Part I: Audience polls

At the beginning of the clinic our audience shared information about their current strategies for reaching out to the Spanish-language market.

We began with a question designed to elicit a sense of how our clinic participants are targeting their market.

Poll Question: When targeting Spanish-language speakers, do you take a:

1. Local approach — 14%
2. Regional approach — 19%
3. National approach — 36%
4. Global approach — 26%
5. Other — 7%

Our first question underscored the broad range and diversity of possible prospects within the Spanish-language market.

The entire Spanish speaking world’s population numbers in excess of 400 million people, the fourth largest number of people speaking any single native tongue, according to SEOMatador, a Spanish-language marketing agency. The U.S. Hispanic population will be close to 60 million by 2010 and is projected to be about 90 million by 2025, as determined by the latest U.S. Census Bureau data. Marketers trying to target either a world-wide audience segment or a very narrow slice of a local population will still find themselves in the fortunate position of reaching out to ever-increasing prospect numbers.

The majority of our audience, 36%, targets the national Hispanic market while 26% reach out to the global Spanish-speaking audience. Nineteen percent of our audience is focused reaching a regional market. We also heard from 14% who were working to make local connections with prospects. And 7% are taking a totally different focus entirely.

In our second question, we dug more deeply into how the marketers in the clinic segment their prospects.

A clear, organized segmentation strategy is the key to designing an appropriate marketing initiative to reach your target audience. However, when working with a Spanish-language audience, these segments often intertwine. For example, there are approximately 42 million Hispanics in the United States, and half of the adults among them are foreign born. Segmenting this audience by language preference is a good start but marketers should also take acculturation level into account. Of the folk who prefer Spanish, those who have been in the United State five years or less will require a different approach than longer-term residents.

Poll Question: How does your organization segment the Spanish-language market?

1. Language preference — 33%
2. Income — 5%
3. Acculturation level — 7%
4. Country of origin — 17%
5. We’re still working that out… — 39%

Many of the attendees at our clinic expressed that they were in the developmental phase with their Spanish-language segmentation – 39% indicated they were "still working that out." Of those who had a firm strategy in place, the dominant method of approach was from a language-orientation standpoint. Thirty-three percent focus on language preference while 17% try to accommodate their viewers’ country of origin. Only 7% of our audience considers acculturation level and 5% segment by income level.

Landing Page Optimization: The MarketingExperiments Conversion Sequence

We used the MarketingExperiments Conversion Sequence as a framework for discussing our test treatments and the submitted landing pages:

Wherein:

"C" = Probability of conversion.
"m" = Motivation of user (when).
"v" = Clarity of the value proposition.
"i" = Incentive to take action.
"f" = Friction elements of process.
"a" = Anxiety about entering information.

For optimizing Spanish-language pages, three crucial elements to consider are:

1. Language adaptation/accuracy
2. Cultural rapport
3. Optimization strategy

In a sense, well-designed pages and clear offers are created through techniques that are independent of language and culture. Wherever prospects are in the world, the process of searching and buying online comes down to the same three questions:

• Where am I?
• What can I do here?, and
• Why should I do it here?

Well-planned and well-executed optimization results in pages that answer those three questions by making page objective and navigation abundantly clear.

While a strong optimization strategy is essential, if marketers are working with a bilingual audience or a culture not their own, optimization strategy must be combined with focus on accurate language and cultural rapport. No matter how well designed the page is, if it contains mistranslations, grammatical errors, or offers that aren’t framed in such a way as to be culturally relevant, the design won’t be appreciated. To achieve results, marketers need to integrate all three elements.

Part II: View of a current test

Our analysts walked through their treatment development process with one of our bilingual research partners. The practices in these pages model the interplay of cultural adaptation and optimization theory.

Review of landing page treatment:

Company background: This research partner offers consumer credit counseling services.

The challenge: Current page is experiencing a high bounce rate and lower lead generation rate.

Primary goal: Increase leads for debt management program.

Secondary goal: Reduce landing page bounce rate.

