By Dylan Balle, La Prensa

According to U.S. Census statistics, the American Hispanic population stands at approximately 40 million today and is projected to grow to nearly 50 million within the next 5 to 6 years. Additionally nearly half of all minority-owned businesses are owned by Hispanics (over 1.2 million), generating approximately $200 billion in annual sales. Add the fact that nearly one in three Hispanic households have internet and you begin to see why this rapidly growing demographic group, already larger than the entire population of Canada, represents a major economic force with amazing opportunities for forward thinking businesses. Despite these statistics, less than 1% of all U.S. websites offer text in Spanish. Knowing that, the question is, “Are you ready to benefit from this market?”

Mainstream businesses have struggled to identify the most effective ways to reach the Hispanic market. Many have learned that at a minimum they must offer some translated materials welcoming Spanish speakers but advising that most of the business/information will be in English.

A more advanced and effective method uses marketing efforts modified for Hispanics. The distinctions created by culture, heritage and practices require a more sophisticated approach for optimal results. A business following this approach understands that things such color choices and imagery may need to be different.

Additionally, businesses should recognize that there is a distinction when marketing to American Hispanics as opposed to international Spanish-speaking markets. American Hispanics are influenced by the U.S. culture even if they are relatively new to this country. That fact makes them unique. Being exposed to the broader U.S. business environment impacts them and many businesses have learned the hard way that just because something works in Mexico City or Bogotá you can’t assume it will work equally here. Effective marketing requires identifying and understanding these distinctions and adjusting your efforts accordingly.

Even in the business-to-business environment, understanding the distinctions that will impact the decision process and tailoring your efforts to those variations can make the difference between failure and success. Often the business people you will deal with are bilingual but most proficient and therefore more comfortable reading and/or speaking Spanish.

The numbers are too large to ignore and the potential too great to walk away from. If you’re not already integrating Hispanic efforts into your internet marketing, you’re losing sales and customers. Giants Google and Yahoo have growing Spanish language search engines serving primarily the U.S. market. They join a number of smaller search engines that exist. These search engines work just as their English counterparts but search and rank in Spanish.

The advantages of using the internet and your website to reach the growing U.S. Hispanic market are numerous. Changes are relatively inexpensive, can be made quickly, and the results are measurable. A business that decides to have a presence in the Hispanic market can have a Spanish language website and optimization program in place within a surprising short period of time. The key is working with a Search Engine Marketing firm that understands your business, the internet and the Hispanic market.

Popularity: 8% [?]

By Laurel Wentz

Auto marketers cut spending on Hispanic media 5.2% during the first eight months of 2008, according to figures from TNS Media Intelligence, but didn’t slash ad budgets as deeply as in the general market. For the full year 2007, Hispanic spending on car ads was up 2.7%.

But the third quarter this year was grim. At Univision Communications, TV auto advertising plunged 23% during the quarter, and radio ads for cars fell 25%, according to Andy Hobson, Univision’s senior exec VP-chief financial officer. Mr. Hobson, speaking on a conference call with analysts Nov. 17, attributed much of the drop in radio ads to local dealers cutting back.

In a breakdown from Nielsen Monitor-Plus, General Motors Corp. spent 3% less on national Hispanic media during the first seven months of 2008, compared to a 6% drop in its media spending in the general market. Ford Motor Co. was down by a similar amount — about 23% — in both Hispanic and general-market spending. Chrysler cut its ad spending by about 11% in the Hispanic market but 22% in the general market, according to Nielsen figures through July.

Toyota Motor Corp. boosted its spending in the Hispanic market 9% during the first seven months of the year but was flat in the general market.

Some carmakers began cutting back early. Nissan Motor Co. conducted one of the biggest multicultural-account reviews of 2008, and contenders said they were required to demonstrate how they would trim their fees 5% a year for the next six years. The winner, Omnicom Group, is setting up an entity called Ignition that will draw from Dieste, the biggest U.S. Hispanic agency, and African-American agency Footsteps, both Omnicom-owned.

Popularity: 5% [?]

By ANN ZIMMERMAN and MIGUEL BUSTILLO, WSJ

Home Depot Inc. is aiming to tap into the nation’s burgeoning Hispanic population with a new Spanish-language version of its Web site, joining only a handful of other large U.S. retailers offering the online option.

The home-improvement retailer’s Spanish site, which launches Monday, replicates its English language e-commerce site, with 40,000 products available to online shoppers.

