The Dutch company Donzendekbed.nl operates in Germany under the name Daunendecke.de. The webshop supplies products in the highest segment and does so successfully! The company has conquered the German market by adhering to the trend of storytelling. In doing so, they have paid great attention to optimized texts written by native speakers. Moreover, Daunendecke.de has deliberately chosen a domain name that seamlessly matches the main keyword "Daunendecke," with which they rank first in Google in Germany. This strategy has ensured a healthy marketing mix, according to business partners Rien Stierman and Niels Helms. Moreover, the Donzendekbed.nl company also operates crossborder very creditably! But now back to the German adventure first!
Why did you go to Germany with Daunendecke.de?
"That had everything to do with the success of Donzendekbed.nl. Our concept seemed to catch on in the Netherlands. The logical next step in our eyes was Germany. We saw it as an enormous challenge to conquer the German market with a typically German product. What really helped was that I studied German and lived in Germany for several years. I was thus familiar with the German culture, where quality and customer wishes are paramount."
In what ways did you try to stand out from the competition?
"In the end, a down comforter remains a down comforter, which is why we have tried to make the product more interesting through storytelling. We inform our customers about which down is in the comforter, or which cotton was used for the ticking. We were the first to do that so comprehensively. "At night, we sleep under our own comforters," Stierman continues. "If we don't like a comforter, it doesn't appear on the website or we immediately take it off the site. Because of course, what is not good enough in our eyes is not good enough at all for our customers. The good thing is that we like to tell about our findings and that fits well with the principle of storytelling. To captivate the target group and bind them to us, amidst a sea of competitors, authentic stories are needed."
"Creating, offering and distributing unique content is just as important for our company as an appropriate offer for the customer. In our storytelling, we have taken into account the right SEO strategy so that Daunendecke.de can be found well organically. This also allows bloggers to easily link about our website and we are thus also easily findable through them. This makes for a healthy marketing mix! Of course it's nice that our storytelling is catching on in Germany, the home country of the down comforter," says Rien.
What is your finest moment within the German market?
"We necessarily wanted the domain name Daunendecke.de. It was already taken, of course. By a company that specialized in cleaning down comforters still," laughs Stierman. "Eventually we were able to take over the domain name and it turned out to be a good investment. Such a name, after all, the literal translation of 'down comforter,' gives authority and credibility."
Rien continues, "Daunendecke.de has the most important keyword directly in the domain name and because of this we have a decent organic flow of visitors from Google every month. The advantage is that Daunendecke.de does not have to incur high costs for SEA on this keyword. The purchase of the right url thus pays for itself twice over. While many Dutch companies have to buy on average 80% of their visitor traffic through online ads in the first few years. This makes the marketing mix ina large country, such as Germany, with many people searching via Google unnecessarily expensive. This is something Daunendecke.de fortunately does not run into in this case."
NOTE: Donzendekbed.nl is listed in the CrossBorder Top30 and is one of the speakers at the CrossBorder e-commerce event.
