spanish speakers warriors!!

[Wilter Quesada]

I just wanted to know how many Spanish speaker warriors we have on this forum, is incredible to see how the Hispanic market is on touch, theres no information, well quality information out there for the Hispanic marketers, I seem very few products on CB written in Spanish, and even fewer that come on both English and Spanish, I would like to know the reason of why this market is lights years behind other markets out there, and why so very few had explored this niche.

[bobmcalister]

me too ....

[TyBrown]

I speak Spanish. A goal of mine is to be able to take the family and move to Spain for a time (I live in the U.S.) and get a ton of video and audio for the projects that I currently have going in English.

You're right, though, depending on what stat you look at Spanish is the second or third most spoken language in the world and it is a highly under-tapped market.

[Wilter Quesada]

thats exactly my point, theres money to be made on this market but I don see anyone taking advantage on it.

[la dominatrix]

One of the reasons why the market is so neglected in my view is the fact that there are less people online per capita in Spain than any other country in Europe with Portugal close at its heels.

However that does not explain at all why there is so much resistance in South America
la dominatrix

[Juan Delgado]

Hi Quesada, Juan Delgado here.

The question is: what are you doing about it?

Lets work together and make something happen.

[Wilter Quesada]

Originally Posted by Juan Delgado

Hi Quesada, Juan Delgado here.

The question is: what are you doing about it?

Lets work together and make something happen.

I am game lets do something about it, and to answer la dominatrix there other countries apart Spain, that are online all the time south america and central america are gold

[gyar29]

Quesada and Juan,

Many of us have attempted to break into the Spanish speaking market. We are very aware of the fact that Spanish is spoken by 131 million internet users. 3rd behind English and Chinese. We know that from 2000 to 2008 the number of Spanish speaking users increased 620%. We know that there are over 400 million people that speak Spanish and that the Internet has only penetrated to 32% of the possible users. We also know that there are over 31 million Spanish speaking people in the US alone. All those numbers point to the fact that the Spanish speaking community has a huge potential for income generation and growth if properly marketed to.

What we don't know is how to effectively market our products to that community. My experience is that a site targeted at the Spanish speaking demographic requires much more traffic to generate an equal amount of revenue. If you can ever generate an equal amount.

I freely admit that my experience is probably atypical. I have very little knowledge in regard to the many societal differences within the Spanish speaking community. Differences that I think may have an impact on the effectiveness on any marketing effort. Note that I think this, I have no way to know for sure. My efforts may have been unsuccessful for a number of reasons. Drilling down to a reason was impossible. I knew that there were a number of potential problems. So there may have been many as opposed to one.

Additionally, the cost of having sales copy, tutorials, info products, etc. translated from English to colloquial Spanish is prohibitive. Especially when one takes into account the apparent minimal ROI available from a site targeted at that demographic. And unfortunately, machine translated text is abysmal. And it appears that this abysmal translation has a huge impact on conversion rates. Again I can't state this as fact.

However, I can state for a fact that anyone that attempts to sale their product to the English speaking community using English that is as poorly formed as machine translated English to Spanish will find that their conversion rates suck. A fact that is readily proven by many threads on this forum alone. I can't remember the number of threads started here that bemoan the poor English frequently found in sales copy on English language sites. And the number of people that have stated that they would never purchase products offered by a site that has that problem is not insignificant. It seems logical that the Spanish speaking community would also have many people with this same bias.

In my opinion the bottom line is that many of us just don't know how to properly market to that community. Nor do many of us have the wherewithal to have the huge amount of text required properly translated. So that huge market is one that appears to offer an IMer that knows how to IM, knows that community, and can write in colloquial Spanish the potential to start a very lucrative business with relative minimal competition. Competition that is sure to increase. That market will not remain under served for long. It is just to damned big a target.

So if you guys are going to attempt to penetrate that market, do it now. Because I guarantee many of us are looking at its potential and chomping at the bit just waiting to see how someone else successfully IMs to it. We will be watching.