Analysis through conversion sequence:

 

In the control version of the page, the two column design and long copy makes it very difficult for readers to scan the page and determine where they are or what they can do from this page. In other words, this page design is an example of design that allows "unsupervised thinking." Though this page offers an incentive, the benefits are not quantified and may cause confusion, anxiety, and page abandonment. Testimonials that might confer some sense of the site’s benefits blend with the rest of the content and lose their value.

Instead of expecting visitors to read dense content and view a video to understand the value of your offers or services, consider how your pages can be restructured to more easily give visitors a better sense of the benefits you offer.

Side-by-side: control and treatment

The treatment maintained a two-column design, but now there is more emphasis on the left side where the primary objective of the page is located (primary objective is to get a lead).

Discussion of changes to the treatment reviewed both evergreen optimization principles and unique adaptations made to increase the page’s relevance to the Spanish-language audience.

Analysis — Elements specific to best practices:

1. Clear headline giving a substantial reason to continue reading
2. Shorter paragraphs and clear bullet points
3. Use a quote to pique interest in video

Analysis — Elements specific to Hispanic market:

1. Use of Univision logo to increase credibility
2. Re-order supporting elements. For example, "Calculadora" is the #1 tool visitors look for
3. Use a more active tone in the copy and simpler descriptions, rather than complex financial terms

Key Point: Accurate translation is not only about language. Focus on clearly expressing a value proposition and offers that appeal to your ideal prospect.

Example: Oil of Olay

These two pages from Oil of Olay demonstrate how the company has chosen to balance its marketing strategy between product merchandising and reaching out to a Spanish-speaking audience. Martin Heiman, project manager for the U.S. office of the OCE Translations Network, writes, "Using Hispanic faces in your online photography can increase rapport between your visitors and your organization. Adjusting to different color preferences and forms of graphic presentation can increase the effectiveness of your web site presentation" (Hispanic Marketing and Public Relations: Understanding and Targeting America’s Largest Minority by Elena Del Valle).

The Spanish-language version of the company’s page, Olay para ti, features a photo of and testimonial from the well-known Mexican model and actress Lucero. As marketing surveys often indicate that Hispanic customers are influenced by brand loyalty and relationships, Oil of Olay’s decision to use a head shot and testimonial from a popular celebrity hopes to build the first by capitalizing on the second.

Part III: Live Optimization

In the review of landing pages written in both Spanish and English, our analysts emphasized changes and tests that could make the pages more accessible to Spanish-speakers and possibly result in greater conversions. Each set of recommendations has both suggestions for Spanish-language optimization and suggestions based on the principles of the conversion sequence.

Landing Page #1: Finding Dulcinea/Dulcinea Encantrando

This company aggregates content and displays it to viewers as news, special interest reports, and any other relevant points that may be of interest to the user. The difference between the Spanish and English language pages lies primarily within the content. For example, the Spanish language version of the page follows immigration news in greater detail than the English language version.

Analysis:

• Advertising sections in English have low relevance to an audience looking for Spanish content
• Themes and categories overlap and make browsing confusing, causing friction
• On the positive side, content caters to the Hispanic population with specific topics of interest

Recommendations:

• Increase relevance by displaying ads in Spanish
• Increase time spent on page by adding Spanish-language content summaries to the links
• Consider adding a search box functionality to simplify the browsing experience
• Consolidate themes and categories to reduce the navigation bar size

Including these recommendations into any redesign is intended to create the overall effect of making the visitor feel more welcome to the page.

Landing Page #2: Pingo

Pingo offers a calling card service. They receive traffic from PPC ads and from ads broadcast by Latin radio stations.

Background information:

Although this page offers very strong incentives, such as a five-dollar coupon for signing up, 50% off of regular rates on Saturdays, and a free one hour calling card simply for testing the service, it is still converting below 1%.

Our analysts felt it would be beneficial to analyze this page’s performance by beginning at the primary traffic source for this page, a PPC ad.

PPC Ad:

Reviewing the site’s PPC ad revealed a surprise.

When our analysts searched for the company, they were surprised to discover that the ad for the site was in English. Though it ranks high in the search, the two ads closest to it are in Spanish and may, due to ease and familiarity of the language, draw more Spanish-speaking or bilingual prospects than an English-language ad.

