Arnold One uses direct marketing to reach hand-raisers

Direct mail isn’t what it used to be. And Greg Johnson couldn’t be happier. Johnson, executive vice president and director of Arnold One in Boston, has more than 20 years of integrated-marketing experience. In recent years, Johnson says, direct mail has fundamentally changed. “We aren’t using direct in the way we might have five or 10 years ago,” he adds. “We’re not sending mail to millions of people; we’re sending it to hand-raisers, to highly qualified leads, to people who we know we have a high likelihood of success with, driving them further down the purchase funnel.” Arnold One no longer relies on direct mail for mass marketing (television and radio now fill that spot) but instead uses it more for brand building. “Direct enables us to have people actually experience the brand,” he says. “It puts the brand in their hands so they can touch it. And that sense of touch and texture and quality — those are the things that we are now looking to have resonate when we’re using direct marketing.” As an example, Johnson points to a recent direct mail campaign that Arnold One created for Royal Caribbean that was personalized for each recipient. Prospects received an oversized postcard inviting them to visit a Web site with an itinerary designed just for them. To further personalize the experience, the customer’s name was part of the URL. (For example: www.goroyalcaribbean.com/CustomerName.) “People just love typing their own names,” Johnson says. “It’s like taking your hand-raiser and turning them into a star. It’s strong visually, it has a great voice to it, and it’s clever. But it also leverages direct mail for what it can do, which is get the buyer’s attention. Then it pushes you directly to the Web where we can tell a much richer, multi-media story.” The customization didn’t end there. Once at the Web site, prospects saw their names strategically incorporated into the content of the landing page. Arnold One sent another individualized direct piece to customers from previous cruises telling them about their “next big adventure.” The front of that postcard showed a vacation scene with the headline “Hey [customer's name], isn’t there someplace you’d rather be?” “Working with Arnold, we have been able to refine our use of direct mail to target both our brand building and our ROI objectives,” says Bill Hayden, director of relationship marketing for Royal Caribbean International. “By integrating direct and the Web, e-mail and television, we can grab a potential cruiser’s attention and help them understand cruise vacations, the Royal Caribbean brand, and all that we and our trade partners have to offer.” Engaging the ever-harried and distracted consumer is a top priority for Arnold. Despite the influx of technology-driven advertising media, says Johnson, direct mail is still a vital part of a client’s overall marketing plan. However, that doesn’t mean using a plain-Jane standard business envelope. “We build brands that are very engaging, and that translates directly to our mailing choices,” says Johnson. To better attract and engage customers, the agency uses oversized postcards as well as dimensional packaging such as boxes, tubes and tri-folds. Johnson says it really isn’t tough to get clients — or even his counterparts in other units at the agency — to fully realize the value that direct can provide in an overall strategy. “Our approach is actually channel agnostic,” Johnson says. “We look at the client business problem, the creative strategy, and then the channels almost raise their own hands. So we very rarely have a situation where anyone in a direct group has to sell internally.” Because integration is the order of the day, smart marketers are open to whatever media suit their brand best. “If someone says that TV and direct can solve the same problem, then you don’t have the problem well defined,” Johnson says. “You have to clearly articulate the business problem and the brand truth. We try to level the playing field and look at any and all channels that can achieve a positive ROI. So by using ROI to drive channel selection, we free ourselves from old-school thinking.” Integrated Marketing, Large Business, Medium Business