Good Luck and please keep us informed in regard to your efforts ,
Gene

[Wilter Quesada]

Hey Gene lets look for way for all three of us were we can work together on this lest run some test if you have a free ebook we can use to run this test let me know I will translated I wont charged for this obvious I think I have a pretty good idea how to market to spanish speakers.

[Wilter Quesada]

Gene I would like to add something here don't think I am asking for ebook that your selling right now Just an ebook that you give to your clients for sining to you list I think this will be enough to get some list going.

[Sleaklight]

I've almost stopped active marketing for English product and have been doing Spanish marketing with good success. The problem I see is the many different dialiects. Well not dialects but some countries use words that other countries don't. So your landing pages and presell pages must use said language specifics from the country you are targeting. For example I was talking to someone from Colombia and they were saying "bacano" quite often. I had no idea what it was and thought she was cussing me out or something close to that and actually it meant "cool".

The tone of the words have a great effect in the Spanish market. Therefore when writing copy for the Spanish market you have to pick your words VERY carefully and use neutral(cross country understandable) language. I split tested a presell page targeting Colombia and added the word "bacano" in the copy just once and results were going fine for Colombia but other countries accessing was doing bad. I removed the word and replaced it with something a more general and conversions started coming in for other countries as well. Now I am careful in my presell writing and see conversion do well for the certain products I promote.

[Juan R.Villà]

Sleaklight, what you say happens exactly the same in all varieties of English (Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and many other Ensglish speaking countries).

The problem in Spain, as La Dominatrix has pointed, is that people is not very into Internet at all. yes, all teenagers use internet for Messenger, Webcam, and online gaming, but nothing else.

Adults, they only use internet in Spain to buy flight tickets, vacation packages, and few things else...

my wife has had an online business for 3 years now, and people is very scared about buying through the internet. They refuse to use their credit cards online, so if nobody trusts the internet, there is few to do, until the population in Spainj is more educated about the benefits of the Internet.

I know what I say for a fact, because I am a native Spanish and I have been online since 1997, while I was living in NY and Toronto (Canada).

[Wilter Quesada]

BACANO!!! Yeap my wife is Colombian so I am very familiar with that word, and I see your point, in my opinion when writing you have to leave out all the slang that different country use for example for the word Good you can use Bacano, Chevere, Encopetado, Al Pelo, Nitido, so many words you can use and most of the country will not understand one from the other but they all understand "Bueno" so I would leave the slang out for sure.

[Sparklesperson]

You know, I imagine if somebody were to offer a service either doing translations or consulting/coaching on it, they could make a killing.. hint, hint... Lots of us poor English-only speaking marketers who'd like to market to that segment, but who have no clue how.

[MoaddinFM]

That´s not true, unfortunately

I offered my translation services for german and spanish for as low as 1$ / 25 words! and reality is that noone wants to try the step it takes to internationalize his business ...

[Wilter Quesada]

Originally Posted by MoaddinFM

That´s not true, unfortunately

I offered my translation services for german and spanish for as low as 1$ / 25 words! and reality is that noone wants to try the step it takes to internationalize his business ...

I am going to have to make an eBook teaching marketers how to target latin america markets

[Sleaklight]

Originally Posted by MoaddinFM

That´s not true, unfortunately

I offered my translation services for german and spanish for as low as 1$ / 25 words! and reality is that noone wants to try the step it takes to internationalize his business ...

I wish I had seen your ad. Just last week I paid someone $100 to translate presell page

[Fernando Veloso]

Portuguese here, but giving a shout to Nuestros Hermanos

As already said, the web users number in southern Europe is growing and it's missleading that no one buys online: in fact they do, quite often, and the new generation (18-28 years old) is buying more then ever.

Right now people buy airplane tickets, clothes, etc etc but the vast majority is afraid of giving their CC online.

BUT...

