I saw this blog post the other day about a drive-thru funeral parlor in Southern California and it got me thinking. We live in such a fast-paced society—always on the go, never taking time to stop and smell the roses—does death not even slow us down?

Are we really at a point that we’re too busy to pay our respects to the family and friends of a loved one when they die? Or is it that society is just so uncomfortable with the ritual of attending a funeral service that this is an easy way out?

I guess everyone has a different idea of what it means to pay their respects. But to me, it’s about offering your condolences to the family and friends of the deceased.

How would I be able to express my sympathy to the family from my car window?

When I attend a funeral service, it’s not just about seeing the body and saying my final farewell to the deceased. It’s about visiting with the family and friends—sharing stories and memories with the people who knew that person best. Through photos, videos and memorabilia, you get a glimpse into that person’s life.

How would I experience that same kind of connection from a drive-thru window?

I also believe the gathering of friends and family is an important part of grieving and healing. Although you’re all technically in mourning, it’s a chance for you to come together and celebrate the life lived.

But I guess that’s me.

Don’t get me wrong, there are many aspects of a fast-paced lifestyle I embrace. I can’t live without my smart phone and having instant access to information; I opt for the drive-thru pharmacy and ATM every time over walking inside; and barely remember a time without DVR where I had to sit through commercials.

But to me, a funeral service is different.

Although on a personal level I don’t see the value in a drive-thru funeral parlor. I obviously respect those who choose to go that route. I just hope it’s not because our society is too busy to take the time to pay respects, respectfully.

What does ‘paying respects’ mean to you? Do you see the value in a drive-thru funeral parlor? I’d love to hear from you! Please share your comments below!

Caring for families is what the funeral profession is all about. But as the industry evolves and the competition heats up, funeral firms need to up the ante in the level of care and services they provide, to meet their families’ expectations.

The biggest difficulty in that is that it’s hard to change your ways when you’re used to doing things the same way…every day. Let’s take a step back and look at this from a different angle. Think about how you might go above and beyond for your guests when hosting a dinner party—can you incorporate some of those same themes or ideas into the level of care you provide for your families?

Let’s see…

Invite Your Guests

• The first thing you do when planning a dinner party, is invite your guests. Your guest list will determine what method you use for spreading the word about your dinner party. If it’s for friends you might create an event on Facebook or some other social media website. If you’re inviting coworkers, you might go a more formal route and send personal invitations. And if it’s for family, you might just pick up the phone and call everyone individually.

• Use those same principles when determining the best methods for attracting your families. In the past, families were likely to select your funeral home based on a previous experience they had with your firm or by seeing your ad in the local newspaper or Yellow Pages. Today, 66% of Internet users are using local search to find local businesses. Just by optimizing your web presence, you’ll make it easier and more convenient for your families to find your funeral home website.

Entertain Your Guests

• Once your guest list is made, it’s time to start planning your dinner party. From food and cocktails, to music and decorations, you want all the elements of the evening to complement each other and keep your guests entertained.

• The same holds true for your funeral home website. It’s not just about attracting families to visit your website, you want them to be entertained! 75% of the visitors who come to your website to learn more, don’t end up contacting you. But if your families arrive on your homepage and see visually inviting videos explaining the difference between a burial and a cremation service, and the steps they need to take when planning a funeral service, you’ve personalized the information and engaged them!

Cater to Your Guests

• As the host of a dinner party, it’s your responsibility to cater to the needs of your guests. One might want wine to drink, another beer. One might be allergic to shell fish and another might be a vegetarian. In the end, you end up customizing the meal to fit their specific needs.

• Imagine the kind of effect that customization of care could have on your families. Take for instance grief support, each family deals with death in their own way and in their own time. By utilizing your funeral home website to offer personalized support services such as interactive grief videos and daily email affirmations, your families can customize their healing journey, based on the grief they are experiencing.

It might be a bit of a stretch to compare caring for your families to hosting a dinner party, but sometimes it helps to think of it in a different light—especially, when you’re looking for new ways of doing things!

What are some other things you do to try to personalize your services or increase the level of care for your families? Please share your comments below!

If you’re anything like me, Valentine’s Day was much more exciting as a kid. I loved picking out my girly-themed Valentine’s Day cards (probably Rainbow Brite or My Little Pony) and filling them out for each of my classmates.

Nowadays, I don’t really care about Valentine’s Day. But apparently a lot of other people do, seeing as consumers are expected to spend $17 billion this year on Valentine’s Day.

So if you’re one of those last minute shoppers looking for the perfect gift for your valentine, here are a few ideas courtesy of H&R Block.

