 34 million Hispanics online (15% of the U.S. online market) Of those, 12.8 million are over 15 years old and use the Internet bilingually or in Spanish, representing the total U.S. market potential for the new CVS Spanish website. The following analysis shows that leading pharmacy retailers are capturing a small fraction of that potential.

Total Bilingual and Spanish Preferring U.S. Hispanic Monthly Traffic, Age 15+
1. Walgreens, 291,000
2. Drugstore.com, 187,000
3. CVS, 147,000
4. Rite-Aid, 30,000

CVS is currently the third most popular pharmacy site among Hispanics who use the Internet bilingually or primarily in Spanish with just under 150,000 monthly visitors.
Although there is significant growth potential, a key question emerges today. Can CVS generate a return on investment on a few hundred thousand website visitors? Although time will ultimately tell, insights from Best Buy’s experience can help guide CVS.

How Best Buy made Spanish language e-commerce work

Launched in 2007, Best Buy’s Spanish language website now consists of more than 1,000,000 pages. Although early metrics indicated that shoppers on the Spanish website spent more than twice as much as shoppers on the English website, the volume of orders did not meet expectations. Instead of throwing in the towel like Home Depot did shortly after launching a Spanish-language site in 2009, Best Buy thought outside the box and has succeeded as a result.

Best Buy enabled consumers abroad to purchase online when it realized its Spanish site was receiving significant traffic from outside the U.S. In addition, it recognized that Hispanic consumers were using the Spanish-language website to research products prior to purchasing them in the store. The combination of international orders and understanding the impact of the website on in-store purchases are key reasons for the long-term success of Best Buy’s Spanish-language site.

How CVS can succeed online in Spanish

This kind of thinking will be critical for CVS. In addition to recognizing the impact of the new site on in-store sales, CVS should also consider the following tips to maximize the potential of its new program.

1. Provide health education in Spanish by translating existing the Drug and Health Information Centers into Spanish. As I discussed in an earlier post, this tactic will be well received by Spanish speakers as they Have a Hard Time Finding Health Information in Spanish
2. Consider a Hispanic digital strategy for the CVS Minute Clinic as this service likely resonates with Hispanics who would benefit from quick, inexpensive and high quality medical treatment that does not require insurance
3. Provide mobile applications (or a mobile friendly web site) in Spanish, as this audience over-indexes in mobile usage
4. Ensure product descriptions are in Spanish as they are currently in English
5. Remember that English preferring Hispanics may not use the Spanish site, but will appreciate the fact that one exists
6. Develop integrated Hispanic digital programs in partnership with manufacturers who also are interested in reaching this segment

Success will not come easy, as other companies have learned. But Best Buy has proven that it is possible.

Now it’s CVS’s turn.

This week I join hundreds of bloggers, marketing agency executives and brand managers in Miami at the third annual Hispánicize social media conference.

Being surrounded by this diverse, vibrant and passionate group brings a huge smile to my face because it reminds me of just how far the Hispanic online market has come.

Born to American parents in Mexico City, I was fortunate to be exposed to the Spanish language and Latin culture, both of which have played a key role in who I have become personally and professionally. I was also exposed to computers from an early age and was instantly hooked.

My ability to speak Spanish landed me a job in Madrid in the mid 90’s around the time Starmedia.com and QuePasa.com ruled the Spanish online world. Seeing them go public was very inspiring and helped me discover my passion: to combine technology and entrepreneurship with my love of the Latin culture and Spanish language.

I had an idea to create a Spanish language version of WebMD for the U.S. Hispanic market. That idea did not pan out but I ended up starting one of the first Hispanic online advertising networks in 2000.

At that time Univision.com did not exist, Hispanic Market Weekly was delivered by fax and nobody really knew how many Hispanics were online. It was hard to convince companies to invest in the Hispanic online market.

