The following interview has been transcribed for our readers from rev.com. Please excuse any discrepancies in the transcription.
Eric Bersano:
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Legal Mastermind Podcast. Today we have a guest with us, his name is Hugo Gomez, and he is the founder of Abogados NOW. Hugo, welcome to the podcast.
Hugo Gomez:
Thanks for having me, Eric.
Eric Bersano:
No problem. So no secret based on the name of the firm that you founded that you’re targeting the Hispanic population, but give us a little bit of a background about how you decided to start this company and maybe some trends that you’re seeing.
Hugo Gomez:
Sure. So I have a deep history in lead generation in legal, consumer finance, commercial finance for a little over a decade. And I have quite a bit of exposure in recent years to the Spanish lead sales market, which I always thought was pretty fascinating. However, I found that many attorneys that buy leads or buy data from third parties, they saw an interest in marketing themselves in Spanish, which is a totally different angle than just buying leads from third parties. So we saw that there was a gap in the market for attorneys that wanted to put their name and likeness out there, but in Spanish, namely through digital marketing. And so that’s where we come in. Abogados NOW is an agency, but we operate as a consultancy. We really get into the weeds about what an attorney is looking for for their business and reverse engineer a plan that goes over six or 12 months to find them additional revenue or additional clients, namely through Spanish digital marketing on their behalf.
Eric Bersano:
Yeah. So this is a really interesting category to me. I’ve worked with lawyers for over 15 years now, and I have talked to a lot of people who want to tap into what I think is considered an underserved market. There’s tons and tons of advertising out there and help available in English, but how does an attorney get their message out to a specific population? So what would you say would be the differences between marketing and Spanish and marketing in English?
Hugo Gomez:
Yeah, at a high level, there’s some fundamental truths across the country. Now, advertising in Spanish is pretty delicate because there isn’t a one-size-fits-all strategy, as generally speaking, Hispanics are not a monolith, there are many different segments of the Hispanic market across the country. But however, regardless of how nuanced it can be, there are some fundamental truths in English versus Spanish. In English, what really works is promoting an attorney, their pedigree, their background, and the successes of the firm, presumably under the management of that attorney. It is very high level, but it works. It works in English. In Spanish, that doesn’t check out all that well. In Spanish, what we find is most important to generally the Hispanic consumer is a successful firm that is super bilingual friendly. So we oftentimes do not advertise an attorney at the forefront of our marketing, we generally advertise bilingual staff or access to people who can speak Spanish to the consumer. We find that those are the biggest needle movers in English versus Spanish and we’ve doubled down on that with all of our members at our inner program. We really focus on that nuance.
Eric Bersano:
Now, do you see that the Hispanic population is looking for… Let’s just say that there is an attorney born and raised here, but speaks Spanish. Does that win some credibility or would that population really rather speak to someone who was a native born Spanish speaker? Would they feel more comfortable with that or is there nuance in that as well?
Hugo Gomez:
Not necessarily. We haven’t found… So the majority of Abogados NOW members are attorneys who do not speak Spanish. And they do quite well in our program, namely because we set the expectation and we’re honest with the Hispanic consumer about what they will experience when calling into the firm. So we’re just open and honest. If the attorney speaks Spanish, we will proudly advertise that. But if they don’t, we will proudly advertise where they can speak Spanish, which is generally their staff, their intake, receptionists, case managers, et cetera. And so as long as we understand what the bilingual friendliness scale is within the firm, that’s what we’ll openly and honestly advertise to the consumer.
Eric Bersano:
And then do you notice any differences practice area wise? I assume you’re talking about all practice areas here, there’s personal injury, family, criminal defense. Is it pretty universal across the board or would one practice area take a different approach than others?
Hugo Gomez:
So generally speaking, Hispanic populations face the same issues as those of the general market. Folks are having immigration changes or they need to go through Visa applications or they have a criminal defense issue or they’ve been in an auto accident. These things happen to the populations at large at arguably similar rates. So we don’t necessarily see that Hispanics are more or less likely to be involved in certain practice areas, what we see across the board is that Hispanics are less likely to be advertised to in all these practice areas, which is generally where we come in.