Valentine’s Day Projections & Facts:

• Consumers are expected to spend $17 billion this Valentine’s Day

• Men will outspend women, spending an average of $112.65 to $51.56

• 53% of women in America would dump their boyfriends if they did not get them anything for Valentine’s Day

• 27% of women buy flowers and 15% of those are for themselves

• 62% of women buy cards

• 26% of women buy candies

• 18% of men buy candies

• 45% of men buy cards

• $141 million spent on cards

• $1.7 billion spent on flowers

• $1,011 billion spent on candy

• $3.5 billion spent on jewelry

Top 10 Cities Where People Spent the Most on Valentine’s Day

1. Virginia Beach, Virginia

2. Norfolk, Virginia

3. Chesapeake, Virginia

4. Anaheim, California

5. Santa Ana, California

6. Reno, Nevada

7. Hialeah, Florida

8. Lexington, Kentucky

9. Winston Salem, North Carolina

10. Colorado Springs, Colorado

Wishing everyone a Happy Valentine’s Day!

It’s no secret that the rise in cremation rates caused a bit of a stir in the funeral industry, forcing funeral homes across the country to revisit their traditional way of marketing to families.

Today, you’re faced with an even bigger problem—cost sensitive families.

Now, I know you’re all familiar with them, but what you don’t realize, it how many different types of cost sensitive families exist. Contrary to popular belief, not all cost sensitive families are alike.

Once again, funeral homes across the country are needing to adapt their marketing and services to address the needs of the cost sensitive families of today.

9 Types of Cost Sensitive Families:

Indigent

Indigent families are people who are poor and often homeless. They qualify for funding provided by the state, county or some other governmental agency for their funeral expenses.

Worthy Poor

The “Worthy Poor” are a step up from “Indigent” families because they tend to have a job and a place to live, but they don’t have the money or resources to pay for a funeral service. They often see the value in a funeral, but simply can’t afford one.

Entitled Poor

The “Entitled Poor” families don’t have the money or resources to pay for a funeral service, but feel entitled to get a full service at no cost.

Unprepared

The “Unprepared” families are just that. Whether faced with an unexpected death or cash flow problems, they aren’t fully prepared for the expenses associated with a funeral service.

Frugal

The “Frugal” families are just naturally conservative when it comes to spending. They are always trying to save money—no matter if they see the value in your services or not.

Stuck with Bill

The “Stuck with the Bill” families are somewhat dysfunctional families. For whatever reason, the deceased has no immediate family to cover the cost of the funeral service, so a distant relative or friend steps in because they feel compelled to help.

Do-It-Yourselfers

The “Do-It-Yourselfer” families tend to not understand the role of a funeral director or see the value in holding a funeral service at a funeral home. They think they can do it all themselves and handle everything on their own.

Value Conscious

The “Value Conscious” families are people who don’t perceive value in the funeral services you offer. They tend to look for lower cost over quality of service.

Bargainers

Even if you offer the “Bargainer” families the lowest cost possible, they will still try to negotiate with you for a lower price. Bargaining is just in their nature, it’s almost as if they do it for sport.

Now that we’ve identified the types of cost sensitive families, it’s up to you to adapt your funeral marketing and services to better meet the needs of these families.

In my opinion, there is a huge opportunity for growth with the “Unprepared”, “Value Conscious” and “Do-It-Yourselfer” types of cost sensitive families.

Give it a try! Next time one of these families approaches you, see what a difference a little education on the value of your funeral services and the benefits of pre-planning can make!

Be sure to share your experience with us! We always love to hear from you!

In my last post, I outlined 4 opportunities your funeral home is missing out on, by not having The Sympathy Store on your website.

Today, I’m going to dig a little deeper and explain to you exactly what eCommerce is and how it can revive your funeral home’s dying revenue stream.

What is eCommerce?

eCommerce refers to the buying and selling of products or services over the Internet. So basically, online shopping!

Obviously, it’s not exactly a new concept. However, it is a new opportunity for the funeral profession. And with Forrester Research projecting that eCommerce will be a $279 billion industry by 2015, now is the time to take advantage of this opportunity and get ahead of the competition.

And lucky for you, selling online has never been easier. Today, you can find quality, affordable solutions that can be effortlessly integrated into your website, and that handle all the merchandising, ordering, billing, shipping, and even customer service for your individual eCommerce store.

eCommerce & the Funeral Profession

Even though it might have caught some of us off-guard, it really should be no surprise that eCommerce is changing the game for funeral homes.

The idea behind incorporating an eCommerce store directly into your funeral home website supports your community’s desire to comfort friends and family suffering the loss of a loved one. And let’s face it, 93% of consumers give sympathy gifts or flowers in such situations. So your funeral home website becomes a convenient, one-stop-shop for those who already sending sympathy gifts or flowers.

