In October 2011 at the New America Alliance summit in New York, Sol Trujillo, an American businessman of Mexican descent, brought to the world’s attention that the U.S. Hispanic market has more purchasing power per capita than all four BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) in his presentation “Follow the Money.”
During this time, he also stated the U.S. Hispanic market would reach $1.5 trillion in purchasing power by 2015 due to the U.S. Hispanic market being young, able to contribute to increased productivity, and growing in per capita income with a growing appetite for consumption.
Well thanks to Mr. Trujillo, the secret is out. Since 1988 when my husband Joe Badame and I first founded El Clasificado we already knew that the U.S. Hispanic market was growing and spending. One of our first sales collateral pieces hailed that in 1989 the Hispanic community of Los Angeles had 27 billion dollars in buying power. El Clasificado, with 90,000 weekly circulation and 6 neighborhood zones was the most effective Hispanic print publication to tap into this lucrative and growing market.
Now everyone wants a piece of the U.S. Hispanic market. In 2012 Argentina’s La Nacion bought 90% of Impremedia, the largest Spanish language network of newspapers in the U.S. In June 2013 the BBC announced that they had a new management team to lead the company’s Latin American and U.S. Hispanic operations. Facebook announced in November 2013 the expansion of their Miami office to launch an initiative to better connect clients and agencies with U.S. Hispanic Facebook users of which there is an estimated 23 million active Hispanic Facebook users every month.
Although El Clasificado is currently celebrating our 25th year in business, it is the beginning of a new era. El Clasificado has emerged into EC Hispanic Media. Our successful print magazine with 48 zones and weekly circulation of 510,000 is still growing but is definitely a mature business. On the other hand elclasificado.com, the number 1 classified shopping site serving the US Spanish speaking market, is just emerging from being a bootstrapped business to becoming a digital powerhouse in Hispanic media with 20 million monthly page views and digital revenues expected to exceed $3 million in 2014.
Please join me as we journey through this business roller coaster and my life as an entrepreneur. I look forward to sharing my story, insights into our Hispanic market and tips on how you can participate and reach this growing and lucrative segment of the US economy.
My name is Martha de la Torre. I was born in East Los Angeles and I never wanted to become an entrepreneur.
