This piece is part of a series on targeted health care marketing, highlighting stories from people in the trenches throughout the industry. Read the first and second stories in the series.
Mariza Hardin grew up as an intermediary between her family and the health care system in rural New Mexico.
She experienced firsthand many of the hurdles facing Latinx patients living in the US.
And throughout her almost 20-year career in health care, Hardin has been plagued by hard questions, including: What can be done to make health care more accessible, especially for vulnerable populations?
An ounce of prevention
According to a 2022 Pew Research Center study, Latinx and Hispanic Americans have the highest uninsured rates of any US racial or ethnic group. They are also less likely to have a primary care physician or seek preventive care and often report negative health care experiences.
In 2021, Hardin co-founded Zócalo Health, a virtual health care startup that serves Latinx patients in California and Texas. The “culturally aligned” health care company aims to connect with a community that’s historically been hard to reach, due to barriers such as language, culture and accessibility.
Hardin met her co-founder, Erik Cardenas, when they were both part of the Amazon Care founding team, Amazon’s now discontinued health care delivery program. Cardenas, who grew up in Houston, had also helped his family navigate the health care system and “feel heard,” Hardin said.
To put patients at ease, Zócalo hires a mix of “promotoras” and health care providers who speak Spanish and understand the culture and traditions of Latinx patients. “Promotora” is the term for a lay health worker who works in the community to facilitate access to health-related resources.
Care, be aware
Many Latinx patients put stock in home remedies and traditions passed down through many generations of their families. Rather than dismissing these home remedies, a culturally aware physician can recommend treatments that work in concert with what patients already feel comfortable doing.
Similarly, a care provider can empathize with patients who might come into a doctor’s office unable to describe exactly what’s wrong or how to ask for help. Rather than rushing to assign specific medical labels to patients, a better plan is to get to know them as people first – their lifestyle and priorities – and then figuring out how to get them the care they need.
Patients don’t have to provide identification or any other documentation to use Zócalo’s subscription-based telehealth services. They pay a monthly or annual membership fee directly to Zócalo rather than going through insurance companies.
Hardin spoke with AdExchanger.
AdExchanger: What tactics do you use when advertising to vulnerable and underrepresented populations?
MARIZA HARDIN: Some brands and industries translate their content into Spanish, but most times one-to-one translation doesn’t work. Health care is notorious for missing the real meaning of words.
We don’t just rely on simple translations. We cater our messaging, content and marketing experience to the Latino population. We also design our brand experience to align with the needs of the community outside of health care.
Health is everything that happens outside of a doctor’s visit. We think about where our core demographic is spending their time, the music they listen to and the food they eat.
How do you incorporate people’s daily habits into health care marketing?
We focus on millennial Latinas, which is a group that, according to our research, makes a lot of health care decisions for the family. She’s caring for her children, her parents and her grandparents. She’s probably also caring for a husband or partner who doesn’t want to go to a physician or get health care because they don’t think they need it. We want to empower the millennial Latina to make better and easier health care decisions.
One thing Zócalo offers that most health care brands don’t is a membership experience where this demographic can come and say, “I need help with this health care issue,” and we can connect her to other resources in the community. We can get her a doctor’s appointment, but we can also connect her to a yoga studio that’s offering free classes this month.
We’re very intentional about what’s important to that Latina at the time she’s making a health care decision and trying to speak to her needs.
For targeted ads, how do you decide when something should be in Spanish versus English?
Most of the younger Latino demographic we focus on consumes their content in English. They have a very high loyalty toward Latino brands and Latino companies, but they want to consume their content in English. A lot of our content right now is in English, with Spanglish thrown in to help customers feel that sense of culture and connection.
This will evolve over time as we get parents in the door who prefer Spanish. But we have to build the trust with the main health care decision maker in the family first. Younger Latinos, who are our main customers, are really loyal to brands that can flex in both languages but are primarily in English.
Any big do’s or don’ts when targeting health care marketing to a Latinx population?
Don’t rely on a computer program or AI to do translations. They don’t work 100% of the time, and if you get one word wrong, you’ve lost trust.
You have to work to understand the community you’re trying to target at a very grassroots level. Who is your community? What do they value? What is the content they’re already consuming, and how do you align with that same brand and feel?
It’s not enough to find some stock photos of people eating tacos at a dinner table.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
For more articles featuring Mariza Hardin , click here.