Eric Bersano:
And is there a foundation that you look for in a practice that you’re working with? And what I mean, if I came to you, I was a solo, I don’t speak Spanish, and I said, “Hey, I would like to tap into this market.” Would you say, “Hey, you need to have someone who’s at least bilingual.” Or what type of a foundation are you looking for or is there one?
Hugo Gomez:
There is, yeah. Generally speaking, an attorney has to have someone working for them who can answer calls in Spanish or they need a bilingual answering service or they would opt into our virtual professional add-on, which is where we recruit and train someone on the attorney’s behalf to essentially act as their executive assistant and intake manager. So there’s always a way to answer these calls. We’ve found a way for any attorney considering our program to be able to answer these calls. Ideally though, it’s more preferable that an attorney already has some kind of bilingual resources within their staff, it just makes it easier to onboard.
Eric Bersano:
And when you see people, so let’s just say there’s a marketing strategy, you’re reaching out for let’s say a particular practice area, let’s just say personal injury. And this may sound like a stupid question, but I wonder this all the time. Is the marketing in Spanish first? Do you ever market to the Hispanic population in English, but letting them know that there’s bilingual? I’m curious as how do you tap into this market, is it with SEO, is it with social media? What are those mediums that you’re using?
Hugo Gomez:
It’s a great question. It’s always assumed that what we do is only in Spanish, where Hispanics, much like myself and much like a lot of our team members, speak both English and Spanish. There’s a lot of data out there that suggests that Hispanics who are bicultural, bilingual or whether or not they live in an English dominant household or a Spanish dominant household, they tend to gravitate towards brands and organizations that address the fact that they are Hispanic. So we do both, we advertise to Hispanic markets that are both in English and Spanish dominant households.
And generally speaking, across the board nationwide, we find that mobile video advertising is the best way to generate leads in Spanish. In English, not so much. English, there’s still a limited opportunity to grow in SEO and in general, pay-per-click Google search. But in Spanish, it’s fairly wide open, which is why it’s been so easy for us to get a lot of market share in significant communities. It’s because we’re taking up a lot of available ad real estate that most attorneys aren’t even aware of. And by and large, it’s mobile video in Spanish for Spanish dominant households, that’s where we generate the majority of our lead volume.
Eric Bersano:
And do you see a pattern of who’s reaching out? And that could differ between practice area. For example, if it’s a family, is it usually the mother who’s reaching out or is it the kids who are more online and saying, “Wow, my father was injured and he needs somebody.” Or in an immigration case, do you seeing some differences of who’s the person who fills out the intake form or calls?
Hugo Gomez:
Yes. What we find is that when we advertise to Hispanics in English, they’re oftentimes calling for themselves or on behalf of a loved one. Whereas in Spanish dominant marketing, Spanish dominant ads, folks are by and large calling directly on behalf of themselves. So yeah, there is a difference for sure. I’ve been into that cohort anecdotally, if I’m looking for resources, professional services, taxes, legal, home repair, I’m searching in English. If I see effective advertising that says, “We speak Spanish, we have bilingual staff,” I can call that company confidently and say, “Okay, I’m going to defer to you my mom now. Now my mom can talk to you, you guys can work out your business.” I think that’s a pretty common story, I think it’s a super underrepresented story, especially given the fact that nearly one in five people in the United States are Hispanic according to the US Census. So I don’t see that nuance going away, if anything, I think this, if you will, niche marketing will become a requirement for any organization including legal.
Eric Bersano:
Is there any trust factors that you try to build up more than others for that segment? Is there messaging? Because you’ve been doing marketing for a while, is there something specific in the Spanish marketing that is different? I know you mentioned a couple of things in the beginning about bona fides of the attorney, but can you elaborate on that?
Hugo Gomez:
Yeah. I think in Spanish testimonials are even more important because you need social proof that you do and have worked with Hispanic communities. I think that’s really important to illustrate. In fact, you should over-communicate it. It’s almost every other day I’m going to call with an attorney and I am shocked when they tell me that more than half of their business comes from Hispanic communities. Meanwhile, online, there is no semblance or story or narrative that suggests so. I think that’s pretty important to illustrate prior success with Hispanic clients because it just confirms that if someone is learning about your firm at that moment, on that PPC click or that discovery Facebook lead, you get more buy-in. So I think that’s super important.