Reviving Your Revenue

It’s no secret the demand for sympathy gifts and flowers is high. Each month, over 200,000 searches for sympathy gifts and flowers are made on Google alone. Your funeral home can capitalize on this demand by adding an eCommerce store, like The Sympathy Store to your website.

Think about it…mourners already visit your website to read the obituary and find out service time and information. Why not allow them to purchase flowers and sympathy gifts while they’re there? Then families don’t have to leave your website to make a purchase.

Not only is an online store convenient for your families and website visitors, but it revives your revenue stream—paying out commissions on each sale made and extending the relationship with your families, beyond the service.

Every week, I try to write blog posts that educate, inspire and provide solutions to some of the biggest challenges the funeral industry is facing today. Today is no different.

Although I don’t always try to push products here, I really believe The Sympathy Store is a no-brainer for funeral homes looking to attract more families, increase revenue and turn their funeral home website traffic into dollars.

The reality is if you’re not selling sympathy gifts and flowers on your website yet, you’re not utilizing your website to its full potential.

Don’t believe me?

Check out some of the opportunities you’re missing out on by not having The Sympathy Store on your funeral home website:

1. Additional Revenue Stream

It’s no secret that funeral homes have been experiencing a decrease in traditional product sales such as caskets and headstones, resulting in an overall decline in revenue. The Sympathy Store is an effortless way for funeral homes to generate revenue from their website. By adding this eCommerce plug-in to your website, you’re giving families the ability to purchase sympathy gifts and flowers directly from your website. Depending on the products sold, your funeral home can earn up to 25% commission on each sale made.

2. Converting Website Traffic Into Dollars

In the event of a death, friends and family of the deceased often visit the funeral home website to read the obituary, find out service times and information or sign the online guestbook. Knowing that 93% of consumers give sympathy gifts or flowers to show their support for the survivors of a loved one, how many of your website visitors do you think go on to purchase gifts or flowers from another website? By integrating an eCommerce store, like The Sympathy Store, directly into your funeral home website, you’re offering the friends and family who wish to show their support with flowers or sympathy gifts the convenience of a one-stop-shop.

3. Offer More, Without Doing More

I honestly wouldn’t recommend this product if it weren’t so easy and effortless for you to do. One of the best things about The Sympathy Store is that it’s an additional feature you get to offer your families, that doesn’t require you to actually do more. Everything from the integration of The Sympathy Store plug-in on your funeral home website, to the merchandising, ordering, billing, shipping, and even customer service is handled for you. It really is that simple!

4. Establish Yourself As An Industry Thought Leader

By taking the initiative to sell sympathy gifts and flowers on your website, you’re establishing your funeral home as an industry thought leader, paving the way for future trends. The reality is we live in a digital world. By demonstrating your funeral home’s ability to adapt to these innovations and changing trends, you’re setting yourself apart from the competition. Establishing yourself as an industry thought leader is the best marketing you could do for your funeral home to gain credibility, recognition and trust.

What are some other no-brainer solutions you’ve found to help grow your business? Share your comments, questions and tips below!

An Introduction to Popular Social Media Terms

By now, it should be pretty obvious to you that social media isn’t like the latest fashion trend—here today, gone tomorrow—it’s here to stay.

However, before you can even begin to consider implementing a social media strategy for your funeral home, you need to learn how to talk the talk, before you can walk the walk.

Here are some of the most popular social media terms and their definitions:

• Twitter

Twitter is a social networking platform that allows users to publicly send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters long. Today, there are more than 100 million active users on Twitter, and about a fifth of those users are in the United States.

• Facebook

Facebook is a social networking platform that connects people with friends, family and business associates. Facebook is currently the largest social network in the world with more than 800 million active users.

• LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking website that allows members to create business contacts, search for jobs, and find potential clients. LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with more than 120 million members.

• Tweet

A message posted on Twitter that can only be 140 text characters or less (including spaces).

• Status Update

Also referred to as a “status”, a “status update” allows Facebook users to post a message to their Facebook Wall for their friends to see. In turn, friends can respond with their own comments, as well as clicking the “Like” button.

• Like

A “Like” is an action that can be made by a Facebook user to show positive feedback on users’ status updates, comments, photos, links, etc. The “Like” button can also be integrated on non-Facebook websites, allowing users to share content they find online by simply clicking the “Like” button and having it appear in their News Feed with a link back to the website it came from.

• Follower or Following

A “Follower” is anyone who subscribes to your “Tweets” on Twitter. “Following” is the act of subscribing to someone’s “Tweets” on Twitter.

