Susanne Hornikel compares Germany’s traditional Mail Order World event with the online fair dmexpo, which were held within days of each other recently.

There was a real novelty in Germany this autumn – two direct marketing conventions held in just two weeks!
After the online fair dmexpo (digital marketing exposition & conference) in Cologne, the traditional Mail Order World in Wiesbaden opened its doors a week later.

And on entering the exhibition halls of each convention, it was immediately clear how different they were.

In Cologne, everything was handled automatically with pre-registration; in Wiesbaden, visitors had to stand in line for hours in front of the registration offices, especially on the opening day. Even the stands were quite different. Sometimes, the trendy lounge stands in Cologne raised questions about content – while walking around the stands, it was not always obvious what the companies were actually offering. People know each other . . . so it was as if further explanation was redundant!

When it came to conversations with internationally renowned providers, employees who had just started with companies a few weeks earlier were not able to contribute much to image promotion or direct sales due to their lack of knowledge.

Incidentally, out of the traditional direct marketing companies, Schober was the only one represented in Cologne.

The Wiesbaden show gave a completely different impression.

Stands displayed many well-used design variations and also new and interesting concepts, such as the iPhone application or social networking and e-commerce tools. Plus traditional listbrokers and data processing companies – everyone was here. Also, the advisory skills of the stands’ personnel were extremely high and there were a lot of presentations and keynote speeches. Thus, one trend became very obvious. If you compare the marketing costs of pure online shops to classic mail order companies, this offline test will have convinced the ‘onliners’.

European purchasers
Forecasters say the online rate in the German mail order industry will top 50 per cent  this year and, says the latest analysis by Forrester Research, every European will become an online purchaser by the end of 2014.
Currently, the UK is showing the highest average order value whereas Germany has the highest market penetration.

When it comes to the development of new marketing concepts, more and more companies rely on customer referrals and customer reviews and critiques are a treasured part of sales and marketing strategies.
Certainly the statement of a customer is more reliable than a high-priced and highly-crafted marketing slogan. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to tolerate and support customers’ criticism and take on board their ideas for improvements. A positive side-effect of those customer reviews is new customers are much more satisfied and there are thus fewer returns. For example, a customer reads another customer’s review that a certain shoe may be a bit uncomfortable in the first few days but then loosens to fit well. That new customer will decide to keep the product instead of sending it back immediately.

Distribution channels
It is almost impossible to define a certain distribution channel for each customer; the most important channel is always the one being used by the customer at that moment, regardless of whichever channel the customer prefers – a catalogue, an online shop or a boutique in the city.

In the Netherlands, however, the mail order market is benefitting from the increasing online trend. In the first six months of this year, the B2C market achieved a growth of 19 per cent. Certainly, existing customers show a much higher order rate. But across Europe, it is almost impossible to generate new customers via online channels alone.

On the one hand, qualified email addresses with an opt-in  and at an acceptable price are still scarce and, on the other hand, companies and consumers suffer from an overflow of emails – thus, the open and click-through rates are tending to decline.

New customer acquisition via cross-media communication is now more than ever the focus of attention for successful companies. It’s the customer alone who decides whether to purchase offline or online.