Growth Marketing for Deathcare Part 4: Using Emerging Channels

This month, we’ve looked at topics related to growth marketing. If you missed the previous posts in this series, go back to find out more about how growth marketing works, how to use growth loops, and how to pick a North Star metric for your deathcare firm.

In the final post in this series, we’re looking at how emerging channels can help with growth and how to know if your deathcare firm should invest in them.

What Are Emerging Channels?

Emerging channels are new opportunities for marketing or connecting with consumers. They might be truly new channels, such as the app Clubhouse in 2021, or new features on existing channels, such as Instagram Reels in 2020.

In some cases, emerging channels are well-established platforms that have not been used in a certain industry. For example, Discord is a voice, chat, and video app that people use for a variety of purposes, including building communities around specific topics.

For the right deathcare firm, Discord might offer growth opportunities. However, the platform isn’t currently being used for this purpose on any type of scale, making it a potentially emerging platform within the industry.

Should Deathcare Firms Invest in Emerging Channels?

The benefit of adopting emerging channels early is that you can connect with new audiences before the channels become oversaturated and highly competitive.

The biggest downside of investing in emerging channels is that you’re often acting as a pioneer of sorts, which can be a gamble.

Given those factors, deathcare firms must carefully consider the potential risks and rewards when investing in emerging channels.

First, ask yourself what the business purpose is. You shouldn’t try to show up on all channels just to do so—you need a reason for adopting a new channel. For example, if you’re expanding your audience and want to attract younger preplanners, you may start investing in TikTok.

It’s also a good idea to take it one channel at a time. Take small steps for reduced risks to test channels and then invest more time and resources as you see results. Adopt one new channel at a time, growing it to success or discarding it as not viable, before you move on to another channel to reduce the chances that you overextend your resources and are ineffective on all channels.

And if you don’t have the resources to adopt new channels now, don’t worry. You can practice growth marketing on existing channels too, and it’s better to have a few channels that work well for you than dozens of channels that don’t.