marketing matters

Hispanic Market Focus

by Erinn Morgan

In 2002, after perusing the 2000 U.S. Census, optician Romel Quinones took a chance. Eyeing an impressive growth spike of the Hispanic population in Kansas City, Mo., where his optical shop Eye Care Optical was located, gave Quinones the inspiration for a unique marketing concept.

Tired of getting little return on his investment with local newspaper and radio advertising, Quinones decided to take matters into his own hands and launch a Spanish-language Yellow Pages-like directory for the Hispanic population in Kansas City.

"I wanted to reach the Hispanic market and I was tired of radio being too expensive and newspapers just weren't working," says Quinones, who was born and raised in Puerto Rico. "I knew if I had my own medium I could do it properly."

He figured the directory, called Nuestro Directorio, would give him the exposure he needed in this emerging market plus net him additional income. His vision would become a reality far beyond his wildest dreams.

But, as with many new business ventures, the directory would experience a bumpy start.

"We got the typical response when proposing something new," he says. "People said ‘Call me when your'e established.’ So, after three months, not one of us had sold an ad. Not one."

MOVING AHEAD

Resolute in the viability of his concept, Quinones went ahead and printed the first directory in 2004 without any paid advertising. "I made 5,000 books at $1 a piece and I had myself plastered all over the book plus one chiropractor; I gave free listings to all the other businesses," says Quinones. "It came out at Christmas and after January 1st, the majority of them called and said they wanted in because they were getting calls from new customers that found them through the directory."

Today, Quinones prints 50,000 complimentary directories that are distributed free through Hispanic businesses each year. He says that Nuestro Directorio now generates $125,000 in revenues for his company and provides him with over $100,000 in free advertising for Eye Care Optical. "In the end, it generates over $500,000 a year in additional revenues for our stores," he says.

Prior to making it a priority to advertise and cater to Hispanic consumers, Quinones focused on catering to HMOs and a clientele that required safety eyewear. His optical shop did a reasonable amount of business. Today, he has expanded Eye Care Optical to four Kansas City locations, including one across the border in Kansas City, Kan., and boasts $2 million in yearly revenues. He says the four stores, collectively, draw in 400 new Hispanic customers each month.

"In our Northeast office, the customer base is 80 percent Hispanic and a different office is currently at 60 percent. Overall, that's where my growth has been, but we still do a lot of business with HMOs and patients from the construction industry that require safety eyewear."

The onus on selling to the growing Hispanic market has helped Quinones succeed.

Quinones also employs 20 opticians and workers, 15 of which are bilingual, as is he. Seven of these employees, along with Quinones, form a special team within Eye Care Optical that actually handles all the sales of advertising space and listings in Nuestro Directorio.

During the directory's selling season, which runs from August to December, these opticians rotate between working in the dispensary with patients and multitasking in another room in the office as sales associates selling ad space. Quinones says their commissions, on top of an optician's salaries, make them some of the highest-paid opticians in the country.

"Our office manager is making $50,000 managing the office and almost half that again on the commission she makes from selling directory advertising," he says. Certainly, these kinds of perks ensure employee loyalty in the long run. "Our employees that are involved in selling ads will probably never go anywhere else."

With his success in Kansas City under his belt, Quinones plans to launch a similar venture in Las Vegas this year. This time, however, he plans to work with an existing optical shop there as a sponsor.

"Nevada is a licensed state and I'd have to work under someone there for two years to get a license," he says. "Instead, I hope to work with a shop and help them do what I did here with the Hispanic market, which is also booming there." EB