Home Depot, like many other national retailers, views Hispanics as a lucrative growth opportunity. A study of English and Spanish-language consumers conducted last year by Forrester Research Inc. found that one-fourth of Hispanics must be served in Spanish if retailers want their business. More than half of Hispanics who shop online — 7.1 million people, by Forrester’s count — prefer Spanish.

Hispanics accounted for one-half of the U.S. population growth between 2004 and 2005 and are expected to reach 102.6 million people by 2050. Forrester expects Hispanic shoppers online to exceed 17 million by 2011.

Few major retailers have developed Spanish-language web-sites comparable to their English versions. Most have limited sites with only a few Spanish-language features, where Spanish-speakers still must use English to buy online.

Neither Wal-Mart Stores Inc. nor Sears Holdings Corp., which owns Sears and Kmart stores, offer Spanish-language online shopping. Home Depot rival, Lowe’s Cos., has a small Spanish-language site devoted to home improvement and decorating trends, but doesn’t offer the ability to shop online in Spanish.

“We are looking at a Spanish language e-commerce site, but have no timeline for implementing one,” a Lowe’s spokeswoman said.

With such limited competition, Home Depot viewed a Spanish-language site as a chance to grab a bigger market share of a fast-growing customer base. Hispanic consumers surveyed by Home Depot said they prefer shopping in Spanish even if they’re bilingual. Researching home-improvement projects in English is more difficult, Hispanics reported, and buying products in their native tongue made them more comfortable, said Lyne Castonguay, vice president of merchandising at Home Depot.

Best Buy Co., another retailer offering Spanish-language online shopping, said its site offers bilingual descriptions of more than 12,000 products, including service plans and gift cards. It also allows customers to click a button and talk to a Spanish-speaker customer-service representative.

Employees also use the site for in-store customer service, printing product specifications in Spanish for Hispanic customers, said Lisa Hawks, spokeswoman for the consumer electronics chain.

“We sell a lot of products that are fairly complex, and what we found is that Spanish-speaking customers really appreciated having detailed descriptions of those products in Spanish,” said Ms. Hawks.

Best Buy has learned through surveys that customer-satisfaction rates on the Spanish site are higher than on the English site. And the site is “stickier,” meaning that customers spend more time on the Spanish site than on English site, said Ms. Hawks.

Home Depot’s new Spanish-language Web site is part of a larger initiative by the retailer to cater to Hispanics. Several years ago, Home Depot set up a partnership with Telemundo to create the first Spanish home improvement show and instituted bilingual signage and packaging in its stores. It also conducts bilingual how-to clinics and kids’ workshops in stores located in top Hispanic markets.

Popularity: 10% [?]

NEW YORK -Executives at Sam’s Club, Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s warehouse club division, told investors Tuesday that the company plans to open a new Mas Club store that sells products imported from Mexico to cater to Hispanic customers.

“Mas” means more in Spanish.

The news - announced on the second day of Wal-Mart’s annual investors meeting in Bentonville, Ark. - come as Sam’s Club is studying different store formats in a bid to expand its business amid a challenging environment.

Doug McMillon, Sam’s Club president and chief executive, told investors that membership income is not growing as fast as sales. As a result, executives are focusing on improving offerings while trying to better communicating its value message to members.

Sam’s Club officials noted that while food sales have been strong, general merchandise sales remain challenging.

This past summer, Sam’s Club began testing a new concept called Sam’s Club Business Center in Houston, which caters only to small business owners. McMillon said that at the new format, which does not have such categories as jewelry and pharmacy, business is beating the sales plan. Sam’s Club executives also told investors that they are testing a smaller format for both small business and average consumers in Garden City, Kan. This 100,000-square-foot format would allow Sam’s Club to move into smaller markets.

Mas Club will sell produce, meats and Hispanic food, drink, spices and candy. It will also have a full-service meat and seafood counter, an event area, a gas station and a cafe that will sell fresh-made tortillas. The store is scheduled to open during the first half of 2009 in Houston. Customers will have to buy separate memberships to Mas Club.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Via New America Media

Three years ago, Carmen Ruiz, 51, of San Bruno, owed $3,000 on a second mortgage and needed help with sorting through her debt. When she asked her tax preparation aide for financial advice, he calmly reassured her, saying, “I know an angel who can help and I will send him to you.”