The new generation is buying games, music, gadgets... and they WILL buy other stuff next months/years. It's just a mater of time.

I remember couple years ago no one in Portugal was buying airplane tickets online: now they do - often. Soon they will have trust to buy info products too.

So i'd say hit them hard right now, buy good domain names, develop some strong sites right now, and you'll cash in later

[Rod Cortez]

Originally Posted by Wilter Quesada

I just wanted to know how many Spanish speaker warriors we have on this forum, is incredible to see how the Hispanic market is on touch, theres no information, well quality information out there for the Hispanic marketers, I seem very few products on CB written in Spanish, and even fewer that come on both English and Spanish, I would like to know the reason of why this market is lights years behind other markets out there, and why so very few had explored this niche.

I suspect we have quite a few here in this forum. Though I was born in the US, I was raised in a Spanish-speaking home. My father is American but spoke Spanish and my mother was born in Mexico and came here when she was a teenager. I'm far from fluent, but I can hold my own. This market is behind others for two very basic reasons:

1. Most businesses do not know how to market to them. I've seen people write here that Latin speaking countries are all 3rd world and no one has any money to spend. While there is some truth in that, it's inaccurate. There are businesses out there that successfully market to the Latin market because they know how to navigate it.

2. The majority of spending is still the US market, which is why people focus on English-speaking products and services, though that landscape is slowly changing with the emergence of powerhouses like China.

One last thing, Feliz Ano Nuevo!

RoD

[dbolton]

Another factor to take into account: in Spain, there are probably more "pirates" per 100,000 population than in any country in Europe. If one does sell an ebook, audio or DVD there, it is sure to end up as an illegal torrent in no time. And since SO many people there download illegal torrents, your product would soon be in the hands of almost everyone without you earning anything.
I lived in Spain for 19 years, and I knew practically no one who (for example) had bought Microsoft Windows. Even doctors and lawyers that I knew had illegal, pirated copies of it.
Not an encouraging scenario if you're into selling digital products!

[napoleonfirst]

It depens, if you PPC then use a keyword like "comprar Ipod Nano" exact mach in Adwords, man you will sell.

[blue_sky]

The problem in Spain, as La Dominatrix has pointed, is that people is not very into Internet at all. yes, all teenagers use internet for Messenger, Webcam, and online gaming, but nothing else.

the government started a program to sponsor internet access recently so in my opinion the situation will change -

in Spain, there are probably more "pirates" per 100,000 population than in any country in Europe.

LOL on what facts do you base this??? I am not spanish but I highly doubt this - you will definitely find more "pirates" in eastern european countries...

[Istvan Horvath]

Originally Posted by blue_sky

- you will definitely find more "pirates" in eastern european countries...

I have lived and worked in several Eastern European countries - so I can second that for sure

[mrdomains]

Hola
I have reflected over the same thing. Not only Spanish but in general other languages than English. Spanish is a big language but as noted by others, it lacks a bit in online population. The smaller the language the harder it is to reach your market.

I've been doing some experiments in Sweden. Two problems of course. Although it has a high proportion of people online it is still a small country maxing out at about 4 million internet users. Also they have their own specific language, Swedish. Small language means they don't get access to the top picks from the huge global mass of information and relevant stuff can be hard to find quickly for them. Not even Google seems quite sure what do do sometimes from lack of stats.

Many local services and portals provide other ways for people to find their way around and you can market on these but at a fat premium since you can´t really pinpoint your audience, and everybody is using the same mediums. It is not easy to be profitable on these small language specific markets unless you dig in seriously, hit very specific niches and/or have blockbuster products. For Adsense and affiliate adventures - long-term is the word.

On the other hand the SERP battle is often pretty stale, or simply does not exist. Easy to grab good positions on pretty broad keywords but again, there are simply too few searches being done even on the big terms to really make your day. Most Swedes seem to have a idea of where they want to go without searching Google for it. The additional confusion of the extended å ä ö alphabet also confounds things a bit.

