Wyatt Cleinman '24 has been to more funerals in the past two months than in the past two decades. The frequent cemetery visits have provided him with a new outlook on grief... and marketing.
Wyatt needed an internship for the fall, but he wasn't picky about the industry, so he took a scattershot approach. Wyatt applied to some 30 internships, and while he ended up getting offers from several companies, he decided to go with the company that showed interest first – even if it seemed like an odd choice.
Wyatt is a marketing intern for nearly two dozen cemeteries, all under the Albany Diocesan Cemeteries umbrella.
"Honestly, I thought it was strange, but I wasn't scared of the opportunity. I've done odd jobs in the past. I've worked as a mechanic, and then at a bank. I took engineering classes then switched to business. I like to try new things."
As a social marketing intern, Wyatt creates content for Facebook and Instagram, and he's also developed a passion for photography. He's visited several cemeteries to take beauty shots that will be used for promotional material. He also takes pictures at funerals with blessing from the families. He discovered that while honing his marketing skills, he's also learning valuable lessons about death and loss.
"A big Irish family was burying an older woman who had passed. They were passing around a bottle of Jameson Irish Whisky and doing shots. They really made it a celebration of her life. A cemetery has never been a happy place for me, but it doesn't have to be a sad place either."
Wyatt promotes, via social media, cemetery events like volunteer clean-up days, for example. He also creates content that encourages families to think about what they'd rather not think about. Making burial arrangements in advance eases the burden for next of kin, and if you're going to make arrangements for your final resting place - why not choose a plot with a view?
"Honestly, it was really fun to just walk around the cemeteries and take pictures of different locations. I had never been interested in photography before, but it's a skill that I've enjoyed developing."
Wyatt's also learned quite a bit about content creation. Who's your target audience? What will get their attention? After all, if you can get people to engage with cemetery content, whatever comes next might feel easy.
