No Fluff Strategies for Marketing to Hispanic Communities

This is season eight of the Making a Marketer podcast with your hosts, Megan Powers and Jen Larson.

This show is your resource for all things business, branding and of course, marketing, no matter your experience level.

Our guests provide the dynamic insights and stories to help you in business and in life, no matter how you listen.

We're so glad to have you with us.

Here we go.

Foreign.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Making a Marketer podcast.

I'm Megan Powers with Powers of Marketing, which has been our sponsor since the very beginning and we're open to taking on sponsors.

So if you're interested in that, please reach out.

My email is Megan M E G a n@powersof.marketing.

looking forward to our conversation today.

I think this is a topic we have not covered before, but first I want to say hello to my trusty sidekick, Jen Larson.

How are you?

Hi.

I'm doing wonderful.

It's been a really busy Friday.

I hear that.

I hear that.

Yeah.

I'm trying to get out of town.

I set my alarm for 3:45am tomorrow.

Ew.

Ew.

I know.

My flight's at 6:20 and I'm going to the east coast and you can't, you know, it's very hard to get to the east coast quickly from the west coast with the time change and so I had to start early.

So I got there at a reasonable time.

Oh yeah.

At least you'll be closer to bedtime as you get there.

That is the upside is that then it, it kind of does help you get back a little bit, back on track, time change wise.

But it was lovely to see you so much last week here in San Diego.

So much.

It just feels like a couple of days ago, but it's already been a week.

It makes me angry.

It was a good.

Also it was my favorite non attending world year because you know, I've been going for the last four to the social stuff that this is awesome.

It helped that the Padres were in town because then I got to bring some people and they won.

So perfecto.

Okay.

Speaking of Los Padres, we have a really interesting topic today.

We're going to talk about no fluff strategies for reaching Spanish speaking audiences with our guest, Susanna Mendoza.

Welcome to the show.

Hi.

Thank you so much, Megan.

And also Jen, thank you so much for having me here in your amazing podcast to talk about topic.

Yeah.

She's a journey journalist and this is her first time being an interviewed on a podcast.

So we're exciting.

We promise to be gentle.

It'll be a fun little conversation.

No Never.

All right, so I'm going to read your bio.

For over a decade, Susanna Mendoza has worked as a journalist and media contributor across major Spanish language outlets, reporting on technology, business, politics, and culture throughout the US And Latin America.

Her work has been featured in top tier publications including El pais, Univision, Telemundo, France 24, CNN, and Espanol, and more, always with a focus on telling powerful stories that resonate with diverse audiences.

In addition to her journalism background, Susannah brings deep expertise in the Hispanic media landscape in the US Helping organizations craft messaging that's not only culturally aware, but also impactful.

Whether through reporting, media outreach, or consulting, she's known for her ability to bridge the gap between brands and Latino communities in meaningful ways.

A trusted collaborator and cultural strategist, Susana is passionate about helping businesses and storytellers connect with authenticity and get noticed.

Now that's a chatgpt for you.

If you want that bio, we can send it to you.

It's a great bio.

Honestly, I was going to tell you, you can either be my biographer or.

My barker, my little robot friend there.

Right?

That's true.

Awesome.

Well, I think that it's important to look at communication through different lenses, and so I'm really excited to look at it through your lens today, Jen.

Let's get going.

All right, so you have an incredible background and you've worked across major Spanish language media outlets.

So can you give us a quick picture of what the Hispanic media landscape looks like in the U.S.

well, it's.

Actually, I'd love to be positive, and I am positive.

It's still a really healthy landscape.

But unfortunately I've noticed that in the past decade, it has just been shrinking and shrinking.

Now, I work as a pr, as a public relations professional, and every time I reach out to people that I knew, you know, at an outlet or broadcast station, it's almost every six months they tell me, oh, she's not here anymore.

Oh, he moved, he's not here anymore.

Or we're closing this area, or, you know, or maybe that outlet doesn't even exist anymore.

So in that sense, it's a little bit disheartening to see how much it's shrinking.

And that's why it's one of the reasons why when people reach out to Hispanic media outlets, they have to take that into account that in so many places now, they have either skeleton crews working newsrooms, maybe newsrooms of maybe two or three people.

I'm not joking, for maybe almost half a million of Hispanics that live there to cover that area.

So even so, I'm still optimistic because there's some growth.

I have seen that in the last decade.