I would talk to anybody who would listen about how the Internet was a critical way to reach Hispanics online. Most people thought I was crazy or didn’t have budgets to advertise, but a few were more forward thinking and open to trying something new. As a result, I helped execute some of the first Hispanic online adverting campaigns and back then, the only way to “see” the Hispanic online market was through impression, click and web analytics data.

Fast forward 12 years and things have changed dramatically.

Univision.com is a leading Spanish language website in the U.S., Hispanic Market Weekly is delivered digitally and there are dozens of ways to quantify the Hispanic online market.

More importantly, social media has brought the Hispanic market to life.

Do a quick search on Twitter for #hispz12, the hash tag for Hispánicize, and you will see what I mean. The Hispanic online market is no longer just an impression, a click or a unique visitor, the faces you will see and voices you will hear represent a diverse, vibrant and passionate Hispanic online market.

Hispánicize is both a culmination of a long and rewarding journey for me and at the same time the beginning of another journey for the hundreds of young professionals who have dedicated themselves to the Hispanic online market. I am sure that they will look back at their time here and smile as well.

Now that we are well into the New Year, I thought it would be worthwhile to provide an update on the state of the Hispanic online market. Overall, the market continues to be rich and vibrant and the data points to a clear opportunity for online marketers in 2012.

Narrowing Digital Divide

Most importantly, the digital divide appears to be narrowing. In January 2012, there were 33.5 million Hispanics online, or a full 15% of the total US online market. Compare this to the 2010 US Census that pegs the Hispanic population at 16% of the total US population. What’s more, the Hispanic online market is growing three times faster than the general market online. Based on this trend, it is likely that Hispanics will over-index in terms of online penetration in the relatively near future.

Compelling Demographics

Not only do Hispanics make up an important part of the US online market, their demographic characteristics are compelling for marketers as online Hispanics are more likely to be in the key household formation process. A quick comparison between online Hispanics and non-Hispanics illustrates this point:
• 59% of online Hispanics are under 35 compared to 50% of non-Hispanics
• 65% of online Hispanics have children vs. 57% of non-Hispanics
• 28% of online Hispanics have 5+ persons in the household vs. 24% of non-Hispanics

Although online Hispanics earn less than non-Hispanics they are relatively affluent when compared to the aggregate Hispanic market. 60% of online Hispanics earn more than $40,000 per year and a solid 25% earn more than $75,000.

Growth in Bilingual and Spanish Language Online Usage

It is a fact that there is a relative lack of Spanish language content online and Hispanics, regardless of language preference, tend to consume more online content in English. Today, 53% of online Hispanics say that they use the Internet primarily in English with 28% indicating they use it in both English and Spanish with the remaining 19% using the Internet primarily in Spanish. What’s interesting is that the growth in Bilingual and Spanish language usage of the Internet is far outpacing English language usage as shown below. I anticipate that this trend will continue in the near future as more Spanish content is developed and more Spanish preferring Hispanics come online.

Continued Hispanic Passion for Social Media

Online Hispanics continue to be heavy users of social media driven by their relative youth, need to stay connected with family and friends within and outside of the US and desire to create and consume culturally relevant content in English or Spanish. Not only are Hispanics over indexing in their usage of established platforms such as Facebook and YouTube, they are also flocking to new platforms such as Google +, Tumblr and Pinterest.

Now that you have read this post, I am sure you will agree that online Hispanics should be part of your 2012 plans.

Last week, Hispanic marketing pioneer M. Isabel Valdés published her 5th book, WIN! The Hispanic Market; Strategies for Business Growth. Isabel Valdés took a unique approach by aggregating the voices of 19 Hispanic marketing industry experts to illuminate the importance of the Hispanic market and to provide actionable insights and strategies for driving real and sustainable business growth. I am proud to be one of those volunteer voices and will herein summarize my contribution to the book, “The Hispanic Digital Marketing Opportunity.”

