Your One-Stop Marketing Agency

After a brief pause in funeral home marketing at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, some of our clients have reengaged in promoting their preplanning services with good response rates. We offer a variety of ways to reach out to customers, including direct mail, print and radio advertising, social media, newsletters and lead followup. By providing several marketing channels, we can help you engage potential customers and fill your marketing funnel.

• Planning guides
• Direct mail
• Newsletter articles
• Newspaper ads
• Radio spots
• Social media
• Lead management

Planning guides are an important part of the overall marketing of preplanning services, because they give people something to review and discuss while also giving them a head start on making their funeral plans. A family can spread it out on the kitchen table or pass it around the living room, using it as a conversation starter. They can fill out the details together and share those details with their children. For those reasons, we continue to recommend printed planning guides at this time. In the future, digital planning guides may become a stronger option, but for now, the benefits of a printed piece that people can hold and complete as time allows outweigh those of an electronic version.

Repetition must be an element of your marketing plan. Direct mail pieces may need to be delivered nine times before they receive a response. Research also indicates that there is less competition in people’s mailboxes today—with only two pieces of direct mail coming through to a household per day, as opposed to hundreds of exposures to online ads in a day.

We have found that direct mail offers you a way to reach people when and where they are. They may find that they are not ready to preplan their funeral now, but they may keep the information you send for a future date. When you provide additional mailings, they serve as a reminder to the family that can prompt their call or even a delayed response to the mailing. We have received responses that turn into appointments months after the initial mailing.

After the initial shock of the pandemic passed, one client continued their direct mailings and is keeping busy working the leads they received. They know that this is a long game. They don’t expect immediate responses. In fact, our office has received responses for clients weeks and months after the mailing.

Newsletters bring a softer approach to the marketing of preplanning services. Articles in your newsletter can tell a story about a client who is glad they have their funeral plans in place. Seeing their testimonial and the emotional appeal of preplanning provides another angle to reach families. Today, we do email and print newsletters. The print version can be mailed or provided at your funeral home locations as a take-home piece. They can also address grief, cremation and other important topics you want to convey.

When you advertise preplanning on the radio or in the newspaper, you can target your ads to appropriate audiences. Many older people listen to the radio, and in some regions, radio spots can provide targeted reach. You can get into peoples’ lives more intimately by providing preplanning reminders on social media. Facebook is popular with those aged 50+, which is right in the target demographic for preplanning.

No marketing program is complete without followup, and our lead management services can help your staff make appointments with families. When we call families who have responded to your direct mail or other promotions, our goal is to set appointments for your staff. This year, we saw an increase in followup calls beginning in May that has continued for months.

Families tend to be more mobile these days. Some may wonder if their plans will transfer. If you are willing to take on plans that will possibly be transferred to another city or funeral home, this may be a point of discussion.

With the pandemic, it’s more important than ever that people have plans in place for the unexpected. Having funeral plans in place will ease their minds in an otherwise uneasy time. We can help you be the calm point of contact that is providing something that will bring your community members great peace of mind.