• Friend or Friending

A “Friend” is anyone you’ve had some sort of interaction with and have agreed to “connect” with on Facebook. “Friending” is the act of sending someone a friend request on Facebook.

Remember, this is just an introduction! Although it’s great to start familiarizing yourself with social media, there’s a lot more to it than just knowing the definitions of popular terms and phrases.

Stay tuned for more tips on managing a social media strategy for your funeral home!

What are some other terms and/or phrases you’re interesting in learning about? Please share your comments, questions and suggestions below!

Check out some of the mobile uploads from January.

Enjoy!

At funeralOne, we’re constantly striving to provide you epic customer service and support. To further this goal, we’re excited to announce the launch of our new Customer Support Portal, which you can access at http://support.funeralone.com.

Our new portal, which officially went live today, serves as a one-stop-shop for all your support needs.

For website clients specifically, this new portal is now the place to go to request website support and submit change requests.

Check out some of the exciting new features:

• Knowledge Base – We’ve created a bunch of great tutorials on all of our products and answered your most frequently asked questions (FAQs). We’ll be adding new knowledge base articles and FAQs every week.

Click here to see the Life Tributes Knowledge Base

Click here to see the Website Knowledge Base

• Community Support – Skip the queue and get your question answered by the community. Got a great tip? Post it here for everyone to see. Together we can help each other grow.

Click here to see the Life Tributes Community Support

Click here to see the Website Community Support

• Ideas – Have a great idea for one of our products? Post it in our ideas forum. You can vote for the ideas you like the best. Who knows, your idea might be the next big feature in a funeralOne product!

Click here to see the Life Tributes Ideas Forum

Click here to see the Website Ideas Forum

• Support Ticketing – Making a support request has never been easier! Just login to our new support portal, select Create a New Ticket and follow the simple instructions (you’ll need to create an account first.) Every support request you make through our portal, email or on the phone will get added to your account. You can instantly see your request history, which requests are still open and review responses from past requests.

Ready to get started? Click here to create an account: http://support.funeralone.com/#/registration

We hope you’ll enjoy using our new Support Portal as much as we do – stay tuned for more exciting improvements in 2012!

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact the funeralOne Epic Support Team at 1 (800) 798-2575 ext. 4 or support@funeralone.com. We’re always happy to help!

Every day, funeral homes are faced with having to adapt their traditional way of doing things to keep up with the evolving needs and expectations of their families. Today is no different.

I’m here to tell you that traditional funeral guest books are now a thing of the past—and like many other funeral traditions that have perished, it’s the advances in technology that are responsible for their death.

It’s not that funeral professionals staying current with industry trends have forgone the guest book altogether—they’ve just reinvented it.

Obviously, a traditional register book serves a purpose. It fulfills the needs of the family when it comes to collecting the names and addresses of all the friends and family who attended the funeral service.

But what else does it do beyond that?

Nowadays, a funeral guest book serves as another way for your funeral home to assist families in their grief and healing, and honor their loved one in a unique and memorable way.

With the recent trend in personalized register books like the Tribute Book, families have the ability to tell the life story of their loved one through photos, memories and a family tree, while still allowing service guests to sign-in.

Here are some examples of pages you could include in a personalized register book for your families:

• Prayer page – Family and friends dealing with the death of a loved one often turn to religion and spirituality. Feature an uplifting prayer to assist in the grief and healing process.

• Life Story page – Celebrate and honor the life lived by using photos and stories to illustrate the unique story of the life of the deceased.

• Family History page – Showcase the family history of the deceased with a customized family tree or with family photos.

• Funeral Services page – Provide all the necessary information associated with the funeral services such as, date, time, location, officiates and bearers for the funeral service.

• Register page – Give friends and family who attend the funeral service a place to sign-in like a traditional guest book.

• Photo pages – Friends and family who attend the funeral service enjoy looking at photos that represent and celebrate the life lived.

• Notes & Messages page – Allow service guests to take part in the healing process by providing space to share their memories of the loved one, or write a personal message to the family.

By offering your families a personalized register book, you’re giving them a valuable keepsake that will be cherished and used far more than a register book that’s only a list of the names of those present at the service.

The best thing about these modern-day guest books is that as technology continues to evolve, the software systems associated with these personalized register books are becoming easier to use, making it push-button simple for funeral professionals to create the books in-house.

Dealing with the death of a loved one is never easy, but a personalized register book transforms the traditional funeral guest book into a book of memories that serves as a way for families to share the legacy of their loved one for generations to come.

An even more innovative way of doing this is through social memorial websites…but we’ll save that discussion for another day!

What are some other unique and personalized services you offer your families to help them honor and celebrate the life of their loved one? Share your comments below!