The “angel” came in the form of a crooked predatory lender posing as a church pastor. He promised Ruiz that he would eliminate her debt by refinancing her home—as long as she trusted him and didn’t tell anyone he was helping her.

He convinced Ruiz that he needed to take out her loan in his brother’s name (her credit was poor, he reasoned), and arranged for Ruiz to pay him back in monthly cash installments (he was too busy to cash checks at a bank, he claimed).

“He made me sign papers even though he knew I had a brain tumor and couldn’t see or read well,” Ruiz says. For an entire year, she sent him monthly cash payments, so she was shocked when her house suddenly went into foreclosure. Her “angel” had taken her money and fled.

It was at that point that Ruiz sought assistance from local organizations. Through the Mission Economic Development Agency(MEDA), a San Francisco-based organization that helps immigrant and working class Latino families, Ruiz met Jacqueline Marcelos, 38, of Bernal Heights, who was also a victim of housing fraud. Marcelos and her family had been swindled of equity worth $200,000. It took them two years and hundreds of hours of education and work to organize an investigation and get their district attorney’s attention.

Although the men who conned Ruiz and Marcelos are serving jail time now, both women are still fighting to hold on to their housing. “Up ‘til today, we still have not been able to find restitution for the theft,” Marcelos says. “The broker, the landlord, and the bank have all enriched themselves with government compensation for these fraudulent crimes…We demand dignity in housing.”

Subprime loans, which are made to borrowers who have bad credit, and predatory lending are the main forces behind the foreclosure crisis that is hitting the nation. There are 7.5 million subprime loan borrowers and $1.4 trillion in loans outstanding, according to a 2006 study conducted by the Center for Responsible Lending, a research organization and resource on predatory lending. About 40 percent of all subprime loans nationwide were issued to Latino households. An estimated 5,760 Latino families are projected to lose their homes due to foreclosures.

In San Francisco, the study projected a 16.7 percent foreclosure rate on subprime loans in 2006, which is a 462 percent increase over rates from 2000.

At a recent National Association for Latino Community Asset Builders (NALCAB) press conference on the foreclosure crisis within the Latino community, Rep. Linda Sanchez, of California’s 39th District, stressed the importance of working harder than ever to prevent financial exploitation of low-income communities of color, particularly during these hard economic times. The U.S. unemployment rate of 6.1 percent is the highest it has been in five years, she says.

The foreclosures all around California neighborhoods represent just the “tip of the iceberg,” Sanchez says. “The foreclosure rate we are looking at right now equals the rate of the Great Depression.”

Many Latino and African American homebuyers have been steered into predatory mortgages even though they qualified for cheaper mortgages, Sanchez says. In her district, which covers part of southeastern Los Angeles County, 31 percent of all loans issued between 2005 and 2006 were subprime loans, and over half of the families who received the loans qualified for lower interest rates on their mortgages.

The best way of combating the high foreclosure rate, Sanchez says, is combining new public policy with an education effort that would make low-income communities savvier in financial matters.

Two bills recently passed by Congress, the Housing and Economic Recovery Act and the Neighborhood Stabilization Bill, which intend to address the subprime mortgage crisis and help stabilize local communities, are steps in the right direction, but there’s no quick fix to the foreclosure crisis, Sanchez says.

The legislation, and the recent federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, will secure lending capital for future loans for first time homebuyers, according to Jane Duong, home ownership program manager at MEDA. The requirements of getting these loans may be more stringent in the future, leaving many still vulnerable to predatory lending.

City Treasurer Jose Cisneros, widely praised for spearheading the Bank on San Francisco initiative, which has aimed to assist low-income San Franciscans open their first bank accounts, thinks many of the debt problems in the Latino community are banking-related.

“Individuals would receive their paychecks or benefit checks, go down to the cash checker where there was a line out the door, and pay exorbitant fees just to cash their checks—a service most of us do for free,” Cisneros says. Within the Latino and African American communities in San Francisco, half of all households don’t have bank accounts.

Language access is an issue for many immigrant families, says Bea Stotzer, Chair of NALCAB’s board of directors. Important bank documents should be translated into Spanish, and stronger penalties for predatory lenders and crooked brokers need to be instituted, Stotzer says.

“There is this ideological belief among some Congressmen, and I hate to say this, that poor people are poor because they don’t work hard,” Rep. Sanchez says. “Many poor people are the hardest working people in the world, and they pay more for everything, but Congress continues to pass laws that penalize them and reward more irresponsible [high powered corporations].”

