Susanne Hornikel discusses the acquisition of new customers in Europe and suggests companies use more than one route to market.
Rising costs, declining response rates and consequently higher costs per new customer . . . this Europe-wide trend increasingly makes marketing strategists  look at opportunities offered by new media for customer acquisition.
Many decision-makers are confronted daily [...]

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Susanne Hornikel says new technologies in e-commerce mean greater opportunities for mail order companies.
Germans still have a strong disposition to buy online. A new study by TNS Infratest, called ‘Distance Selling in Germany 2010’ expects total revenues of €29.9 billion for the current year – a gain of 2.7 per cent.
Accordingly, the proportion of mail order [...]

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Susanne Hornikel says food supplements products offer potential for European marketers.
In recent years, manufacturers of food supplements have had interesting opportunities for growth: an ageing population; increasing health awareness; rising incomes; and changing opinions about nourishment. A desire for comfort, a guilty conscience and a bid for higher physical efficiency and vitality are important reasons [...]

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Susanne Hornikel says email newsletters remain popular, but there are still ways to ensure they are used to best advantage.
Fast, cost-efficient and simple in terms of handling; more and more companies are using email marketing – particularly for the distribution of online newsletters as an efficient instrument to bind existing customers and to gain new [...]

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Susanne Hornikel explores the direct marketing industry in the Czech Republic.
The Czech Republic is well known for its wonderful landscape and cultural and historical memorials. It boasts numerous world famous monuments from different eras, as well as 19th century musicians such as Bedřich Smetana and Antonín Dvořák and literary giants Franz Kafka and Milan Kundera. 
Despite [...]

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Susanne Hornikel takes a look back over the past ten years, to help predict where the future might be for European marketers.

What does the future hold for direct marketers? Will there be a return to the traditional catalogue or mailing, or even more growth for the online domain?
And what does this mean for European users and service [...]

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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 [...]

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Susanne Hornikel reports from Germany that, despite new legislation, there are still problems

After months of discussion, the new data protection law was finally passed and put into effect in Germany at the beginning of last month.
These discussions caused an immense feeling of uncertainty among companies and also consumers. Parallel to all that, Germany was [...]

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Susanne Hornikel says a valuable target group is the oldies (but goodies).
In 2007, more than 36 per cent of all Europeans were aged over 50 years and, in 2025, the EU will count more than 135 million people over 65. This is a total of 30 per cent of the European population.
Those over 65 years [...]

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Susanne Hornikel looks at direct marketing trends in the Polish marketplace.
Poland is – after the Russian Federation and Ukraine – the largest central European country with a surface of 322,500 km2 and approximately 38.48 million inhabitants. Outside the major cities, Poland is a vast nature reserve with a total of 23 national parks.
Almost 90 per [...]

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