Do Marketing In Spanish To Beat Your Competitors

What if you found out that you and most of your competitors aren’t marketing in Spanish yet? It may not come as a big surprise, as English is the most spoken language in the United States and the universal business language, so why would it matter that you’re not reaching a small part of the population? Because, in business, every way to gain an advantage is what separates companies that fail and those that thrive. Brands lose customers every day because they don’t do marketing in Spanish and therefore don’t get in front of the Latino population.

Put plainly, doing marketing in Spanish is now a business necessity, not just something you can do when you have “extra time”. Your competitors aren’t doing any Spanish marketing for the same reasons you are: either you don’t see the value in it as a business owner, or you don’t have the staff necessary to talk to the Spanish-speaking community. However, we’re about to go over how the Spanish-speaking market is bigger than you think and that almost no businesses have a Spanish website.

How big is the Spanish-speaking market? Probably bigger than many businesses realize. When looking at the demographics of the United States, many people assume that the white or Caucasian population is the largest, followed by the African American community, with the Hispanic/Latino population next on the list. However, that is no longer the case. As of 2003, Hispanics became the largest minority in the United States.

Now, before we go any further, we want to acknowledge that we mention Hispanics and Latinos interchangeably. Hispanics are descendants from Spain, while Latinos are from Latin America. Since we’re talking about marketing in Spanish, we’re including everyone who speaks Spanish. Now, just how big is the Spanish-speaking market as a whole? Let’s look at the United States first and then expand our view to the rest of the world to see the full picture.

According to the U.S. Census, using 2025 population estimates, the areas with the largest Hispanic and Latino populations, by either percentage and total population, are as follows:

1. 49.4% of New Mexicans are Hispanic or Latino, or 1,049,996 people
2. 41.2% of Californians are Hispanic or Latino, or 16,214,387 people
3. 40.9% of Texans are Hispanic or Latino, or 12,969,317 people
4. 29.2% of Floridians are Hispanic or Latino, or 6,851,055 people
5. 21.0% of New Yorkers are Hispanic or Latino, or 4,200,510 people
6. 19.9% of Illinoisans are Hispanic or Latino, or 2,531,109 people

Overall, out of every five people living in the United States of America (20.5% to be exact), claim to be of Hispanic or Latino descent, which equates to 70,065,896 people. Now, think about this in a different way. If Spanish-speakers were to leave the United States and form their own country, this is what it would look like:​

• The United States would drop from the 3rd most populous country down to 5th
• The Spanish-Speaking community, on their own, would become the 22nd most populous country, just behind Thailand but ahead of the United Kingdom

Now let’s look at the entire world. Some of the countries and areas we’ll mention may have minority populations that speak local dialects or a mix of Spanish and native languages, but our focus is on areas where Spanish is predominantly spoken. So, how many people in the world speak Spanish? According to Ethnologue:

• English is spoken by 1.493 billion people
• Mandarin Chinese is spoken by 1.183 billion people
• Hindi is spoken by 611 million people
• Spanish is spoken by 561 million people

If the world’s population is around 8.3 billion people, that means Spanish speakers make up approximately 6.76% of the global population. Also noteworthy is that the 2026 FIFA World Cup final was between two Spanish-speaking countries.

So, why should a business owner care about Spanish speakers if English is the international language of business? Because you’re not only missing out on more than 6.76% of the world population, but also their buying power. So, how does the Spanish-speaking economy look? Worldwide, Spanish speakers represent an estimated $9.08 trillion in combined GDP—equivalent to the third-largest economy in the world.

That means the Spanish-speaking economy is only behind the United States and China. For a brand, that is a lot of money left on the table if you’re not actively doing marketing in Spanish. As you can see, marketing in Spanish represents a huge strategic advantage for English-speaking businesses in the United States and beyond.

That means the Spanish-speaking economy is only behind the United States and China. For a brand, that is a lot of money left on the table if you’re not actively doing marketing in Spanish. As you can see, marketing in Spanish represents a huge strategic advantage for English-speaking businesses in the United States and beyond.

If websites are the digital storefront for a brand, then the information in them needs to speak to all current and future clients. However, most of your competitors aren’t marketing in Spanish yet, creating a huge opportunity for your business to stand out with a Spanish-language website.

Our experts here at Burning Ox Marketing wanted to show just how significant the gap is in Spanish-language marketing, specifically on websites in the United States. So, we analyzed 1,614 websites across several different industries to see how many had Spanish content on their websites. Keep in mind that this is actual static content, not content that has simply been translated into Spanish using an automated translation tool. Also, we looked at whether websites had more than just “Se habla español” or just a line of Spanish content. When we tallied up the results, they were surprising to say the least. This is what we found:​

• Out of 1,614 websites, only 11 websites had at least some Spanish content. That equates to only 0.68%.
• Out of the 11 websites, only two had multiple pages of content in Spanish. That’s only 0.124%.
• Also, only two websites were completely bilingual, accounting for just 0.124% of all the websites analyzed.
• Finally, seven websites had either a Spanish page or Spanish intake forms, accounting for just 0.432% of all the websites analyzed.

It’s surprising to see that only 0.68% of websites in the United States are targeting the 20% of the U.S. population who are Hispanic or Latino and may be searching for information online in Spanish. This represents a huge missed opportunity for businesses across the country.

For the sake of this study, we targeted seven industries in four states, ranging from electricians to attorneys. Once again, the results were surprising, highlighting how underdeveloped Spanish-language marketing is. In each state, this is how many websites had at least some Spanish content:​

• Utah had two
• Nebraska had one
• Texas had two
• Arizona had the most at six

This again surprised us in that these four states have a combined Hispanic or Latino population of 16,360,498, yet they have only 11 websites targeting them. For reference, this is what the US Census estimates each of those four states has for that demographic:

• Utah has 622,847 Hispanics or Latinos
• Nebraska has 290,593 Hispanics or Latinos
• Texas has 12,969,317 Hispanics or Latinos
• Arizona has 2,477,741 Hispanics or Latinos

Now, we know that not all Hispanics or Latinos speak Spanish, and we also know that not everyone will need the services we looked at. However, these seven industries across four states demonstrate the significant competitive advantage these 11 websites have over their competitors. Those that recognize the value of marketing in Spanish and implement it will not only get the attention of people searching in Spanish, but also have the opportunity to rank in AI tools and search engines like Google for terms that are much less competitive.

Marketing in Spanish has changed from something that would be nice to do to a business necessity. However, most of your competitors aren’t doing it. With 20% of people living in America potentially speaking Spanish, Spanish being the fourth most spoken language in the world, and the combined GDP of Spanish-speaking countries estimated at over $9 trillion, businesses that fail to adapt risk being left behind. Whether you’re a business that needs Spanish-language support, translations, website enhancements, being cited and mentioned on AI, paid ads, content marketing, paid or organic social media marketing, selling goods online, a bilingial website, or anything else Spanish-related, our bilingual digital marketing agency can help. Contact us today to get your Spanish marketing started.