It's been shrinking, which I guess it can't be said only of Hispanic news outlets, unfortunately.

This is all across the board in English and other languages.

Yeah, that's for sure.

I know I struggle with that too.

Like, I write press releases for Digital Witch Talk and we have a big event every year and I notice every year when I send that either they're getting bounced or they no longer exist.

And I think, yeah, it's interesting that it's across the board.

It's kind of sad.

It makes me think like everyone's saying print is dying.

I don't think that's all of it.

I think the landscape is changing.

That too.

Yeah.

Fewer news outlets.

Right.

There's so much consolidation.

I think that's part of it.

Right?

Yeah.

I mean, in Spanish, there's also.

It's not like in English that there's like a few corporations that are starting to buy and own all of the local media outlets, but there's also consolidation.

Yeah, I agree with that too.

Yeah.

And I think probably to.

At least for me, like, I'm not watching as much mainstream news.

I am watching independent news outlets that are not being paid to have a certain kind of opinion, if you know what I mean.

I understand.

My only concern sometimes with that, whether it's in English or in Spanish, it's.

Yeah.

How can we be sure that they're not biased also?

Oh, yeah, I hear you.

I think that there can be bias because, I mean, we all have biases.

Right.

And we may get into this a little bit, but they're not in anyone's pocket necessarily.

I hear you're saying like that you.

You think we hope they're not, but I.

I just think.

I don't know.

Anyway, that's a totally other rabbit hole that we could go down.

We will digress here.

Okay.

When we hear people talk about the Hispanic market, they might assume it's one big group.

We talked a little bit about this on the pre show.

There's obviously more nuance to it than that.

So can you break it down for us?

A.

I get this also a lot when I'm working with different PR agencies or even clients and they're like, oh, we want to have, you know, let's do this campaign and with, you know, talk about Hispanics.

Yeah, I agree.

But where are you going to target those Hispanics if it's going to be, for example, let's say in Florida, there's a majority of Cubans.

And it depends on the message that you want to bring to them.

So sometimes you have to adapt it a little bit because, for example, Cubans that tend to be in the states, and again, I don't want to generalize, but in general, they are a little bit more conservative in their political views than maybe other Hispanics.

And for example, Mexicans, they're 60% of the Hispanic population that live in the U.S.

so again, they're a different group.

And we do share a language and we do share a lot of different values, but we're not a monolith that you can just talk about Hispanics the same way.

You know, like either say, or all Hispanics are vote, let's say Democrat.

Well, not everybody votes Democrat.

And there are differences sometimes depending on the country of origin.

And I think I was telling you also, for example, with me, I'm from Spain.

So that's like you said before, that's a whole kind of worms.

Whether I'm Latina, I'm Hispanic.

So for example, for me, so I am of European descent, but I am Hispanic.

And I consider myself also Latina, but not Latin American.

So again, this differs also depending.

Sometimes some Hispanic people will say, yes, she's Latina, others will say, no, she's not.

That's not the important part.

It's just that sometimes you cannot treat the entire group of Hispanics in the same way, depending on the message that you want to bring to them.

So I think that's also very important to take into account.

And I don't think that a lot of PR agencies, a lot of companies understand something like this.

Yeah, for sure.

Just in the pre show.

And just that answer for me has made me think of it in a different way.

And I never even thought about the origin of the word Hispanic, you know?

Yeah, I just.

I don't know.

Even though I have, you know, taken a lot of Spanish in my life, I just never kind of like that just clicked for me.

So thank you for that.

Yeah.

I'll just give you an example.

I think it's funny because I used to work at Univision and I was writing in the news and there would be like absolute battles in the newsroom as to how to say certain words or say certain phrases because we were such a mixed newsroom.

There were people from Argentina, from Mexico, from the Dominican Republic.

So then, you know, how do you say donut donut in your country?

And then everyone would have a different way.

Then I was writing the news.

So at the end of the day, it was seriously, it was a battle to see who, you know, which word or which phrase from which country would get into the news because everyone said different words.

Wow, that's interesting.

I mean, I guess it goes to like dialects and slang in certain.

Yeah, yeah.

Areas of a single country.

Yeah, yeah.

I would say it's like, you know, like English from the uk, English from Australia, English from New Zealand, from the States.

It's the same language, but every country has certain phrases, certain words that are different.

Yeah, for sure.

