Ed Birth Totally Mailed It
Ed Birth on why mail earns its place in the Hiscox mix.
My advice to any marketer weighing up mail is always the same: start with the problem in front of you and keep an open mind on the solution. Sometimes that's mail, sometimes it isn't. One of the reasons so many media plans look identical is that marketers start with channel preferences rather than customer needs. The best plans let the objective decide the medium, not the other way around.
For Hiscox, mail has earned its place because it does something few other channels can. It lets us combine precise audience targeting with a highly personal, curated creative experience - building the brand while also delivering our proposition to people who are ready to buy now. And, of course, what better place to talk to someone about home insurance than in their home?
Few channels let you be both highly targeted and highly brand-building at the same time. And what better place to talk to someone about home insurance than in their home?
That personal quality is central to why mail works. There's an honesty to it. A humble letter is, in many ways, one of the purest forms of marketing communication - a brand taking the time and effort to speak directly to an individual rather than broadcasting to the masses. People instinctively recognise that someone has made a deliberate decision to put that communication into their hands, and in an age where digital scams are rife, that effort and investment lends mail a legitimacy and credibility that can be harder to earn elsewhere.
It's also why mail so often does the quiet work of reassurance. I'd argue that's the hidden role of most customer communications. A mailing might introduce a new product, but it also signals that a brand remains present, engaged and invested in the relationship. I've worked on mail campaigns for automotive brands where that reassurance was the whole rationale - because in sectors where trust matters, showing up thoughtfully can be as important as the sales message itself.
Where mail really comes into its own, though, is attention. In an increasingly digital landscape, the arrival of something tangible feels different. It's a relatively uncluttered environment - often the only marketing message someone receives through that channel that day - and, unlike most digital media, the audience controls the pace. That's why mail can hold attention for an average of 141 seconds: the only real limit is how compelling your creative is. When it's done well, receiving mail feels less like being interrupted by advertising and more like being invited into a conversation. You can touch it, feel its weight and finish, sometimes even smell it - sensory cues that build stronger memories and deeper emotional connections than anything experienced through a screen alone.
All of which adds up to a genuine competitive advantage, precisely because fewer brands now use mail well. We've seen well-targeted mailings achieve stronger engagement than other channels, simply because they reached people in a more distinctive, memorable way. Cut-through doesn't come from simply sending mail; it comes from pairing sharp targeting with creative worthy of the recipient's attention. Get that right, and mail becomes one of the most distinctive parts of the mix.
Sometimes effectiveness comes from finding the right channel. Sometimes it comes from finding the channel everyone else has overlooked.
