COMMUNICATION STRATEGY AND DISTRIBUTION

• There are 3,504,000 SMEs registered in Germany (information supplied by UEAPME)
• The ZDH (Zentralverband des Deutschen Handwerks) communication strategy supplied by the German Association of Skilled Crafts is outlined in the summary.

Title	Pages	Type of Information	Printed	Distributed
1. Der Konkurrenz eine Nasenlange voraus (Faster than the Competition), Deutscher Sparkassen Verlag	8 (A4)	Colour brochure with labels and examples	n/a	n/a (No clear distribution record available)
2. Der Euro im Mittelstand, Euro Info Centre Stuttgart	67 (A4)	Colour brochure with labels and examples	n/a	n/a (No clear distribution record available
3. Der Euro Kommt!, Handwerkskammer Aachen	33 (A4)	Black and White brochure with labels and examples	n/a	n/a (No clear distribution record available
4. Fragen und Antworten zum Euro. Euro Info Centre Stuttgart	24 (A4)	Colour brochure with labels and examples	n/a	n/a (no clear distribution record available
5. Euro Check, Euro Info Centre Stuttgart	n/a	CD Rom	n/a	n/a (no clear distribution record available
6. Der Euro - Praktischer Leitfaden zur Umstellung auf den Euro im Handwerksbetrieb, Handwerkskammer Rhein-Main	21 (A4)	Colour brochure with labels and examples	1,000	450 (media questionnaire)

(For easy reference this table follows the same order as the table detailing German coverage)

The German Confederation of Skilled Crafts, ZDH, supplied one media questionnaire for 12 different euro communications and their overall communication strategy. None of these publications is available for analysis any more, because the 12 publications referred to by the ZDH were issued between 1997 and early 1999 and all were available free of charge. The ZDH also provided an order form for publications issued in association with Deutscher Sparkassen Verlag, although no price list was supplied for these media items. The ZDH represents 3,2m SMEs in Germany, has 850000 direct members and reached 684000 of these with at least one of the 12 media items mentioned above. The communication methods used included brochures, guides, training manuals, seminars and workshops.

There was also a proactive follow up with conferences, meetings and individual advertising campaigns. No judgement can be made whether the communication tools were suitable or the distribution was successful, because none of the tools could be viewed and no individual information for any one of them is available at the time of writing. Analysis of media activities during 1999 and 2000 may enable more meaningful analysis.

The only other organisation that supplied a media questionnaire for their publication was the Association of Crafts in the Rhein - Main area. This association has 24000 member SMEs, and the organisation printed 1000 copies of their 1998-euro guide. No copies were sent by direct mail, but a total of 400 were collected in person and a further 50 guides ordered by phone. There is no evidence of the outcome from the remaining 550 copies. It is unclear why only such a small number of copies were printed, representing only 4.0% of their members. Noteworthy is the fact that there was also a charge of €5 per publication. This may have been a considerable hindrance in the distribution of the euro guide.

However, none of the other publishers provided any additional information, so subsequently no conclusions regarding the success of their communication or distribution strategies can be made.