I used to date a British guy and I was like, I know we're speaking the same language, but I have no idea what you just said.

Yeah.

Oh, even I'm in Canada.

Like, for example, you know, we call those hats beanies.

They call them what Tooks.

I forget.

It's a to.

Yeah, it's been a minute since I've talked to Amanda Ross.

Well, what's funny too is like we, you know, jokingly, half jokingly talking to my friends about when traveling abroad right now, just say you're Canadian and you know, it just.

If you say process and project, they'll just assume that you're from Canada.

So interesting.

I love language.

I love language so much.

Okay, if a brand has never marketed to Spanish speaking audience before, what would you say, the first step that you would recommend that they take?

Well, I would ask them do they want national or do they want local?

Because this makes a difference.

Because like I said before, if it's national, then you have to think of a strategy that englobes all the Hispanic people in the US if they want to go local, then I would say, okay, you know, let's.

Again, everything depends on the message, the product or service that they want to talk about.

So I would say, okay, in Florida maybe we talk more about this because it's geared more towards a more Cuban demographic.

And then in California it would be more targeted maybe to a more Mexican demographic.

It really just depends on what it is that the client wants to, you know, like the service or product that they want to put out there.

Also, one thing that I always recommend, it's that they understand that to market or to try to sell something to Hispanic audiences, Hispanic people are very community oriented.

So I would also say, you know, if you're doing it local, maybe see if you can organize a workshop and people can attend so they can benefit from the workshop.

So when you're pitching to media outlets, you're pitching with a little bit of meat.

You know, you're offering something kind of in exchange, not just, hey, you know, we're whatever, x talk about us.

It's the same in English though.

You need to offer something to the media that they can use for their audiences.

So in the case of a Hispanic audience, I would say that if you're doing something that's going to help the community, I think a lot of the times you're going to be successful with that.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

I think a lot of, you know, cultural psychology goes into in the messaging as it is.

So I really like what you said there about, you know, considering, you know, local versus national.

It's interesting how much we're like learning in this podcast about like things that we haven't even considered.

To me, it's mind blowing.

This is very fascinating, but it's also, at the same time, oh my gosh, it's sitting right in front of our faces.

We just need to sit there and like think through it too.

Like this is also, if you think.

About it, I think this is something that would work in English as well.

You know, if you're, if you're going local, then see what, what it is that they're doing on a local level and how you can kind of transact that to the client's message and their potential audience.

So I would do the same thing with Hispanics because it really works and if it also can benefit the community, then great.

Like, let's say you're doing like a tax clinic, you know, a free tax clinic to help people file their taxes without charging them.

And then, you know, you're offering something, you're not just saying, hey, here's my spokesperson or someone from this company that's going to talk about certain things that you're actually offering something that's also worth the while to cover as well.

Yeah, well, and if you get into geotargeting, right, like, so this is depending on whether it's an ad, whether it's social media, whether it's a press release, whether, you know, you can definitely get into trying to target those more niche audiences.

I agree.

Yeah, I think hyperlocal works pretty well.

Again, it just depends on the kind of campaign you want to do, the budget that you have, and so.

And so.

But I just, I think that if there is a budget and you can do something on the ground, you know, go to the communities, I think that we're going to be more successful than just sending out press releases and hoping, you know, they will cover you or want to interview the spokesperson.

Right.

For sure.

So my next Question it relates to I shared with Susanna in the pre show that I during COVID I worked a contract with the Infectious Diseases Society of America and they are very much focused on DEI and that a term that they used is a term that Susanna just told me that the Hispanic community doesn't really care for, which is Latinx, which is by virtue of putting the X on it, you're being inclusive of someone who might identify as male or female or, or neither.

Right.

So it's kind of that whole.

So anyway, so to the point of my question though is brands can be performative, right?

And when they're trying to engage with Hispanic communities, especially around Cultural Heritage Months or events.

So how would you suggest that brands avoid that performative piece that tends to happen?

I would say first of all, if possible, to try to do something that's more year round, not just on Hispanic Heritage Month, if they can also again, I'm just talking if this is a possibility because not everybody has the budget to do this.

But if it's possible, try to engage more with the local communities that you want to target and do it if you can, throughout the year.

So build a trust also with grassroots organizations, with local organizations that work with the community that is there because they're also going to be great friends, great helping hands.

You know, they're going to tell you, oh well, this, whatever you're proposing, it's not going to work in this community because of A, B or C.