Popularity: 11% [?]

Via The Wall Street Journal

Hispanic businesses and Spanish-language media, galvanized by the immigration debates of recent years, are sponsoring a bevy of civic engagement and get-out-the-vote efforts in the Washington area.

Some are part of larger national campaigns, spurred both by discussions of immigration policy and by Republican and Democratic interest in recruiting Hispanic voters. The majority of the efforts are nonpartisan and aimed at getting Hispanics to register and show up on Election Day.

The Ayuda Business Coalition runs one such campaign, focusing on Northern Virginia, particularly Prince William County. The nonprofit was formed last year by business owners opposed to the county’s crackdown on illegal immigration, calling it bad for the local economy. It consists of more than 100 local, Hispanic-owned businesses.

Ayuda has set up registration booths at some members’ grocery stores and at soccer matches. It also plans to conduct demonstrations on how to use voting machines and run spots on Spanish-language radio with the tagline, ” Si no votas, no cuentas,” or, “If you don’t vote, you don’t count.”

José Marinay, the owner of a real estate settlement company in Annapolis, joined the Ayuda coalition last year when he saw sales at his Smart Choice Settlements office in Prince William County plummet. Marinay said he had donated to Democratic campaigns in the past but had not been involved in lobbying or voter mobilization efforts.

“Immigration was having a tremendous effect in Prince William County because nobody wanted to buy there and it was like they were shutting the door down on us,” Marinay said. “There was nothing I could do, and I was trying to find a way to make a difference.”

Both Republicans and Democrats are courting the Hispanic vote. The Service Employees International Union, which has endorsed Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), has been getting its members to register Hispanic voters by phone and on the streets. The Republican National Hispanic Assembly, on behalf of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), plans to hold its own roundtable discussions for Hispanic business owners before the election, emphasizing tax issues. It also plans to host Hispanic happy hours.

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“The Hispanic vote in Virginia could be pivotal,” said Raul “Danny” Vargas, the founder of Herndon marketing company VARCom Solutions and chairman of the assembly. “What you will see is that there are a number of business leaders that are engaged in the political process, whereas they had not been before.”

Hispanic media are also playing a stepped-up role, donating air time and advertising space to get Hispanic voters to the polls. Local newspapers Washington Hispanic and El Tiempo Latino, a publication of The Washington Post Co., are donating ad space to the campaign called ” Ya Es Hora,” or “It’s Time,” run by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials in Los Angeles.

That campaign, backed nationally by the Spanish-language media giant Univision, has been encouraging immigrants to gain citizenship and vote this year.

Alberto Avendaño, associate publisher and editor in chief of El Tiempo Latino, said the campaign was born out of the demonstrations by immigrants in 2006.

“This year, the community is really energized,” Avendaño said.

The local affiliate of Telemundo is partnering with the nonprofit Voto Latino, which will run public service announcements and give political analysis, said Maria Teresa Petersen, director of the Voto Latino campaign.

The U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce plans to launch get-out-the-vote efforts in October to try to mobilize voters through its member chambers, including ones in the District, Rockville, Germantown and Herndon. It is the first time that the chamber, which has also stepped up its lobbying and policy efforts in the past two years, has attempted to mobilize voters, said David Ferreira, vice president of government affairs for the commerce.

“We decided to get involved in this election once we saw that comprehensive immigration [legislation] failed,” he said. “We knew we needed to activate the Hispanic community.”

Popularity: 10% [?]

Via The Washington Post

Hispanic businesses and Spanish-language media, galvanized by the immigration debates of recent years, are sponsoring a bevy of civic engagement and get-out-the-vote efforts in the Washington area.

Some are part of larger national campaigns, spurred both by discussions of immigration policy and by Republican and Democratic interest in recruiting Hispanic voters. The majority of the efforts are nonpartisan and aimed at getting Hispanics to register and show up on Election Day.

The Ayuda Business Coalition runs one such campaign, focusing on Northern Virginia, particularly Prince William County. The nonprofit was formed last year by business owners opposed to the county’s crackdown on illegal immigration, calling it bad for the local economy. It consists of more than 100 local, Hispanic-owned businesses.

Ayuda has set up registration booths at some members’ grocery stores and at soccer matches. It also plans to conduct demonstrations on how to use voting machines and run spots on Spanish-language radio with the tagline, ” Si no votas, no cuentas,” or, “If you don’t vote, you don’t count.”