I am currently doing SEO and PPC for a Swedish organisation and we had a pretty tough time finding sufficient traffic with good relevance for them - both on the seo and the PPC targeting. For pretty much all terms, there isn´t even any relevant stats. So our job becomes very focused on live testing and tweaking.

Seo services have gotten a lukewarm rep in Sweden but not so much because of scams or bad services (although there have been a few) - it is mostly because with so little language specific local traffic, it is often hard to show tangible results to the client.

Small country with one or two big things happening from time to time. Place of birth of thepiratebay, Björn Borg and Volvo etc. Apart from that.. pretty calm.

All that said though, I would expect that a big language, with such a wide geographocal spread like Spanish, can only get hotter by the day. How´s the market for translated How-To's ?

[blue_sky]

I've been doing some experiments in Sweden

I guess that depends on the country, then the city you live in etc
e..g. I lived for almost 2 years in Ireland and everybody there seems to be an seo expert :-))
coming back to spain: I know that a couple of seo are doing business deep down in the south and others in Madrid and Barcelona...

[Alan Petersen]

I was born and raised in Costa Rica and I've looked at the Latin American market.

The problem is until recently credit cards and PayPal are not commonly used in Latin America (I'm talking about South and Central America I don't know about Spain) but that is rapidly changing. But that's probably one of the challenges. We're more of a cash society (although that is changing).

If you do enter the market don't forget targeting Spanish speaking Hispanics living in the USA.

I've always wanted to give it a whirl but haven't yet. There are a few affiliates in that space. There is a forum for Spanish speaking affiliates and Internet marketers but it's not too active and it was shut down for awhile but looks like they're back:

Emprende en Internet • Página principal

[JBorhez]

Good point. I was actually just thinking about this last night. While in Clickbank I noticed that the highest selling guitar lesson product had a gravity of 155 while the Spanish version of the same product was at 18.

Good call on this thread! I am fluent in Spanish and am now wondering why I have not yet explored this market.

[BeanCounter]

Si, Hablo espanol. Que quieres saber?

Contador de Frijoles

[richdirtygirl]

Originally Posted by Rod Cortez

One last thing, Feliz Ano Nuevo!

RoD

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Oh boy...

here, copy this one... ñ

Laura

[Alan Petersen]

Originally Posted by richdirtygirl

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Oh boy...

here, copy this one... ñ

Laura

Yes that's makes quiet a big difference. Unless he celebrates happy butt year.

[richdirtygirl]

Originally Posted by Alan Petersen

Yes that's makes quiet a big difference. Unless he celebrates happy butt year.

LOLOLOLOL yeah... something like that.

Laura

[Rod Cortez]

Originally Posted by richdirtygirl

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Oh boy...

here, copy this one... ñ

Laura

I was waiting for that one.......

[dwatrous]

I speak Spanish (Castellano), but I learned it in northern Spain so some people tease me about my Cs and Zs.

Grathias (haha)

[richdirtygirl]

Originally Posted by Rod Cortez

I was waiting for that one.......

Sorry baby, I couldn't resist...

No te enojes conmigo, ok?

Laura

[Richard Tunnah]

The problem with Spainish is that there's many variants of it even in european Spain. I know living on the canaries they speak canarian spanish and many would take offence being sold to in other forms of spanish. So I'd think you'd not only have to know spanish, the market but regional differences.

Rich

[proldani]

The spanish speaking community is SLOWLY catching up with the rest of the world in terms of onine marketing. Also, marketers, web designers and related professionals have a lot of work to do in order to get more credibility. Some marketing "pros" in Mexico give litte care about coming up with a professional image, and flash is still the norm for many web designers who know next to nothing about usability, SEO and proper web design.

[proldani]

BTW, if you are looking for a reliable translator/spanish writer, let me know! I know a thing or two about proper spanish writing. Soy mexicano y creo dominar la lengua de Cervantes a la perfección. Por cierto, soy fan del español correctamente escrito, y ¡odio las faltas de ortografía!