This site might consider optimizing its ad by testing how much traffic is generated by ads with Spanish-language copy that also, like this site’s competitor’s ads, mention specific prices or discounts as incentive.

Other suggestions include:

• Work on SEO (i.e., meta keywords and meta description page tags)
• Headline and copy are not communicating any value. For example, use rate per minute, number of countries, $5 coupon, etc.

Recommendations:

Many aspects of the translation were difficult for our Spanish-fluent analysts to understand. They speculated that some aspects of the translation, particularly the call to action on the form, may have been created by a machine or a free translating service.

• Translation concern: call to action needs to be more specific, "Start saving now" is too general
• Weak translation in the call to action area (sub-headline, fields, and call to action)
• Need a clear headline — in Spanish — that confirms to visitors they are in the right place
• Test one column design with clear vertical flow

While this site has very strong incentives, it is also an example of how unclear or poorly placed copy can undermine an offer.

Landing Page #3: ICIS

This B2B company provides services gathering information intelligence for the chemical and energy industries.

The landing page offers a trial product for pricing lists of chemical raw materials.

Analysis:

Their Spanish landing page actually becomes a bilingual offer because both the Spanish and English pages use the same layout. Therefore, the Spanish language offer ends up framed by information in English. This language disparity can cause friction for a user that arrives to the page from a PPC ad.

Additional conflict with the English frame includes:

• No clear value proposition in Spanish
• Character encoding does not display correctly across different browsers (Chrome), affecting clarity. Spanish language characters don’t always appear correctly and can cause confusion for the reader.

Recommendations:

• Remove English frame so visitors can focus on the page objective
• Translate logo tag line.
• Test character encoding compatibility and links
• Inform users about product characteristics: is the free sample in Spanish? Do you have a Spanish-language version of the product?
• Avoid friction by reducing the number of columns

The strongest recommendation our analysts had for this site was to craft a value proposition in Spanish. In the page’s current design, visitors must go through all the Spanish content to articulate the value proposition of the site. A value proposition in Spanish would give visitors the opportunity to quickly assess the purpose of the site and determine whether the free trial product suits their needs. In other words, a clear value proposition in Spanish would pre-qualify visitors to the site and increase the viability of leads.

Participant #4: Sun Microsystems

With this participant, we looked at two versions of the page, Spanish and English, for a Sun Microsystems’ landing page advertising technical solutions for small- and medium-sized businesses.

When visitors land on the English-language version of the page, they must go through a series of steps to find the appropriate Spanish-language page.

Finding a Spanish-language specific page:

At the upper right of the landing page there is an option to change the country, and therefore change the language of the page. If a visitor follows that process, the person is taken back to the Sun Microsystems’ homepage.

The second option is a drop-down menu in the right navbar. The drop-down menu takes prospects directly to a Spanish-translation of the landing page. However, where the first option gives users the choice of several different Spanish-language variations (Chile and Mexico as well as Spain), the only option on the drop-down menu is Espana, Spain.

Even though there are two options to select language or country, they are hard to find. One recommendation is for the company to look at how prospects are finding pages in their desired language. If one avenue has much greater traffic or a stronger record of conversions, the company might consider focusing only on that path.

Landing page analysis:

This page provides a great deal of information. While the information was thorough, the quantity of it made it difficult to determine the primary objective of the page.

The Spanish on this page was very well written. Whether they are using in-house translators or a translation agency, Sun Microsystems has clearly acknowledged the importance of clarity and accuracy when taking an offer from one language to another.

Recommendations:

Even with a strong translation, our analysts’ suggestions still included improvements to the copy.

• Test different calls to action (improve semantics) that clarify the benefits for the visitor when he or she takes action. For example: "Contáctenos" or "Programe una consulta gratuita." One version is formal and another is informal. Test both and see which connects best with your target.
• Need to quantify value or cost savings. Example: "Our solution can reduce your costs by 10 percent."
• Help visitors find the right solution, test using a configurator or organizing products by type of solution

Landing Page #5: Optics Planet

With this participant, we were again fortunate to be able to show landing pages in both English and Spanish. At first glance, besides the banner ad, there is not much difference between the two pages.