So it's not only going to help you build trust with the community and with the media, but they're also going to be able to let you know if that strategy will actually work because they're there with the committee so they know everything that there is to know about that.

So I think that would be something that would work really well with brands if they can just not just think of the Hispanic community during Hispanic Heritage Month, just try to engage with them during the rest of the year, it does tend to build trust and create brand recognition.

So I think that would help them much more than just do something that may be viewed as what you say, performative.

And also if you're doing, if you can only do it during Hispanic Heritage Month, then I would say like what I was saying before, like try to always give something back to said community by creating workshops or engaging with them somehow, maybe giving out, you know, like food drives or concerts that help people get together and then maybe help them with if there's a possibility.

And again, it depends on the service that you're doing.

But for example, let's say that you're, you're an immigration lawyer.

So then help people out in the community by giving them free immigration help, like let them know what they can do.

And so, and so, and again, if you can, if you can do something in the community, I think that's always going to be, I'm not going to say 100% a winning formula because, you know, things happen, but I think that you're going to have a better chance to actually be covered in the news if you are known in the community, if it's viewed as something real and not just something performative.

And I also just want to say about Latinx in general, it's viewed as a term, again, not something bad, you're not going to get a full out rejection, but because it's viewed as something that was created by others other than Hispanics, you know, that it feels a little bit like a foreign term, you know.

So I think also that's one of the reasons why maybe sometimes Hispanics tend to not like that definition.

Not because they're against, you know, what it englobes, it's more like, oh, we.

It's not a term that comes from within the community.

Gotcha.

That totally makes sense.

And Hispanic is inclusive too, right?

Because it's not gender specific.

So.

So that's good to know.

Yeah, perfect.

Okay.

It is brain break time.

This happened a lot faster than I feel like it normally does, but I thought it would be fun.

We like to have it.

Sometimes it's something silly, sometimes it's related to the time of year or whatever.

Our question today is what did you want to be when you grew up?

Well, I wanted to be a journalist and work correspondent.

And I did one.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh, that almost never happens.

That's amazing.

I know, that's impressive.

Did you have someone that you looked up to that was doing that or what made you want to be that?

Ever since I was a very young child, a toddler, I was watching the news with my parents and I just loved how they looked, the stories that they were telling.

I would even give the newscast at the end with the papers.

It was something that I always thought it just fit me as a career.

And when I was in college I thought, you know, yes, I want to be a journalist, but what kind of journalist do I want to be?

Do I want to do sports?

I don't like sports.

Do I want to do politics?

I love politics, but I don't know if that's what I want to do.

So then I had an epiphany that I wanted to go to the Middle east and be a war correspondent.

So that's what I ended up doing.

I.

And I lived in the Middle east for eight years.

Wow, that's really cool.

I love it.

I'm not sure.

I don't know.

If that's not on my bio on LinkedIn, how did I forget it right now?

I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, that's a big deal.

That's crazy.

That's so cool.

I just, like, get pictured Christiana Amanpour.

Like, that's exactly.

I love her.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's so fun.

I love.

That's a great answer.

Jen, what about you?

I don't know if this will be shocking or not.

I wanted.

I wanted to be a veterinarian, but it was.

It was kind of short lived.

Once I figured out that sometimes you have to euthanize.

And not only that, sometimes you have to give shots to animals.

I.

I was like, that's not me.

Out the door.

Needles.

I can't.

Nope.

Apparently I'm gonna have to find something else.

But, you know, I just always loved animals so much, and I just really thought I wanted to be a vet for a long.

For not a long time, for a couple of years.

I have a friend who's a vet, and she told me that vets have the highest rates of suicide in the nation.

Oh, gosh.

Oh, my gosh.

I thought that was Dennis.

Someone told me that that was.

I heard also lawyer.

Lawyers make sense.

Oh, my goodness.

Seriously?

Yeah.

I don't.

Marketers go, hey, Susanna I don't make up the news I just reported.

Okay.

You know what's funny is, like, I don't have any memories of, like, when I was little, little, like, what I wanted to do, but at some point I was like, oh, I like fashion.

I want to be a fashion designer.

And I actually applied to a liberal arts college for fashion and got in.

I went and interviewed and everything.

And then I went to the school and I was like, this is smaller than my high school.

I can't.

No, this is too.

No, this won't do much pressure.

Too much.

And then.