¡Cheers a mis amigos lationamericanos del Warrior Forum! ¡El mejor del Mundo!

[Chris Kent]

I have noticed several vendors, who already enjoy success with their English language ebooks, are making Spanish versions and have good gravities to show for it.

If the translation costs were lower (and by someone who also understands copywriting) then it'd be a no-brainer for me. The ROI just isn't there for me at the moment until this happens.

[TerrieS]

I know enough Spanish to be dangerous, but I have a daughter-in-law from Bolivia who'll help me out if I need it.

What I would like is a good internet marketing, computer-related English to Spanish word list. Internet marketing in English has its own jargon - things like Search Engine Optimization, Content Management System, and Internet Marketing Consultant. I'm sure that must be true in Spanish as well. Any resources?

[dbolton]

Yes, I should have said "Western Europe·" I base it on what I have read while living in Spain for almost 20 years. For example, Microsft itseld said that in Spain, 93% of the users of Windows are using illegal copies of it. Enough said?

[dbolton]

I thought I'd make another post about this "Spanish market" topic, for despite my previous remarks, I am not really pessimistic about it.
A suggestion for all: due to the perhaps prohibitive translation costs, I feel that one should begin with a different approach. Namely, instead of translating products from English, one should search for products already in Spanish, done by people who do not know how to market them, and then make a deal with them. There are many programmers in Spain, many talented people who can write, etc. (and I'm sure this goes for other Hispanic countries as well). I myself know some creative people there who would most likely LOVE to collaborate with us: they do the creative content, we do the site, publicity, marketing, etc. This way there would be no translation costs, UNLESS the product sells well on the Spanish market and we decide to translate it into English for sale in the U.S. and elsewhere!

Hey, why don't a few of us get together and start something? Anyone interested send me a PM, or let me have a contact address for you, and we'll get things together.

After all, taking action is what it's all about!

- David

[SantiSantana]

I´m spanish myself, from the Canary Islands to be precise. There are a number of misconceptions in the above posts and some things that have not been pointed out. I will try to add my bit to this discussion.

- If writing in spanish you are best advised to write in Castellano, the standard language from Spain, as opposed to american spanish or any of the southamerican versions. The reason for that is simple: it is the standard language taught at schools all over the world. Most of the country specific words tend to be colloquial and not everyone will understand them.

I am subscribed to an american spanish speaking marketer list and I can tell you for a fact many spaniards would look at it with scepticism.

- It is not true that yu cannot write for all of spain in one go. Diallects are one thing, accents are other.

Dialects in Spain include Catalan (catalonia), Gallego (Galicia), Euskera or Vasco (Basque Country) and Astur (Asturias) and after the dictatorship finished most of these have taken on the most deserved denomination of languages in their own right as the argument they are derivations form spanish is baseless since spanish is a derivation of latin in itself ( not to mention the fact Euskera predates latin as far as I know).

Everything else is accents, like in the Canaries where I am from. Sure we have words other regions don´t use and pronounce different but we are all taught in Castellano and we all read it, write it and understand it perfectly. That includes all the regions with their own Diallect ( now language) where they are simply taught in both ( which by the way is better for student development. If they did the same with english we would be a lot better for it, trust me onthis one, the standard of english taught in Spain is nothing short of appalling).

- Contrary to popular belief, there is a big market in Spain and a lot of money is changing hands on websites. Ebay, Buyvip, pretty much any travel agent and a few more can attest to that. the problem is the fgures are not high profile for everyone to see as Spain as a single market is comparatively small yet.

- There has been a lot of controversy in the past with payment options as stated above. The banks have realised this and for a few years now they offer their customers prepaid cards where you load given amounts so if that card gets hacked for some reason your bank account is protected. It has taken quite a bit of time for the public to get onto this, but it is nearly in full swing.