Landing page analysis:

While the layouts and offers are the same, this Spanish-language page has multiple translation errors that undermine the credibility of the site.

A Spanish-speaking prospect that comes to this page may become offended by the mistakes in translation and feel that the site is not investing enough in the Spanish community to warrant the prospect’s business. A second possibility may be that a poor translation could affect prospect perception of the legitimacy of the organization.

Analysis of shopping cart:

The complex navigation structure, mixing Spanish and English, creates friction and anxiety in the checkout process. If a customer begins the buy process in Spanish but must switch to English, he or she may be unwilling or unable to continue further.

Recommendations for Spanish-language page shopping cart:

Changing the button to a Spanish-language call to action is a relatively simple change but if the site translates their shopping cart page into Spanish, they must be cautious to avoid the translation errors that plague the landing page.

Recommendations for landing page:

The recommendations from our analysts included recommendations about the Spanish-language aspects of the page and suggestions based on the conversion sequence:

• Ensure a professional translation
• Feature complete shopping cart experience in Spanish
• Clearly state the company’s value proposition in the welcome message
• Test simplifying or removing the duplicate navigation structure on the right and reinforce the search functionality

Landing Page #6: Education First

This company features international education programs. Like Sun Microsystems, their familiarity with an international audience leads to a very strong translation.

One recommendation of our analysts focused on connotation. In Spanish, the word "pide" means "request" but it also has some of the same connotation as the English word "submit," a word that combines the act of giving with an inference of surrender on the part of the giver. In order to make the call to action display more of the benefit to the visitor, consider changing "pide" to "recibe," meaning receive.

Analysis:

Many elements of analysis also related to clarity:

• Good sequence of value proposition supporting elements (i.e., intro, courses, credibility indicators, testimonials, etc)
• Calls to action imply an order instead of providing a benefit
• Headline and sub-headline could emphasize more value
• Two column design disrupts natural eye path

Headlines are among some of the most important ways to make prospects aware of your offer’s benefits. While the headline now gives some insight into the fact that the company offers courses abroad, it doesn’t explain why some courses may be better for a particular user than other courses, or emphasize unique features of this particular study abroad organization.

Recommendations:

Even though this company works with an international audience, one of their challenges is to make denizens of each country feel that these education offers cater directly to them.

• Test calls to action that imply benefit, for example: "Obtén catálogo gratis"
• Translate logo tag line
• Test one column design for the middle area and move request form below courses.
• Test more specific incentives for the form, for example: catalog with specific information about the requested course or language

Transferable principles for Spanish-language pages:

Optimizing for Spanish-language pages involves maintaining accuracy of language, creating cultural rapport, and working from strong optimization theory.

• Survey your target audience and learn how they found you, how they prefer to interact with you, and what information they need online.
• Refine successful English-language offers for relevance to a Spanish speaking audience.
• English-to-Spanish translations can miss nuances. In any language, clarity trumps persuasion.
• Maintain continuity between your site and your Spanish-language landing page (special offers, design, color).
• Provide visuals, testimonials and credibility indicators that resonate with Hispanic culture.
• Connect with your audience: practice both cultural awareness and optimization theory.

One way to gather a sense of your audience’s preferences is to conduct exit surveys. Even if visitors have not purchased anything from you, an exit survey can give you information that will help you improve the process for the next visit.

In their closing remarks, our analysts also reemphasized the importance of translations from English to Spanish. A simple process to go through to make sure translations are accurate is a reverse translation. After translating a page into Spanish, translate that Spanish back into English, preferably using a different translator or translating service. In this way you can discover if your first translation has left out or obscured any important information.

Developing pages that are welcoming to and useful for your Spanish-language audiences is a requirement for marketers looking to enter the global markets. The examples and suggestions in this brief are designed to raise awareness of the issues surrounding the diverse and complex Spanish-language market as well as cite resources available to create strong, resonant offers.