But I also always, like, loved advertising and stuff.

So then I was like, I want to get into advertising.

And I tried that.

Advertising fell under the journalism department at San Diego State, where I got my undergrad.

And.

But it was super impacted because, like, so many people wanted to do it.

And so I ended up just getting my undergrad in English because it was just easier.

I was like, Well, I mean, want to be a writer, so I'll just go the easy route for the, the prereqs are.

But yeah, I don't think I've shared that fashion design story with many people.

So, yeah, I've never heard that before.

And we've known each other a long time.

Well, and I didn't even.

When I came up with this question, I didn't even think of that.

It just hit me as I was saying it.

I.

I want to.

Did you end up not going to fashion school because it was smaller than your high school and then you find it underwhelming?

I ended up not going to that school and then I was like at a state school that didn't have that degree and I was like, oh, but I love advertising, so that's what I'll do.

But I enrolled undeclared.

So I.

Then they had this grammar, spelling and punctuation test that was extremely hard and you had to get a really high score on it.

You could only take it three times.

Anyway, blah, blah, blah, like, forget it.

I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna major in English and, you know, call it a day.

But that's funny you say that, but I have always had like a, like a underlying thing for, for fashion and enjoying what it's about and wanting to have new clothes.

I'm the ex of nine kids and I didn't get much in terms of clothes growing up especially.

I went to private Catholic school too.

So my mom's like, you wear a uniform every day.

Why do you need clothes?

So I started working at 13.

We talked about this on, on a recent, like, what was your first job?

I started working at 13 because I was like, I want, I want clothes.

I want to buy my, you know, if my mom's not going to buy them for me, then I'm, I need another res.

So it started early.

Oh my gosh.

That was so fun.

Okay, cool.

All right, let's kick off.

Second half.

Jen.

Okay, here we go.

All right, back into kind of the Spanish speaking piece of it.

Like, how do you think businesses should think about Spanish speaking consumers as part of.

Okay, a long term growth strategy?

Not just like, okay, we're going to try this once and see how it goes.

Like long term instead of the one time campaign.

Well, I mean, I guess there's different ways they can do it.

I would say just incorporate, you know, whenever they're doing campaigns, incorporate Spanish as part of their campaigns and their outreach and whether it's also social.

I don't know what would be the budget?

I have no idea.

Again, it depends on the budget that's available.

But I think that even with a smaller budget it can go so long because really if they, you know, Hispanic media, I mean there's a lot of Hispanic media outlets in the US but it's not as big as English and it's really not that difficult to just go online.

Again, if there's no budget for a Spanish PR person or you know, to hire a boutique agency in Spanish, they can definitely do the work themselves.

It is going to be, it is going to take them longer, but they can absolutely go online and just Google, you know, Spanish speaking media in wherever they are, X city or X State if they want broadcast.

You can always find the phone numbers of the news stations always online.

It's really not that hard if you Google it and then they can create their own media list and then start calling.

And this is something that I'm amazed because not only with other younger publicists, whether they're Hispanic or English, but so many publicists, even my age or older hate to pick up the phone.

And I am all about talking on the phone.

In fact, I think that's why I like also working with Hispanics so much because, because if I call a journalist on the phone and it's 6, 7pm they answer and they're like, oh yeah, I like the story.

You know, I can actually talk to them in person most of the times or if I ask somebody, can I have that person's WhatsApp?

Yeah, I'll send it to you.

It doesn't feel like sometimes dealing with English speaking journalists or editors, it's just so much guarded.

They're like, no, no, no, never call me.

I can understand why they do that because maybe they would be inundated with call.

But with Hispanic journalists and editors it's fine.

You can, I mean, don't pester them, but it's so much easier in that sense I guess to quote unquote, sell a story with them.

Because once you have someone on the phone, if they like the angle, you know they're gonna buy it immediately and they may even tell you, you know, this story, it's nice, but this angle doesn't work for us.

Maybe try this one.

Send me the pitch and then I'll reply.

So I would just say, you know, do a media list and start calling people and sending emails and then if they don't reply to your emails, which happens so often, again, if you can just give them a phone call, call the Newsroom call, you know, the editor's phone of that newspaper.

Don't be embarrassed.

If you don't speak Spanish, then maybe find someone who does.

But most of them speak English as well, so it shouldn't be any problem.