Hint: You might be able to make a lot of money as an affiliate for paypal if you know how to market its advantages to the public in here.

- Piracy: the notion that Spain has a high level of piracy is to some extent true, but it is overdone. On top of that what we "pirate" the most are music and films (movies for the ones on the other side of the pond) and even there peolpe are starting to withdraw slowly because a lot of viruses are transported through these means.

You also have the option of protecting your wares (DLguard and so on) which will make it less likely that they will end up being torrented.

Also notice that the people that search for make money online and other big niches are usually not the same public as the big downloaders, so do not mix them.

-About software: I have has equipment running on pirated versions of windows XP professional ( shame on me), but even that is slowly changing. Most peolpe realise as stated above that pirated copies are risky for viruses ( the SGAE, spanish version of RIAA) have been spending tons of money on telling people illegal copies of everything in the world are bound to be ridden with viruses and the message has spread to everything downloadable. Warez sites that were very popular through the last decade are haveing less traffic because of this fear.

- Volume: Look, if you are selling a 27 euro ebook and you sell 100 copies a month, you are making more than 95% of people on this forum. How is 131 million users a relatively small market?

Hope this helps and I will probably jump back on this thread to give more input.

[richdirtygirl]

Originally Posted by dbolton

I thought I'd make another post about this "Spanish market" topic, for despite my previous remarks, I am not really pessimistic about it.
A suggestion for all: due to the perhaps prohibitive translation costs, I feel that one should begin with a different approach. Namely, instead of translating products from English, one should search for products already in Spanish, done by people who do not know how to market them, and then make a deal with them. There are many programmers in Spain, many talented people who can write, etc. (and I'm sure this goes for other Hispanic countries as well). I myself know some creative people there who would most likely LOVE to collaborate with us: they do the creative content, we do the site, publicity, marketing, etc. This way there would be no translation costs, UNLESS the product sells well on the Spanish market and we decide to translate it into English for sale in the U.S. and elsewhere!

Hey, why don't a few of us get together and start something? Anyone interested send me a PM, or let me have a contact address for you, and we'll get things together.

After all, taking action is what it's all about!

- David

We are preparing how to guides for a new project. Half of the guides are already translated to Spanish.

My tech gal is Spanish, AND one of the best technical writers in the market.

Laura

[dbolton]

Originally Posted by richdirtygirl

We are preparing how to guides for a new project. Half of the guides are already translated to Spanish.

My tech gal is Spanish, AND one of the best technical writers in the market.

Laura

Sounds like you're off to a good start, Laura! I like your site, some good comments there. In another thread of the Warrior forum, we are trying to get teams together for some projects; you can read about it here. There idea is to get together teams of people, each with their speciality, and start some marketing experiments. Let us know if you (or anyone else) is interested in participating.
Here's the thread I was talking about...

http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...ml#post1576475

[richdirtygirl]

Originally Posted by dbolton

Sounds like you're off to a good start, Laura! I like your site, some good comments there. In another thread of the Warrior forum, we are trying to get teams together for some projects; you can read about it here. There idea is to get together teams of people, each with their speciality, and start some marketing experiments. Let us know if you (or anyone else) is interested in participating.
Here's the thread I was talking about...

http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...ml#post1576475

Hi,

looks pretty good, but I can't right now.

I don't have resources left. We are all working 12 hours a day.

Lets keep in touch, my email is all around or you can use the contact form of any of my websites. That's the easier way, I roam around here and twitter, but have periods where I don't show up at all. Hit me there so I have your contact info.

Astrology, hum? fun! how's the year of the metal tiger treating you? It is going to be hot for me! I'm dog (yeah... nice j/ks around it LOLOL ).

Laura

[Jason Perez O'Connor]

its behind because they all moved to english speaking countries like me haha :P

Joke aside, the whole spanish marketing thing hadn't come to mind until today, I shouldn't be wasting my spanish roots ha! :P

[dbolton]

Originally Posted by SantiSantana

I´m spanish myself, from the Canary Islands to be precise. There are a number of misconceptions in the above posts and some things that have not been pointed out. I will try to add my bit to this discussion.