The Hispanic Digital Market Opportunity

The first part of the chapter sizes the Hispanic digital market by quantifying both Internet and mobile usage by Hispanics. It also looks at usage by language preference and provides an analysis that shows that, although usage of both the Internet and mobile technologies are highly correlated with English language preference, the Spanish preferring segment is growing, active and relatively easier to target. Some key points …

• 33.3 million Hispanics were online in September 2011
• Hispanics represent 15% of the US online market
• The Hispanic online market grew by 5 million individuals between September 2010 – 2011
• 76% of Hispanic adults were using cell phones in 2010
• Spanish-preferring Hispanics are most likely to have an unlimited mobile data plan

Developing and Executing a Hispanic Digital Strategy

Next, the chapter describes how social media and mobile usage have fundamentally changed the way marketers must reach Hispanics online. I set up framework for moving from simply translating websites into Spanish to building Hispanic Digital Communications Platforms that reach the right audience, with the right message in a consistent and measureable way. The framework provides detailed descriptions for the specialized resources required to market to Hispanics online and also provides insights and tactics for Hispanic website development, social media, email, mobile and digital advertising. I bring this framework to life by providing mini-case studies four our clients GobiernoUSA.gov and Unilever’s Vivemejor.com.

Most importantly I highlight the fact that marketing to Hispanics online is not easy or inexpensive, it requires long-term executive sponsorship, a sound strategy, adequate budgets and integration with the overall marketing strategy. Some of the takeaways include:

• Hispanic digital marketing requires a dedicated and specialized team
• Hispanics digital programs require the same effort as general market digital programs
• 88% of online Hispanics use a search engine each month
• 80% of online Hispanics visit Facebook.com each month

WIN! The Hispanic Market is a great read. It’s easy to understand and it has plenty of advice on how to take advantage of one of the most dynamic and growing markets in the country. Although it brings together 19 experts who specialize in different areas of Hispanic marketing, the book has one key message: the Hispanic market represents a critical opportunity for your business today.

81% of the 34 million online Hispanics prefer English or are bilingual. This reality coupled with the flood of advertising dollars that political campaigns will invest to sway the critical Latino vote make it an interesting time to look at English digital platforms that target Latinos.

Digital advertising tactics such as search, behavioral, re-targeting and contextual targeting have emerged to allow marketers to reach English preferring Hispanics, but they all require a relatively high level of expertise to execute. Today, brands looking to reach online Hispanics in English have another option thanks to English language digital platforms that target Latinos.

I took a quick look at the market of Latino themed, English language digital platforms and found that a couple of upstarts are challenging traditional media companies. I am sure that the competition to reach online Hispanics in English will heat up as a result of the following market dynamics.

• There are not that many players
• There is no clear leader
• Low barriers to entry provided by social media
• The ad dollars associated with the upcoming election
• The importance of the Latino vote

Below is a summary of some of the players targeting online Hispanics in English today.

The Upstarts

Two startups that had the foresight to cater to online Hispanics in English are Guanabee and Being Latino. Founded in 2006, Guanabee is a hip, Latino lifestyle and news site. Being Latino is just over two years old and pegs itself as an online magazine that that educates, entertains and connects Latinos.

Guanabee
o Website – 157,000 monthly visitors*
o Facebook – 2,500 likers
o Twitter – 2,300 followers

Being Latino
o Website – 11,000 monthly visitors*
o Facebook – 65,000 likers
o Twitter – 5,500 followers

Big Media

Several big media companies also are proactively targeting online Hispanics in English with digital platforms. These typically consist of a centralized website/blog supported by social media outlets. Of the bunch, NBC Universal’s Mun2 and MTV’s Tr3’s are the oldest and as a result have the most reach, here is how they all stack up.