Also, another thing you can do, it's just there's also very cheap and, you know, cost effective services out there to help you do this kind of thing in small companies.

That's called Hispan Wire.

That helps and professionals reach out to media in Spanish for a very very.

I'm not gonna say very low fee, but a very reasonable fee.

So there's many services out there that do this kind of thing if you don't have the time or the resources to do it yourself.

Yeah.

I love what you said about like there.

There really is something about getting on the phone and hearing tones and making that voice connection.

I think it's also like beginning of building a relationship.

Because if you're building relationships with these outlets, then they're more like apt to read your email later, you know, the next time you're pitching them.

But I think there's a lot of power to a phone call.

Yeah.

I mean, I still don't understand people who are like maybe in their 20s, their phone phobia average.

Yeah.

I talked to other co workers and I'm like, you know.

Well, did you call them?

No, no, no.

I.

I never called them.

I would never.

Right.

Why, you know, such a transgression.

The.

The younger generation, I think, is coming back to talking on the phone.

I w.

I saw a.

A woman walking down the street and she was probably 18 or 19, maybe 20.

Talking on the phone.

On a flip phone.

Not just a phone, but a flip phone.

Wow.

They really have gone full cycle.

They'll bring back the telegram, right?

No, that's.

But awesome.

I know.

All right, so let's talk about.

I'm curious if there are any industries or types of businesses that you think might be missing the mark, especially by not reaching out to Hispanic audiences.

Maybe.

I would say.

And I was thinking about this the other day because for a long time I was also journalist that was dealing with technology a lot, both in English and in Spanish and tech.

It's not.

They don't tend to focus on Hispanic audiences that much.

I'm not sure the exact reason.

Also, it is true that in the US there were a few really good publications that dealt with tech that have been closing in the past five, six, seven years, especially during the pandemic.

For example, CNET in Spanish was huge.

It was followed all over the world and they closed and I think digital trans.

I'm not sure in Spanish.

So it's true that there were a few years ago and now there's just very little.

I can't even recall one specific technology outlet in Spanish in the US There may be blogs and such, but I don't know, maybe they just don't think that Hispanic audiences would be that interested in technology.

The exact reason, I'm not sure.

But it is something that I have noticed.

Whereas, for example, health does their start thing to really look into Hispanic audiences.

That's something, you know, I think it's very positive.

Health education.

Yeah.

I have seen a big growth on that.

Awesome.

Yeah.

Tech seems like.

That seems like a big miss.

Like why we all use technology.

And that's very odd.

Yeah.

All right.

If you're listening, there's an opportunity for you.

Definitely.

You know, Hispanics also love tech.

Yeah, for sure.

There's a huge market there.

Yeah.

To tap into.

Okay.

So if there's someone's listening right now, we kind of touched on this a little bit.

Like how we're.

We're actively learning.

We've already inspired a lot of the way that I think.

But if someone else is listening right now and thinking we should be doing this, but I don't know where to begin, what would you say to them?

I would suggest, I guess I would go back to the issue of community again, if it's possible.

Campaigns, a deal with community.

One thing that I always tell, and this is something that really irks me when I'm working with campaigns that are primarily in English, it is taking something in English and then just translating it to Spanish.

It doesn't always translate well.

And I don't mean just the language.

I mean that sometimes it's just not culturally relevant.

So, yeah, Hispanic people will read it in Spanish, but they're not going to understand maybe the exact message that you want to tell them or it's not going to be something that they identify with.

So even if you have to work around a bit or think of a different, similar but not entirely the same campaign for Hispanics, I would say that's going to be better in the long run than just translating.

And the same goes with copy, you know, marketing copy.

It doesn't always work 100% if you're not taking into consideration your target audience, I would say so.

Also going back to the same topic, but not exactly when it comes to writing.

Sometimes people when they're doing a campaign in English and then they start to decide on things on the Hispanic side of the campaign, they can sometimes err again because of not understanding the culture behind it.

Something that happened to me last year that I think, think illustrates this example really well.

It's that a client was doing a campaign and they had to pick amongst a few Latina actresses, Hispanic actresses.

So they asked me, you know, we have these four relevant Hispanic actresses.

Which one do you think would resonate with Hispanic audiences more?

Out of the four, only one was, I mean they were both, they were all of them Hispanics, but only one, one was born outside of the US and was actually relevant for Hispanic audiences.

The others were more, you know, they worked in English so they weren't as known to.