- If writing in spanish you are best advised to write in Castellano, the standard language from Spain, as opposed to american spanish or any of the southamerican versions. The reason for that is simple: it is the standard language taught at schools all over the world. Most of the country specific words tend to be colloquial and not everyone will understand them.

I am subscribed to an american spanish speaking marketer list and I can tell you for a fact many spaniards would look at it with scepticism.

- It is not true that yu cannot write for all of spain in one go. Diallects are one thing, accents are other.

Dialects in Spain include Catalan (catalonia), Gallego (Galicia), Euskera or Vasco (Basque Country) and Astur (Asturias) and after the dictatorship finished most of these have taken on the most deserved denomination of languages in their own right as the argument they are derivations form spanish is baseless since spanish is a derivation of latin in itself ( not to mention the fact Euskera predates latin as far as I know).

Everything else is accents, like in the Canaries where I am from. Sure we have words other regions don´t use and pronounce different but we are all taught in Castellano and we all read it, write it and understand it perfectly. That includes all the regions with their own Diallect ( now language) where they are simply taught in both ( which by the way is better for student development. If they did the same with english we would be a lot better for it, trust me onthis one, the standard of english taught in Spain is nothing short of appalling).

- Contrary to popular belief, there is a big market in Spain and a lot of money is changing hands on websites. Ebay, Buyvip, pretty much any travel agent and a few more can attest to that. the problem is the fgures are not high profile for everyone to see as Spain as a single market is comparatively small yet.

- There has been a lot of controversy in the past with payment options as stated above. The banks have realised this and for a few years now they offer their customers prepaid cards where you load given amounts so if that card gets hacked for some reason your bank account is protected. It has taken quite a bit of time for the public to get onto this, but it is nearly in full swing.

Hint: You might be able to make a lot of money as an affiliate for paypal if you know how to market its advantages to the public in here.

- Piracy: the notion that Spain has a high level of piracy is to some extent true, but it is overdone. On top of that what we "pirate" the most are music and films (movies for the ones on the other side of the pond) and even there peolpe are starting to withdraw slowly because a lot of viruses are transported through these means.

You also have the option of protecting your wares (DLguard and so on) which will make it less likely that they will end up being torrented.

Also notice that the people that search for make money online and other big niches are usually not the same public as the big downloaders, so do not mix them.

-About software: I have has equipment running on pirated versions of windows XP professional ( shame on me), but even that is slowly changing. Most peolpe realise as stated above that pirated copies are risky for viruses ( the SGAE, spanish version of RIAA) have been spending tons of money on telling people illegal copies of everything in the world are bound to be ridden with viruses and the message has spread to everything downloadable. Warez sites that were very popular through the last decade are haveing less traffic because of this fear.

- Volume: Look, if you are selling a 27 euro ebook and you sell 100 copies a month, you are making more than 95% of people on this forum. How is 131 million users a relatively small market?

Hope this helps and I will probably jump back on this thread to give more input.

Hola Santi,

You make a lot of good points. Most especially about the importance of using standard Spanish, not some variation.

I'm glad to hear that the Spanish are getting used to using credit cards, or other payment methods online. For years (while I was living there), many people told me they were afraid to purchase online, or else, they didn't have a credit card.
I do feel the Spanish market should nto be neglected; after all, any project done in "standard" Spanish for Spain can also be used for Central/South America.

And if there is potential in the Spanish market, believe me, there is also a lot in the Japanese market. And here in Japan, the economic level of the people is decidedly higher than in Spain. Of course, the language barrier here is much more formidable!
- David

[gabesroi3]

I noticed that too recently. THe spanish market is aobut 5-7 years behind when it comes to IM.That means it is practically an untouched market. The one big product that I found is selling to hispanics is AfiliadosElite. I'm planning on promoting it and then doing my own product.