Mun2
o Website – 150,000 monthly visitors*
o Facebook – 130,000 likers
o Twitter – 20,000 followers

MTV Tr3’s
o Website – 100,000 monthly visitors*
o Facebook – 65,000 likers
o Twitter – 48,000 followers

Fox News Latino
o Website - n/a*
o Facebook- 38,000 likers
o Twitter - 9,500 followers

Huffington Post – Latino Voices
o Website – n/a*
o Facebook – 2,500 likers
o Twitter– 4,200 followers

NBC Latino
o Tumblr Blog – n/a*
o Twitter – 200 followers

Univision News
o Tumblr Blog – 1,260 monthly visitors*
o Facebook – 2,000 likers
o Twitter– 29,000 followers

This quick analysis shows that upstarts are holding their own against big media when it comes to targeting online Hispanics in English. That said, it will be interesting to see who else enters the market and it is likely that those that can garner the lion’s share of election advertising dollars will emerge as the leaders next year.

I don’t know about you but I’m voting for the upstarts.

*Source: Compete.com

Here’s a question for online marketers: What percent of U.S. online advertising spending do you think is targeted to Hispanics?

Let me give you a couple of clues. The digital marketing site eMarketer expects U.S. online advertising spending to reach $31 billion in 2011. Hispanics make up about 15% of the total US online market.

15% would be too high, as many online Hispanics are bilingual and or prefer English, and general market online advertising reaches a large majority of them. So perhaps somewhere in the mid-single digits would make sense, say 5% or about $1.5 billion? If that was your guess, you would be way off. Industry figures peg US. Hispanic online advertising at only $200 million this year, a mere 0.65% of the total investment in US online advertising.

In the past ten years I have seen investment in the Hispanic online market grow, albeit at a much slower level than US online advertising in general. When you look at the numbers, the disparity between US online and Hispanic online investment is shocking.

So why is it that marketers spend less than 1% of their digital budgets against a group that represents 15% of the online market? Perhaps it is because most of the people that allocate digital marketing dollars are not Hispanic and they do not see or feel the Hispanic online market first hand. Maybe they don’t really think that Hispanics are online?

To invest in something you have to understand it

For years professionals in our industry have struggled to prove that Hispanics are online, sending research study after research study to anybody who would listen. After nearly a decade of countless PowerPoints, conference calls and meetings, we have made inroads, but still we have only gotten to 0.65% of the market. There has to be a better way.
As I was doing some research on the leading Hispanic Facebook pages it clicked. These large, colorful and engaged Hispanic Facebook communities are the digital equivalent of a Hispanic market immersion tour. These tours have been successfully used in Hispanic marketing for a while as they take non-Hispanic marketing executives into Hispanic neighborhoods so that they can see and feel the Hispanic market first hand, something a PowerPoint can never accomplish.
So I invite those who allocate digital marketing dollars on a Hispanic online market immersion tour to see and feel the Hispanic online market first hand. Spend five minutes checking out the top five Spanish Hispanic media and brand Facebook pages. Even if you don’t understand Spanish the sheer numbers, faces and engagement levels you will see will give you a real senses for the Hispanic online market.

1. http://www.facebook.com/univision 263,000 Likers
2. http://www.facebook.com/telemundo 150,000 Likers
3. http://www.facebook.com/peopleenespanol 107,000 Likers
4. http://www.facebook.com/statefarmlatino 103,000 Likers
5. http://www.facebook.com/vivemejor 101,000 Likers

I am hopeful that marketers will take me up on my invitation and see firsthand that Hispanics are online and worth much more than 0.65%.

When it comes to being healthy, Hispanics have several things going against them: language and cultural barriers, lack of access to preventive care and lack of health insurance. But there is another, lesser-known barrier that prevents them from living healthier lives: lack of online health information in Spanish.

Given the growth of the Hispanic online market, I thought I would take a look at how Hispanics use the Internet to educate themselves on health related matters and what content is available to them. What I found was that despite a strong demand for health content online among Hispanics, there is very little of it available in Spanish.

According to comScore, Hispanic usage of health care websites is growing twice as fast as the general market. In September 2011, a total of 17.2 million Hispanics visited a health related website; this represents 52% of all online Hispanics and an annual growth rate of 31%.