They just had Hispanic last names.

So they would have, you know, media would have never gone to interview them because again, they're not, their audiences don't know them.

So you have to be mindful of that.

Somebody who is Hispanic and has a Hispanic last name may not always resonate with Hispanic audiences because she's.

That person is not in the culture.

You know, she's not appearing in Spanish speaking media or you know, like shows or TVs or basically just relevant in that community.

Well, that's a great point.

That'd be like coming to me for Irish like to like to relate to the, to Irish people to like that is my ancestry.

But I'm like, I'm fifth generation American.

So it's like that wouldn't quite hit.

So something similar and I think it's easy to overlook because sometimes, you know, you're doing the campaigns, you're doing a million things at the same time and oh well, this person with X last name, I'm sure that they're going to know her.

Right.

And not, not always.

Right.

I'm not on TikTok.

I haven't been on TikTok in two and a half years.

But it just hit me that that might be a good place to probably find people.

Hisp.

People with voices on certain topics.

Right.

Like that would probably be a good resource.

All right, perfect.

Well, we're nearing the end.

We have one question that we like to ask all of our guests and it's season eight.

That is what is the most amazing lesson you've learned in the past year that surprised you, I think.

And I.

It may sound a bit tacky, but it is completely true.

It's to trust my gut, my intuition, because I don't know if it's because women do this more often, but you know, sometimes you second guess yourself.

Oh well, you Know, maybe, maybe they're right.

Maybe I shouldn't try this.

Maybe.

But then, especially when working with campaigns like this, you know, it's like, oh, I know, I know that this doesn't sound right.

I have a feeling that this is not going to work.

Sometimes I can't even explain 100% why.

Right.

But I have learned, learned that if, if I think.

And again, I'm not the, Obviously, I'm not the only voice in the Hispanic space, but I have worked for so long in news and, you know, I work with news in Spanish and I've been doing this, what I'm doing in PR for years.

Well, and sometimes when I'm talking to colleagues who deal with the English side, they, they very kindly ask for my opinion when it comes to something Hispanic, and I give my opinion.

And then they're like, well, it sounds nice, but we're not going to follow that.

Well, then sometimes things don't go as we all hoped for.

So what I mean by that is that I have learned that if I feel something, if I feel very strongly about something, then I have to fight a little bit for it.

So, yeah, I think that would be my biggest takeaway that I learned last year that sometimes if I have this gut feeling, I have to analyze why I'm feeling it.

Right.

And then relay that to my, to my co workers, my colleagues so that they can understand, you know, why I'm so energetic and empathic about that.

Trust your gut and stand your ground.

Great.

Yes.

For those guns.

Perfect.

Yeah.

I think we should all trust our gut and we should all not, not be afraid to share our opinions, obviously, in respectful ways.

Right.

But, but don't you feel that sometimes because, and I don't think this is only with me, but I think that we as women, and I don't know, maybe because we're not, you know, growing up, it's not instilled as much in us, that sense of security in ourselves, that sometimes it's like, well, you know, this person is saying this.

Maybe they're right.

Maybe they know more than I do.

Well, it's not always like that.

No, for sure.

All right, awesome.

So you, you mentioned we're going to definitely link to your LinkedIn on the.

In the show notes and his span wire.

Right?

Is that so Tell our listeners how to find you and what the, what's the best way to reach.

The best way I would say is LinkedIn.

I'm there all the time.

You can also go to my website, which is hispanwire.com and yeah, you can talk to me there as well, but definitely, I would say LinkedIn is the best way.

Perfect.

All right, well, thank you so much.

This is really enlightening, and I.

I'm really glad that we're able to have you on and share your.

With our friend out there.

Right, Jen?

Our one friend.

We're talking to our one friend listening person.

That one person.

You never know who needs it.

That's true.

You never know.

Maybe now we're gonna see campaigns for Hispanics in tech all over.

Hey, we can credit you our listener, our listenership isn't that far and wide, but.

But hey, we can always hope, right?

All right, perfect.

Thanks again for being here.

All right, and thanks, Ms.

Jen.

Great seeing you.

Yeah, even.

Even online.

But I'm glad we were able to.

To record this before I head off to the land of interestingness.

Yeah, a good way to put it.

Very diplomatic.

Yeah, I'm trying very hard.

All right, my friend, it has been lovely to bring you another episode of Making a Marketer, and we will catch you next.