Everybody loves a present, including potential high-net-worth investor clients. That's a lesson the modestly sized Rosell Wealth Management learned when devising an unorthodox direct marketing campaign aimed at zeroing in on preferred high-net-worth clients without breaking the firm's bank.

Working with a limited marketing budget of $25,000, the Bend, Ore., firm wanted to do something other than just the standard, inefficient direct mailing campaign that was way more miss than hit. "We raised the question, 'Why are we putting our effort into casting a broad net when what we're looking to attract is a very specific group of high-net-worth individuals?"' says Robert Berman, president of West Coast-based Berman Consulting Group, which designed the campaign.

Instead, he and RWM president David Rosell last year put together a list of prospective high-net-worth clients with investible assets of at least $500,000 by purchasing name lists, digging through real estate tax records and taking existing clients to lunch. "Since we're in a small community, we talked to people around town asking who would be well received for this," Rosell says. Bend (population 80,000) is an outdoor recreation mecca roughly 175 miles southeast of Portland.         

RWM homed in on 125 people in the Bend area. The point was to allocate more money per person, and less money overall. Each month between March and August, RWM mailed to every targeted client a box containing a personalized promotional product that reinforced the campaign's main theme: "You have been recognized as a successful person, and we have a unique approach to ensure that your wealth, retirement and dreams are protected."

Each box contained a special gift according with what RWM had found out about the person in its research. The gifts were packaged in a matching white box with the company's "R" logo and contained a cover letter about the product.

 

One client opened his box to find a Louisville Slugger baseball bat accompanied by a note that read, "You have been identified as a heavy hitter, and we want to talk to you." The other gifts included a desktop safe ("You earned it, let us help you protect it."), a Maglite flashlight, lottery tickets and a cell phone.

"The concept was to create a campaign that would speak personally and directly to a specific demographic," Rosell says. "We wanted to make sure that it was clear that these gifts were a fun way to get their attention and get in front of them."

Matching a prospective client with a gift sometimes came down to just asking. "We would ask clients, 'Of the people that you know, who do you feel would be ideal to receive a bat?'"

RWM's original goal was to secure five initial discovery meetings from its 125 targeted clients, bring on board at least two clients and increase both its assets under management and annual gross revenues by 5%. It also wanted to create a buzz about the company.

But RWM was surprised when its campaign generated 25 initial discovery meetings, resulted in 12 new clients and boosted the firm's AUM by 60% over its 2010 level and its revenues by 12%.

Rosell attributes the strong response to what he calls the "wow factor."  "I put myself into their shoes. All of a sudden, I get this long package and I find an authentic Louisville Slugger bat with my own name on it; that floored them."   

RWM also benefited from word-of-mouth advertising. "It was amazing how many people approached me," Rosell says. "One guy says, 'What is this? My friends are getting bats, safes and Maglites. How come I didn't get one?'"

RWM's direct marketing campaign also earned industry kudos last year at the Promotional Products Association International (PPAI) Expo in Las Vegas, where it was awarded the nation's top award for the best business-to-consumer promotion.

RWM credits the campaign's success to precise planning and follow-through.

"People get lazy," Rosell says. "They just want to create a brochure and send it out in a mass mailer. They hope to get whatever they can rather than focusing on trying to get exactly what they want. We went fishing for exactly what we wanted and, shockingly, we got it."     

Rosell says RWM's next directed campaign will be aimed at the city's certified public accountants and estate planning lawyers. "The top financial firms out there are getting most of their referrals from CPAs and estate planning attorneys," he notes. "Potentially, they could become clients of ours and, even more important, a potential referral source."            
-Jim McConville