The Hardest Things to Market Are Often the Most Important

I work in marketing in an industry most people would rather not think about.

Death.

It’s not exactly the product you impulse-buy after seeing a great Instagram Reel. There is no aspirational unboxing video. And no matter how clever the campaign, nobody wakes up excited to make cemetery or funeral arrangements.

That’s also what makes this work some of the most interesting marketing I’ve ever done.

Because when you can’t rely on excitement, urgency, or aspiration to get someone’s attention, you have to find something more meaningful: relevance.

For a long time, deathcare marketing has largely spoken to people at the moment they needed us. Someone died. A family needed help. They searched for a funeral home or cemetery.

But I think our industry—and many other traditional industries—has an opportunity to think much bigger than that. What if we showed up before people needed us?

That question has changed the way I think about marketing. Instead of constantly asking, “How do we sell this?” I find myself asking, “How do we make this conversation worth having?”

Sometimes that means talking about grief. Sometimes it means hosting a conversation about ethical wills and what we want our families to remember about us. Sometimes it means teaching people what advance planning actually involves without immediately asking them to buy anything. And sometimes it means recognizing that the next generation is going to need a completely different entry point into the conversation.

Millennials and Gen Z plan almost everything. We plan trips months in advance. We make financial plans, birth plans, retirement plans, and five-year plans. We save inspiration for weddings we aren’t planning and houses we don’t own yet. But talk about planning for death? Suddenly, everyone gets uncomfortable. That disconnect fascinates me.

It also reminds me that good marketing isn't always about making something more attractive. Sometimes it's about making something less intimidating.

That requires more than changing the font, launching an Instagram account, or buying Google ads. Modernizing an industry means reconsidering how people experience it.

What language are we using? Are we educating or simply selling? Are we present in the communities we serve before there is a loss? Are we giving people something valuable even if they never become a customer? Those questions apply far beyond deathcare.

If you market financial services, healthcare, insurance, legal services, or any industry people tend to avoid until they absolutely need it, you probably understand the challenge. Fear is an easy marketing tool. But I don’t think it’s usually the best one. Education is better. Connection is better. Giving people a sense of control is better.

And showing up consistently, long before you need something from them, may be the most powerful marketing of all.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned working in deathcare is that people actually do want to talk about difficult things. They just want to do it in a way that feels human.

They want permission to ask the awkward question. They want information without pressure. They want to laugh sometimes, even when the subject is serious. They want to talk about the people they love, what they want to leave behind, and what matters to them. That’s where marketing stops feeling like marketing. It becomes conversation. And maybe that’s the lesson for those of us trying to modernize industries that have existed for generations: You don't have to make the subject trendy. You have to make it relevant. You have to meet people where they are. And most importantly, you have to give them a reason to care before they have a reason to need you.