Compare this to the general market where 66% of online users visited a health site in September 2010 up 15% from the previous year. The fact that Hispanics are young helps explain why they are less likely than the general market to visit health sites, but language preference and the relative lack of Spanish language health information also seem to play a roll.
In the past twelve months, usage of health websites skyrocketed among the bilingual and Spanish preferring online Hispanics. As a result, more than half of all online Hispanics visits a health site each month. Take a look:

Growth in health site visitation by segment September 2010 – 2011
English Preferring: 25%
Bilingual: 47%
Spanish Preferring: 35%
All Hispanics: 32%

Percent of given segment that visited a health site in September 2011
English Preferring: 53%
Bilingual: 52%
Spanish Preferring: 51%
All Hispanics: 52%

So what sites do Hispanics visit when they are looking for health information? I found that they predominantly visit English language health websites. This is also true when we look only at the 5.7 million Bilingual and Spanish preferring online Hispanics that sought health information online in September 2011.

Most Popular Health Sites among Bilingual and Spanish Preferring Hispanics September 2011
Every Day Health Network 857,000 visitors
WebMD Health 565,000 visitors
WomensHealthBase.com 374,000 visitors
Livestrong –eHow Health 346,000 visitors
Health .com 265,000 visitors

When it comes to Spanish language health sites, we came across a relatively small number of properties that have relatively limited reach among Hispanics. We used Quantcast to gauge traffic because most of these sites are not currently tracked by comScore.

Most Popular Spanish Language Health Sites
VidaySalud.com 40,000 visitors
GeoSalud.com 34,000 visitors
Salud.Univision.com 24,600 visitors
HolaDoctor.com N/A
Medline Plus Español N/A
UnBuenDoctor.com N/A

This data should signal an opportunity to companies in the healthcare space. There is a clear demand for Spanish language health information online and relatively few companies providing it. Providing online Spanish health content would not only meet this demand, but it would also help Hispanics get healthy.

25 million Hispanics visit Facebook each month. That represents 74% of all online Hispanics. Given these figures, it is not surprising that countless brands and organizations use Facebook advertising to reach the nation’s largest minority group.
In this post, I’m going to share with you some of the insights I’ve gained firsthand by successfully targeting Hispanics on Facebook. Specifically, I’m going to show you how to use Facebook’s self-serve, cost per click based advertising platform called Marketplace.

Let’s assume we are trying to reach Spanish-preferring and bilingual Hispanics who are 18 years or older.

Define Objectives and Budget

It is imperative to first ask yourself what are you trying to accomplish and how will you measure success. Facebook advertising can be used to achieve several objectives, from branding and awareness, driving “likers” to a Facebook page, generating traffic to an external website or even direct response marketing. It is also important to set a budget and financial goals for the campaign and put the proper tracking in place to measure your success – that is, how much is your goal worth?

Establish a Target Audience

Facebook allows marketers to target audiences based on geographic, demographic, language and psychographic characteristics. Facebook’s targeting engine makes it easy and cost effective to reach various segments of the Hispanic online market.. Here are some simple targeting techniques you can use:

Location – Facebook allows marketers to target users on a national, state, city and zip code level. Location targeting give us immediate access to Hispanics as we know that certain DMA’s and zip codes have a high concentration of Hispanics from various countries of origin.

Demographics – Facebook allows us to target age and gender. We could choose younger cohorts in order to reach a large number of Hispanics, but for our campaign, let’s go with both men and women over 18.

Languages – Here is where it gets cool, Facebook advertising can be targeted to people in the United States who have chosen to use Facebook in Spanish. By selecting language = Spanish, we are able to reach almost 4 million Spanish-preferring Hispanics in the US.

Interests –Interest based targeting allows marketers to reach Facebook users based on the pages they like. This allows us to zero in on bilingual Hispanics, those that “like” Spanish language pages but use Facebook in English. Targeting those who use Facebook in English but like the pages of Spanish language media companies such as Univision, Telemundo, Televisa, CNN en Español and Azteca América yields an audience of nearly 700,000. If we add the Facebook pages of artists who predominantly cater to Latinos such as Wisin & Yandel, Don Omar, Ricardo Arjona, Juanes, Maná and Alejandro Fernandez, the audience grows to 1.2 million bilingual Hispanics.

