Same results as newspaper. Half the cost. In an industry that thought social wouldn't work.

Funeral services and Facebook don't seem like a natural fit. Elliotts, part of the InvoCare family, relied on traditional channels: newspaper, local sponsorships, community networks. Then Covid-19 lockdowns shut that down. They needed to stay connected to their community, but their usual playbook wasn't available. The Regional Manager was openly sceptical.

The objective was never hard sell. It was familiarity and trust, so that when a family does need a funeral home, the brand is already known.

We took a community-first approach. People don't engage with funeral messaging on social media, but they do engage with positive local content: real people, real organisations, real stories. The brand becomes part of that conversation.

We started with charity nomination campaigns. Conversion rates were well above industry average. Website traffic jumped 442%. Then we progressed to Open Day promotions, where we could measure Facebook against traditional channels head to head.

Facebook delivered near-identical attendance to newspaper at less than half the cost per lead. What started as a single-brand test has since expanded. The model is now rolling out across more InvoCare brands as part of a broader shift from traditional advertising to more measured, more cost-effective approaches.

The brand generated future goodwill. The data shows that these types of touches keep brands top of mind when their services are needed. Market share data shows improvements in these regions, so there is correlation.

Changed minds. A client who was sceptical about social media saw it match newspaper on results and beat it convincingly on cost. The model works, and it's scaling.