Separately, and this is more in the metro areas, if you can illustrate that you understand the immigrant story and if you work in an area of law where documentation statuses is irrelevant, you should say that. You should say that proudly on your homepage, on your hero segment. Most people don’t go beyond your homepage to really understand what you provide as a firm, as an attorney, so you should tell them that above the fold, first things first that, “Regardless of documentation status, we can work with you. Here are our testimonials with other like-minded Spanish-speaking clients on video. And we have a bilingual staff.” You can communicate all that in 10 seconds above the fold. And so we really try to double down those fundamental truths in Spanish marketing so that when we’re spending all these expensive ad dollars for the attorneys, they know that they can hedge their bet that this is more likely to work in Spanish than it is in English.
Eric Bersano:
And the testimonials, and we push that all the time, reviews are huge. There’s Google, Yelp, Facebook, all have review platforms. Would you suggest they have at least a few reviews in Spanish, whether that’s video or written?
Hugo Gomez:
It helps. And if they don’t have any, we’ll help source them for them from their prior client list. We oftentimes do video shoots, that’s a great opportunity to bring in recent success stories like clients who’ve had recent successes into the office for us to get their story on camera. We shoot them for 10 to 20 minutes and we oftentimes get about 30 seconds to two minutes of great footage for a testimonial story. So we really encourage that because it’s just less buy-in on the front end for the consumer that is just learning about your brand. And so we’re really sensitive to the reality that when a consumer is seeing your brand, they’re more than likely going to see three or four other available links or competitors. That is, if you’re in a market that is growing in Spanish-speaking marketing, which most are now.
Eric Bersano:
And do you see differences in the US? So I’m in California, San Diego, so there’s obviously a large Mexican population here. But if you’re in South Florida or New York, you’re going to have a Hispanic population there as well, but it might be heavily Cuban or Puerto Rican. Is there any difference in messaging there, if you’re working in different states where the population might be a little different?
Hugo Gomez:
Emphatically yes. Because if you’re a Hispanic person in the United States, your general outlook on the United States and your value set will be defined by how you came into the country. And so that could be documented, undocumented, through asylum, et cetera. There are countries where immigrants are more likely to have one of those stories, one of those lanes into the country. So being super mindful of that, being super mindful of the population density of these specific immigrant segments is key to launching. With attorneys, we don’t even get into conversations about videos or marketing or website until we give them an understanding that we believe we have an angle based on their local markets.
So a great example is New York or Jersey where it is arguably the toughest market to break out into Spanish because it is so diverse. Lots of Ecuadorian folks, El Salvadorian, Peruvians, Dominican Republicans, Hondurans. It is a mixed population, which is great, it’s what makes New York what it is. However, there’s so many different stories to each of those market segments. So we have to generally be conservative in the messaging. Whereas in South Florida where it’s generally largely Cuban, we can really double down on the Cuban nature of the population. Similarly to Southern California, its population is very dense with Mexicans. It’s not to say we discount other ethnicities in the area, but we generally work with the averages and that pans out really well. So when we have an understanding of what the local Spanish-speaking market is, that’s when we can actually put everything to order with our team, from websites, videos, ad creative. The most important step in our program is understanding that local market on your behalf.
Eric Bersano:
Yeah. So when you’re talking with a law firm or working with them, are you doing all the heavy lifting? Are you wanting them to be involved as well? Is the advertising speaking on behalf of the law firm? Or do you want this to be the voice of the law firm? Meaning social media is obviously something that a lot of law firms are now starting to get more engaged with. Do they have to have a good social media presence or is this completely a separate advertising where you’re funneling leads to the firm?
Hugo Gomez:
We’re essentially building a new Spanish online business for the firm, and that is explicitly advertising the firm. So an example is the J&Y Law Firm in California, they’re a personal injury law firm in English. When we started working with them about four or five years ago, they recognized the opportunity to build more of a client base within Spanish-speaking communities. So J&Y Law online continues to exist and grow in English, we help them there as well.
