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INTERVIEW WITH ANIBAL TORRES
One newspaper that laid careful groundwork for its Spanish-language product was the Orlando Sentinel, which began running “Impacto,” a page to a page and a half of local Hispanic news in its Sunday edition every week in 1999.
Three years ago, the paper launched El Sentinel, a 60,000 circulation weekly that is distributed to households and at various single-copy locations on Saturdays.
Anibal Torres, publisher of El Sentinel, recently agreed to talk about the marketing strategy behind the paper’s launch, and how it continues to reach out to readers and advertisers.
Torres, who moved to Orlando after working as managing director/Latin America for McGraw-Hill for nearly 20 years, was regional divisional manager in charge of advertising and marketing of the zoned editions of the Orlando Sentinel from 1996 to 2002. He was named publisher of El Sentinel in 2003.
QUESTION: How is your publication promoted?
ANIBAL: We have several ways that we do promotion, through Hispanic radio and outdoor billboards, but most of our promotional effort is through event marketing. We do more than 25 of these events -- outdoor music festivals, health fairs and community events -- each year.
We also promote events, or our product, to potentials advertisers with space in the Orlando Sentinel.
QUESTION: What marketing partnerships have you created?
ANIBAL: We’ve had a partnership with the local Telemundo affiliate for two years now, and have an agreement to do cross-promotional events together. Event sponsorships with them have been most cost-effective. We get the word out in the community, we’re seen, we promote circulation, and we talk to potential advertisers there as well.
We provide news segments to Telemundo during the week. On Nov. 1, they’ll launch their own daily newscast, and we’ll have a chance to provide news analysis and news content for them. We’ll promote their programming in our paper, and they’ll promote our newspaper on their station.
We’ll both be sponsoring a debate for one of the seats in our state legislature that’s in a Hispanic-dominant district, and Telemundo will televise the debate.
QUESTION: How do you integrate your Web site with your newspaper?
ANIBAL: Since we’re a Saturday weekly, we upload our whole Saturday paper to the Web site (www.ElSentinel.com) and update the news daily. So the printed product is weekly, but the Web site is updated daily. We promote the Web site in our paper, and in the community. Our logo has El Sentinel and ElSentinel.com, so whenever we promote our brand, both are mentioned.
Our Web site is the most comprehensive Spanish news Web site for central Florida . Puerto Ricans are the dominant population segment here, but there’s a strong Venezuelan, Colombian, and Mexican community as well. We try to reach all those segments.
QUESTION: How do the buying habits of Hispanics drive your marketing and advertising?
ANIBAL: Orlando is one of the top five in the nation, in terms of Hispanic per capita spending, so there is an avid consumer market here. For example, I’m of Puerto Rican descent, and Puerto Ricans are very active consumers. They’re very familiar with U.S. brands in the islands, so there’s already a familiarity with retailers here. We encourage retailers to target these groups to maintain that brand loyalty.
For newcomers who are just moving here, they’re buying homes and furnishing them. You need a car to get around because there’s not a lot of mass transit. So categories like real estate, furniture and automotive are big.
After Hispanics are here for a while, their buying habits are like any other locals. Food is big, too. We’ve got non-Hispanic chains like Albertsons and Wal-Mart that are trying to target Hispanics because they know Hispanics spend a lot of money on food.
QUESTION: How did you make the Hispanic community aware of your launch? How many copies were distributed initially?
ANIBAL: The Orlando Sentinel was involved in the community before our launch, so they had already established relationships. I was representing the Orlando Sentinel in a lot of Hispanic organizations and community events at the time, so when we launched El Sentinel, it was the next natural phase.
Our target number was 60,000, and we started with home delivery to 48,000 homes and 12,000 to single-copy locations. Now, we’re at 46,000 homes and 14,000 single-copy. We scratched some of the home deliveries because the people in the houses either weren’t Hispanic, or because the Hispanics there didn’t want the paper. We’re at a 92 percent pick up rate with singe-copy. As the market grows, I’m sure the numbers will continue to grow.
QUESTION: What are the top reasons Hispanics use your newspaper?
ANIBAL: In our market, it’s to receive local news. Being in central Florida , we’re being targeted by politicians. People want to know more about politics, education, immigration and entertainment. We hope our paper educates people on the issues that impact that lives, and we hope to give them a reliable vehicle for advertising.
The most important thing that will assure that your product’s going to picked up and read is making sure your content is solid and compelling. We go out into the community a lot to ask what they want. Sometimes we have questionnaires at our booths at events. We organize community forums to talk about what people like and don’t like in the paper. We also have an annual contest to give away trips to the Caribbean , and ask a few questions about what people think of our product.
QUESTION: Is your paper free or paid? What drove that decision?
ANIBAL: The paper is free. Ours is not a big commuter market where people will pick up papers after getting off trains or buses, so our business model was to offer a home-delivered product that’s free.
In this area, there are two other Spanish-language weeklies that publish on Thursday, so we decided to distribute on Saturday. So far, it’s proven successful.