José Marinay, the owner of a real estate settlement company in Annapolis, joined the Ayuda coalition last year when he saw sales at his Smart Choice Settlements office in Prince William County plummet. Marinay said he had donated to Democratic campaigns in the past but had not been involved in lobbying or voter mobilization efforts.

“Immigration was having a tremendous effect in Prince William County because nobody wanted to buy there and it was like they were shutting the door down on us,” Marinay said. “There was nothing I could do, and I was trying to find a way to make a difference.”

Both Republicans and Democrats are courting the Hispanic vote. The Service Employees International Union, which has endorsed Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), has been getting its members to register Hispanic voters by phone and on the streets. The Republican National Hispanic Assembly, on behalf of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), plans to hold its own roundtable discussions for Hispanic business owners before the election, emphasizing tax issues. It also plans to host Hispanic happy hours.

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“The Hispanic vote in Virginia could be pivotal,” said Raul “Danny” Vargas, the founder of Herndon marketing company VARCom Solutions and chairman of the assembly. “What you will see is that there are a number of business leaders that are engaged in the political process, whereas they had not been before.”

Hispanic media are also playing a stepped-up role, donating air time and advertising space to get Hispanic voters to the polls. Local newspapers Washington Hispanic and El Tiempo Latino, a publication of The Washington Post Co., are donating ad space to the campaign called ” Ya Es Hora,” or “It’s Time,” run by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials in Los Angeles.

That campaign, backed nationally by the Spanish-language media giant Univision, has been encouraging immigrants to gain citizenship and vote this year.

Alberto Avendaño, associate publisher and editor in chief of El Tiempo Latino, said the campaign was born out of the demonstrations by immigrants in 2006.

“This year, the community is really energized,” Avendaño said.

The local affiliate of Telemundo is partnering with the nonprofit Voto Latino, which will run public service announcements and give political analysis, said Maria Teresa Petersen, director of the Voto Latino campaign.

The U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce plans to launch get-out-the-vote efforts in October to try to mobilize voters through its member chambers, including ones in the District, Rockville, Germantown and Herndon. It is the first time that the chamber, which has also stepped up its lobbying and policy efforts in the past two years, has attempted to mobilize voters, said David Ferreira, vice president of government affairs for the commerce.

“We decided to get involved in this election once we saw that comprehensive immigration [legislation] failed,” he said. “We knew we needed to activate the Hispanic community.”

Popularity: 11% [?]

Spanish-language broadcasters in the U.S. project their political advertising sales will soar this year as the presidential candidates woo Latinos in states that have a chance to tip the election.

“We are significant players in the battleground states,” said Philip Wilkinson, chief operating officer of Entravision Communications Corp., owner of 51 Spanish-language television stations. “Presidential campaign advertising should come at the end of August, and then I think it’s going to come fast and furious.”

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Popularity: 13% [?]

A tax practitioner has teamed up with a software engineer to create a new tax prep program aimed at preparers who service Spanish-speaking taxpayers, especially undocumented immigrants who are ready to begin filing tax returns.

Latino Tax Software’s MultiTax distinguishes itself from more established tax software packages by helping clients obtain Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers from the Internal Revenue Service and allowing them to file multiple years of tax returns they have avoided filing earlier. The software also lets preparers toggle quickly between screens in English and Spanish.

Company president Manuel Alvarez (pictured) started his practice, Latino Taxes, four years ago in California and has since grown it to 1,000 clients. About 85 percent of his clients are Hispanic and Brazilian, while the rest are Latino.

“Within the Hispanic and Latino community, there are some specific challenges,” said Alvarez. “Many people have never filed their taxes in the past, so we help them prepare multiple years of taxes at a time. We work with a lot of undocumented immigrants. Many of them do not have a valid tax ID number, and we work with them so the IRS can choose an ITIN for them.”

Alvarez, a Stanford University MBA, came up with the idea for the software a few years ago and met an engineer at Stanford who helped him develop the program after tax season this year. He previewed the software at the IRS’s National Convention of ITIN Acceptance Agents in Dallas last month and plans to show it later this month at an IRS Tax Forum in New York.

Alvarez sees a lot of upside potential for his software, especially with the presidential candidates in both parties talking about the need for immigration reform.

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Popularity: 15% [?]