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Strategic Communications Advisory For Visionary Founders
Actionable
Takeaways
Prioritize Domain Investment for Trust-Critical Categories:
When Empathy's CEO and co-founder, started the company, he invested his own money and early funding into acquiring empathy.com before even raising significant capital. In sensitive categories like loss support where trust is paramount, a premium domain signals legitimacy and longevity. For B2B companies selling to regulated industries like insurance or targeting enterprise buyers, the .com domain creates immediate credibility that alternatives like .io or .co cannot match. Empathy found this especially critical when asking people to share highly sensitive personal and financial information during vulnerable moments.
Lead Category Creation with Research-Backed Education:
Empathy releases annual research reports like "The Grief Tax" that quantify the business impact of loss on employee productivity, retention, and performance. Their research revealed that over 90% of employees experiencing loss reported reduced productivity for over six months, 72% strongly considered leaving their jobs, and when one person experiences loss, nine surrounding colleagues have their job performance impacted. This data-driven approach transforms category creation from philosophical discussions about "culture of care" into concrete ROI conversations about productivity loss, absenteeism, and retention costs that resonate with benefits buyers and HR leaders.
Scale Event Presence Through Strategic Quality Over Quantity:
When Cindy joined Empathy, the company had 50+ events on the calendar. She immediately prioritized measurement and strategic selection, cutting the quantity significantly while maintaining or increasing budget allocation to fewer, higher-impact events. This quality-over-quantity approach focuses on building compelling presence at strategically chosen events that genuinely drive pipeline, rather than spreading resources thin across dozens of trade shows simply because sales teams want visibility everywhere. The result: same or better pipeline generation with more focused execution and stronger brand perception.
Adapt Channel Strategy by Vertical and Buyer Universe Size:
Empathy's marketing playbook varies dramatically based on whether they're targeting the 700 life insurance companies (known, finite universe) versus 30,000 potential employer customers. For insurance companies with 80% market penetration among top-ten carriers, growth comes through referrals, strategic introductions, and highly selective event presence. For the employer market, they deploy thought leadership, virtual events, and their "In Good Company" series discussing taboo workplace topics. Rather than applying one standard B2B playbook across all segments, successful marketers match channel intensity and tactics to the actual size and accessibility of each buyer universe.
Build Marketing Philosophy Around the Human, Not the Company Size:
Cindy's core marketing philosophy centers on focusing on the human receiving your marketing and always considering "what's in it for me" from their perspective. Whether targeting large enterprises or mid-market companies, the decision-maker is still a human being navigating their own priorities, constraints, and motivations. This human-centric approach applies across consumer and B2B contexts, helping marketers avoid getting distracted by company classifications and instead focus on delivering genuine value to the individual evaluating the solution. The philosophy particularly matters in emotionally complex categories where empathy must permeate every customer interaction.
Maintain Measured Approach to Paid Advertising Investment:
Despite 3x revenue growth in 2024, Empathy didn't proportionally increase paid advertising spend. Instead, they maintained relatively flat budgets overall while strategically reallocating spend—decreasing investment in mature verticals and increasing experimentation in new markets. This measured approach acknowledges that paid channels have become increasingly expensive while ROI remains difficult to prove in complex B2B sales cycles. Rather than defaulting to paid as the growth lever, focus budget on owned channels, organic content, strategic partnerships, and high-impact events that build lasting brand equity and pipeline.
Expand Into Adjacent Hard Moments Within Your Core Platform:
Empathy started specifically in loss support but strategically expanded into pregnancy loss support, pet loss, leave management, and estate planning. Each expansion addresses related "hard moments" where their core competency—bringing empathy and logistics support to emotionally difficult situations—creates value. For platform companies, this adjacency strategy allows you to increase value to existing customers (employers and insurers) while maintaining brand coherence. The key is ensuring each new offering reinforces rather than dilutes the core positioning, and that you're solving related problems for the same buyer rather than chasing unrelated opportunities.
Conversation
Highlights
In this episode of The Marketing Front Lines, we speak with Cindy Goodrich, CMO of Empathy. Empathy is building the category of loss support and life hardship benefits, partnering with eight of the top ten life insurance companies in the US to provide comprehensive support during life’s most difficult moments. Starting as a consumer company before pivoting to enterprise distribution through insurance companies and employers, Empathy demonstrates how category creators can transform legacy industries while building a meaningful brand around sensitive topics. Through research-backed education, strategic event presence, and thoughtful brand building, they’re redefining how companies support employees through grief, loss, and major life transitions.
Topics Discussed
- Building a category-creating company in the grief and loss support space
- Pivoting from consumer to enterprise distribution through strategic partnerships
- Marketing in sensitive, emotionally complex categories
- Investing in premium domain names for trust and authority
- Leading marketing teams through different company stages and growth phases
- Using research and thought leadership to educate markets on new benefit categories
- Strategic event marketing versus quantity-focused approaches
- Adapting marketing strategies across different verticals and buyer personas
- Building authentic brand positioning in industries perceived as transactional
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