Create Relevant Ads

Good ads are as important as targeting on Facebook. Facebook ads consist of a thumbnail image, a headline and a block of body copy. Make sure your ads are clear, compelling and call-to-action oriented. In our example above, we would use Spanish in the ads that would be targeted to the users who use Facebook in Spanish. For the bilingual group, we would likely test both Spanish and English ads. In terms of images, we have found that pictures of people tend to work best.

Launch and Optimize

Once you have defined your objectives, established your target audience and developed your ads, you are good to go, but once you launch your campaign you are only getting started. As with any online advertising tactic, Facebook advertising provides real time statistics on campaign performance. Be sure to monitor this closely and optimize your campaign to drive your objectives.

Having dedicated my career to the Hispanic online market, I am proud to be part of the National Dialogue on Improving Federal Websites. The Dialogue launched this week and is a two-week conversation meant to generate ideas for improving how the US Government communicates online. I have volunteered to be a discussion catalyst to help spark ideas on how the government can better serve Spanish preferring Hispanics and global audiences with limited English proficiency through the Internet.

What can you do to help?

1. Join the online conversation, submit ideas and vote on ideas that you think are worthwhile
2. Participate in a real-time discussion on the topic this Monday, September 26th at 1PM EST
3. Spread the word to your networks! You can use this link http://bit.ly/r764OI and if you use Twitter, the hash tag is #dotgov.

I look forward to your ideas and appreciate your help in making US Government websites better for US Hispanics.

Back in May I took a look at how Hispanics were embracing emerging social media platforms and Tumblr caught my eye. When Tumblr announced last week that they now support Spanish, I thought I would see how Tumblr had progressed in the past few months. What I found was impressive. Tumblr has grown exponentially among Hispanics and now represents a platform Hispanics online marketers should seriously consider.

A cross between a blogging platform and Twitter, Tumblr makes it easy to share content and interact with it. Today there are over 28 million Tumblr blogs. Through Tumblr’s intuitive “liking” and “re-blogging” features, users share photos, videos or articles with their followers, who then amplify the content by re-blogging it to their networks.

Hispanic usage of Tumblr continues to skyrocket

Back in May 2011, comScore reported that 787,000 Hispanics visited Tumblr, making up 9% of total US traffic. In July 2011, Hispanic visitors to Tumblr skyrocketed to 1.5 million or 11% of US traffic. In the past 12 months, Tumblr’s total US traffic grew 218% while Tumblr’s US Hispanic traffic grew 312%. To put things in perspective, take a look at how Tumblr stacks up from a Hispanic traffic perspective to some leading Spanish language sites.

1. Univision.com – 3.5 Million Hispanic visitors
2. Tumblr – 1.5 Million Hispanic visitors
3. MSN Latino – 1.5 Million Hispanic visitors
4. Terra.com – 740 Thousand Hispanic visitors
5. AOL Latino – 650 Thousand Hispanic visitors

When taking a closer look at Tumblr’s 1.5 million monthly Hispanic visitors we find that they are more likely to be female, have children, prefer English and be younger than the aggregate Hispanic online market. Here is a quick comparison of Tumblr’s Hispanic users compared to Hispanic online market in general.

Age 12-34
o Hispanic online market 47%
o Tumblr 77%
Female
o Hispanic online market 49%
o Tumblr 52%
Have Children
o Hispanic online market 63%
o Tumblr 70%
Prefer English
o Hispanic online market 54%
o Tumblr 59%

The opportunity is wide open

Despite these impressive statistics, I am not aware of any large brands or organizations (besides Univision News) that have leveraged Tumblr to reach Hispanics. I will be keeping my eye on Tumblr to see who takes advantage of this opportunity.