[gabesroi3]

Originally Posted by SantiSantana

I´m spanish myself, from the Canary Islands to be precise. There are a number of misconceptions in the above posts and some things that have not been pointed out. I will try to add my bit to this discussion.

- If writing in spanish you are best advised to write in Castellano, the standard language from Spain, as opposed to american spanish or any of the southamerican versions. The reason for that is simple: it is the standard language taught at schools all over the world. Most of the country specific words tend to be colloquial and not everyone will understand them.

I am subscribed to an american spanish speaking marketer list and I can tell you for a fact many spaniards would look at it with scepticism.

- It is not true that yu cannot write for all of spain in one go. Diallects are one thing, accents are other.

Dialects in Spain include Catalan (catalonia), Gallego (Galicia), Euskera or Vasco (Basque Country) and Astur (Asturias) and after the dictatorship finished most of these have taken on the most deserved denomination of languages in their own right as the argument they are derivations form spanish is baseless since spanish is a derivation of latin in itself ( not to mention the fact Euskera predates latin as far as I know).

Everything else is accents, like in the Canaries where I am from. Sure we have words other regions don´t use and pronounce different but we are all taught in Castellano and we all read it, write it and understand it perfectly. That includes all the regions with their own Diallect ( now language) where they are simply taught in both ( which by the way is better for student development. If they did the same with english we would be a lot better for it, trust me onthis one, the standard of english taught in Spain is nothing short of appalling).

- Contrary to popular belief, there is a big market in Spain and a lot of money is changing hands on websites. Ebay, Buyvip, pretty much any travel agent and a few more can attest to that. the problem is the fgures are not high profile for everyone to see as Spain as a single market is comparatively small yet.

- There has been a lot of controversy in the past with payment options as stated above. The banks have realised this and for a few years now they offer their customers prepaid cards where you load given amounts so if that card gets hacked for some reason your bank account is protected. It has taken quite a bit of time for the public to get onto this, but it is nearly in full swing.

Hint: You might be able to make a lot of money as an affiliate for paypal if you know how to market its advantages to the public in here.

- Piracy: the notion that Spain has a high level of piracy is to some extent true, but it is overdone. On top of that what we "pirate" the most are music and films (movies for the ones on the other side of the pond) and even there peolpe are starting to withdraw slowly because a lot of viruses are transported through these means.

You also have the option of protecting your wares (DLguard and so on) which will make it less likely that they will end up being torrented.

Also notice that the people that search for make money online and other big niches are usually not the same public as the big downloaders, so do not mix them.

-About software: I have has equipment running on pirated versions of windows XP professional ( shame on me), but even that is slowly changing. Most peolpe realise as stated above that pirated copies are risky for viruses ( the SGAE, spanish version of RIAA) have been spending tons of money on telling people illegal copies of everything in the world are bound to be ridden with viruses and the message has spread to everything downloadable. Warez sites that were very popular through the last decade are haveing less traffic because of this fear.

- Volume: Look, if you are selling a 27 euro ebook and you sell 100 copies a month, you are making more than 95% of people on this forum. How is 131 million users a relatively small market?

Hope this helps and I will probably jump back on this thread to give more input.

I think the markt in Mexico, Central America, and South America is WIDE OPEN. Spain and Europe are alot more up to date.

[ElMundodelExito]

Originally Posted by gabesroi3

I noticed that too recently. THe spanish market is about 5-7 years behind when it comes to IM.That means it is practically an untouched market. The one big product that I found is selling to hispanics is AfiliadosElite. I'm planning on promoting it and then doing my own product.

I promoted the AfiliadosElite like crazy but could not convert
I believe the spanish market got a future but right now (for sure) it is pretty tough .
BTY a got a list of subscribers(spanish speakers) in the self development niche if somebody wants to do an ad swap please pm
Gracias