German Omni-Consumer Trends – get ready for Expo Real 2020

With a multi-channel strategy becoming increasingly important for German retailers, businesses need marketing professionals that can integrate physical and digital campaigns to reach core groups of consumers in real time.

Purchasing online is booming in Germany. According to research from Schickler, e-commerce as a whole has been steadily increasing – expanding by 10% last year to reach a total turnover of €105 billion.

What has become increasingly clear is that businesses need to pay close attention to the channels they use to reach their customers. The German high street is a diverse environment, with discount chains dominant. E-commerce has been relatively slow to become commonplace in Germany but is now gaining pace.

A clear trend of mobile shopping is also emerging across Germany. Research from eMarketer suggests that 60% of consumers with smartphones are expected to use it for at least one purchase this year – up 15% on 2016, but still some way behind the UK at 76% and the USA at 80%.

Clearly, businesses need marketing professionals who understand the omni-channel and can leverage the lucrative opportunities available.

Many businesses across Germany are moving to a multi-channel approach as the demands from customers change. German consumers are embracing e-commerce and now m-commerce in increasing numbers, but still feel frustration that the businesses they buy from are not as integrated as many in Europe and the US.

To stand out from competing brands – all vying for the same share of wallet – marketers must think and act differently. Those who succeed are able to collect and use data from multiple sources and touchpoints to fully understand and engage customers at the right time, at the right place. Is your organization doing this today?

High performance marketing teams that send personalised communications and promotions/rewards achieve higher rates of customer loyalty. But, this isn’t enough to succeed with customers, especially when most organisations respond to customers after they have bought something in a store. How do you surprise and delight your loyal customers when they are in your center? How can you serve up personalised and customer-centric offers before they visit, during their visit and after their visit?

With smartphone adoption reaching more than 80% of Germany’s population, and this device is with consumers more than 80% of their waking hours – it has brought a huge opportunity for brands to redefine customer experience. Shoppers welcome convenience and they are increasingly adopting mobile apps as the default engagement touchpoint.

A mobile app-based loyalty program creates a unique and memorable experience for customers, giving them real-time gratification. Using location technologies such as geofencing, marketers are able to deliver personalised mobile communications. For example, a customer that is near a shopping centre or a store may receive a push notification that offers a special discount on sportswear based on the customer’s purchasing history. Rather than blasting thousands of customers with a generic email where customers are not in a position to respond in a timely manner to a marketing campaign, a location-aware message can be narrowly tailored to just those users who are currently near a store.

However, it is important that you are not overly reliant on one channel. Customers have different preferences for how organisations should communicate with them and offer rewards. This is where omnichannel comes in. Email, text messages, social media, mobile apps and digital wallets are all ways to keep customers engaged with your loyalty program. Putting your loyalty program on someone’s phone changes the ways in which you can interact with them. This not only provides you with an added-value method of reminding shoppers about your brand, it can have a big impact on consumer behaviour. According to a study by 3Cinteractive, 62% of consumers said they make more store visits and purchases because of mobile-enabled loyalty programs.

The future belongs to businesses that understand the different touchpoints its customers are using. From traditional in-store purchases to purchasing behaviour driven by m-commerce, all German businesses need to move their marketing activity to encompass multiple channels – reflecting the fact that their customers have a presence across the physical and digital retail landscapes. They need to use data to target their customers in real-time.

The commercial winners today, and in the future, will be the businesses that understand online and offline marketing to be not different activities, but rather part of a suite of shopper-centric tools designed to help maintain and build their relationships with customers.

It is critical to all businesses within the German retail space that they recruit effectively to ensure they have marketers with the skills and tools to understand today’s business environment. These businesses need to be able to craft engaging multi-channel marketing messages to deliver campaigns to the right customers at the right time.

Your organisation can start small - be it with capturing customer details for future engagement or sending your first emails automatically.