About Hiscox
Hiscox is not a traditional insurer. The company offers a range of specialty insurance products through U.S.-based brokers as well as online directly to small businesses. However, rather than using fear-based marketing and focusing on the ways businesses can avoid risk, which is common in the insurance business, Hiscox has built their company on an ethos of courage. Their award-winning brand platform, I’mpossible, highlights small-business owners who embrace risk and find the courage to overcome long odds.

Boosting brand awareness among small-business owners
Recently, Hiscox’s marketing team launched an initiative to broaden awareness of their brand among various entrepreneurial audience segments. To do it right, Hiscox needed a marketing solution that could spread awareness far and wide while keeping a tight focus on their target audience.

Connecting to entrepreneurs with a professional mindset – on LinkedIn and beyond
Even at first glance, LinkedIn Marketing Solutions looked like the perfect solution for Hiscox’s social efforts, as the platform attracted the particular audience they needed to reach. “LinkedIn is a business-first network, which means people are in the right mindset when they’re engaging with our content on the platform,” says Gyawu Mahama, U.S. Communications & Marketing Manager at Hiscox.

But Hiscox really began to see the platform’s value when they started using LinkedIn’s granular targeting capabilities. The marketing team created a set of precise audience segments based on specific titles and groups. With Sponsored Content, the team could then promote different materials that spoke directly to these different audiences.

“Our goal is to produce relevant, timely, and compelling content that will help our clients grow and protect their businesses. To do this effectively, we need to get our content in front of the right audiences at the right time,” says Mahama. “Whether we’re creating evergreen content for a broad audience or highly targeted content for a niche group, Sponsored Content helps ensure that the right content will be delivered to the right people.”

Additionally, by running ads on the LinkedIn Audience Network, Hiscox is able to extend their reach beyond social channels. “With the LinkedIn Audience Network, we can deliver our message to where our audience is most likely to see it – whether that’s on LinkedIn or on other professional websites,” says Mahama.

Exceeding industry benchmarks
Hiscox’s ad creative is regularly featured on LinkedIn’s Top 20 list of high-performing Sponsored Content campaigns. In fact, they’ve recently claimed the top three spots for two months in a row. Hiscox has also consistently outperformed competitors across other metrics, including engagement and click-through rates.

In addition, campaigns running on the Audience Network have pushed Hiscox’s marketing efforts even farther ahead of competitors. “We’re seeing a level of engagement far above the usual industry benchmarks, giving us an edge in the market,” says Mahama.

And beyond the benefits of the platform itself, Hiscox has been amazed by the support they’ve received from the LinkedIn account team. “Working with LinkedIn is great because they’re not just focused on delivering ads; their subject-matter experts understand our goals and have helped us streamline our content-creation process and optimize our campaigns,” says Mahama. Hiscox says they plan to continue working with the LinkedIn account team to further optimize and drive conversions. Given the results Hiscox has seen so far, that sounds like a low-risk, high-reward course of action for the insurer.