However, in order for them to scale effectively in Spanish, we had to build them a new brand called Abogados Campeones. We built them a new website fully in Spanish, video ads all in Spanish, all the ad creative, Spanish, blogs, Spanish, content marketing, social media accounts, completely separate, all in Spanish. So what we were essentially doing is building a new online Spanish business for the firm and leveraging it in the interest of lead generation. Generally speaking, it does require a separate online business, though sometimes we work with attorneys who already have a functional bilingual outfit and that we can certainly leverage. But more often than not, most attorneys need to build something above and beyond what they already have.
Eric Bersano:
And are you seeing that there’s potential for this no matter where you are in the US? I mean, obviously there’s pockets of the US that it’s more dense, but are you seeing opportunities anywhere?
Hugo Gomez:
Yes. I mean, just nationwide. Virtually all states, according to the US Census have experienced some growth of Hispanic populations. That’s almost across the board, with few exceptions. So yes, we think that anyone that’s… We oftentimes get into conversations with attorneys who say, “I’m noticing that the Hispanic population’s growing in my market.” And I’ll oftentimes tell them, “That’s probably reflective of a greater trend in the US census data.” So if you’re seeing it front row, it’s probably something you should be paying attention to.
Eric Bersano:
And I would assume, and tell me if I’m wrong, but if you are a younger firm, meaning you’re just starting out and you’re looking for a niche to carve out, this might be a really good niche because not as competitive as the English market. You can come in, maybe with smaller budgets, and really carve out a name for yourself in an area that’s hyper-competitive in English. And the cases are just as valuable, you really can set yourself apart. And I see with the internet, you get a lot more fractionalization now, used to be just whoever had the biggest TV budget or whoever bought the back of the phone book was getting all the business, but now you can carve out a niche like this, it sounds like.
Hugo Gomez:
Yeah. I mean, the bar of entry for any digital marketing is so low right now that any attorney, and I’m sure you’ve seen this with some potential clients that you wanted to sign onto your program, that they’re evaluating whether or not they want to scale it with an agency or whether or not they can continue doing it themselves to some extent. And so the bar of entry is quite low, but what that means is that the saturation is at an all time high. It’s only going to get more saturated, as unbelievable as it sounds. So in order for any firm to grow, whether you’re a new practitioner or whether you’re looking to scale, you need a competitive edge. What we found is that the only competitive edge that is available out there is remarkable creative in any language, which is really rare to find. Or two, the ability to tap into new audiences that your competitors haven’t yet tapped into.
So where we come in is we find out how competitive your market is in Spanish in the legal category. If we have a high confidence that it’s fairly wide open, you will do extraordinarily well in a very short amount of time, three to six months, you’ll grow significantly. However, we find that those markets are less and less available, namely one, because we’re signing a bunch of them, but two, because I think attorneys are getting more privy to the reality of that second competitive advantage, it’s new audience. Most attorneys don’t have slush funds for multimillion dollar creative nor have relationships with networks for great ad buyings. So they know that they need to be a little more creative, a little more economical. Even though the bar of entry is low right now in Spanish, it’s generally becoming higher because the nuance required to do it right, as we’ve discussed earlier in the market studies, is making it such where not everyone can do it right. So even in an increasingly saturated market, I think attorneys are going to weed themselves out as they find themselves not really able to tap into this market effectively.
Eric Bersano:
Yeah, I think one of the biggest keys when marketing to any audience is authenticity. And if you understand the audience and you understand the demographics that you’re targeting, and we’ve already talked about how nuanced that could be, now you’re spending your dollars effectively. Whether that’s to expand your current reach, because there’s a lot of law firms out there that are hyper successful, but this might be another 10% or 20% of the market that they haven’t tapped into in their own backyard. Or a smaller firm who’s saying, “God, I need to find a way into this market.” And this could be their entry point into their local market. So Hugo, I really appreciate you being here and sharing your company with us. Is there anything that you’d like to finish with or can you at least let people know where they can learn more about you and if this is a good fit for their firm?
Hugo Gomez:
If you’re looking to scale your firm through largely untapped markets, it’s generally Spanish-speaking markets that are the biggest opportunity for any attorney looking to scale their marketing. If you’d like to meet with myself or one of our new business development representatives, feel free to schedule an appointment at Abogadosnow.com. We actually just launched our new website and we’re really proud of it. So please take a look at it and book an appointment if you’re super serious about scaling in new markets.