Internet beats physical mailing

Dialog marketing is on the rise. This is shown by the "Dialog Marketing Report Switzerland 2017". While the overall advertising market has shrunk by one percent per year compared to 2015, the share of dialog marketing is increasing from the former 42.5 percent of total advertising spending in 2015 to 46 percent in 2017. While 2.4 billion Swiss francs were invested in dialog marketing in 2015, this amount is expected to climb to 2.56 billion Swiss francs in 2017, which corresponds to an average increase of 3.7 percent per year.

Internet in first place for the first time

For the report, clients were asked how they allocate their dialog marketing budget to the various channels. In the past two years, Internet spending has risen by an average of 18 percent annually and, at 28.1 percent of the total budget, has for the first time displaced physical mailings in second place (25.9 percent) of the total budget).Spending on personal contact, such as customer visits, trade shows, telephone calls and personal promotions, has risen sharply to 22 percent of the total budget compared with 2015 (13 percent).

Service provider assessed more positively

Study director Prof. Dr. Frank Hanich presented the most important results together with Dr. Adrienne Suvada - both from the ZHAW School of Management and Law - to a professional audience at the Swissôtel in Zurich-Oerlikon on November 9.Switzerland's dialog marketing service providers have reason to rejoice. According to the 2017 study, they are rated significantly more positively by their clients. Compared to 2015, the intention to recommend them has increased significantly. This time, the agencies are just ahead of the print shops in terms of customer appreciation.

Client trend-savvy

In the Dialog Marketing Study 2017, clients are more trend-savvy than service providers. They consistently attach greater importance to trends such as influencer marketing, trigger-based marketing and bots. Who will be right? For many companies, the crucial question for the future is: How do I (still) get into a dialog with my customers? The importance of this question is reflected in the results on data protection concerns, dialog marketing trends and the advantages of physical mailings.

Experts discuss

Following the presentation of the report, five experts discussed the results together with Frank Hanich: Oliver Weinstock, Nemuk AG, Andy Lang, Post CH AG, Patrick Kessler, VSV Association of the Swiss Mail Order Trade, Thomas Ziegler, Swiss Direct Marketing AG, and Thomas Engeli, Ammarkt AG.

More results

MK Marketing & Kommunikation will present further details of the report in issue 11-12/2017. Interested parties can download the study as a PDF via Swiss Dialog Marketing Association SDV - publisher of the report -. here order free of charge.