6 Steps to Avoid Advertising Mistakes in Your Funeral Home Marketing

funeral home marketing

Gone are the days of families relying on newspapers, Yellow Pages ads and commercials to find the services they want to utilize. Today, people are online. They don’t watch TV, they stream Netflix. They don’t read the newspaper, they skim digital headlines. They don’t have a phonebook, they look businesses up on Google.

If you hope to reach these client families, your funeral home needs to be online too. But online marketing is different from old standard print practices, and your firm needs to stand out among the sea of competing information available at your families’ fingertips. Funeral professionals need to be smart and savvy with internet marketing practices if they hope to reach families in a meaningful way that will bring them to their services.

Is your firm’s marketing heading in the right direction? Take a look at some of these common small business marketing missteps and learn how to rewrite your practices to reach today’s modern families.

If you’re used to advertising in the yellow pages or local newspapers, try this:

1. Google Business Pages.

A Google Business page is 2015’s answer to the old standby yellow book. First and foremost, a Google Business Page gives your firm increased visibility that a paper product simply cannot. In just one month, Americans consulted Google for 13.4 billion keyword searches. Bringing your business online means representation in those search results. And with an interactive Google listing, you’re free to update, modify, and add information whenever your advertising requires it or available services change.

2. SEO-optimized web content.

The other key to getting your funeral home’s name onto the front page of search results lies in your web content, and how well it’s optimized for search engines. SEO (search engine optimization) relies on web pages, including your funeral home’s blog content, having the appropriate terms that people will search for most often. Update your web presence purposefully and with new articles that your families will take notice of and search for. When compiled properly, your social web practices can generate 3 times more leads or inquiries into your services than outdated forms of marketing, all while costing you much less than commercials and print ads.

If you’re used to mass marketing efforts, try this:

3. Targeted marketing strategies.

Mass marketing efforts usually lead to wasted time, money and energy. They can also distract from opportunities to create meaningful relationships with the families you should be connecting with. A fact of business—any business—is that not every potential consumer is your target market. This is certainly true when it comes to building relationships for your funeral home. Where you place your marketing efforts matters, so throwing ads into the same Internet space as, say, discount electronics ads and budget travel articles won’t necessarily connect you with the people who make decisions about funeral services within their family.

4. Social media.

What was once a way for teens to pass time and share inside jokes is now a huge industry and crucial tool for businesses that rely on customer relationships. Facebook is where many members of your families share and receive news, learn about new products and services and connect with friends, acquaintances, and businesses. Tapping into that resource is crucial if your firm hopes to reach families on a personal level, build relationships with them, earn their trust and become a familiar name. Like Google Business Pages, Facebook lets you create and manage a professional business page as well as interact with users and deliver targeted marketing, as the user base is already built in.

If you used to rely on word-of-mouth marketing, try this:

5. Social obituaries.

We’ve learned that sharing obituaries on Facebook is a valuable practice that families and friends appreciate and find unmatched value in. By creating and sharing these postings, your funeral home retains control of the information about services that is spread, and Facebook users are provided with a direct link back to your page, generating new future leads and strengthening the relationship you have with existing ones. Friends and family members of a loved one are able to grieve together in a healthy, healing manner, and your funeral home’s presence in this exchange leads them to your valuable services and products.

6. f1Connect.

Your f1Connect website is the perfect place to post these social obituaries. Not only will families be able to easily locate the information they are looking for on your website, but you will be able to share your obituaries to your Facebook page as well. This allows you to attract inquiries from those interested in learning more about your services and products. When your funeral home is able to reach directly into the user base, as you can with these social platforms, the marketing work is already halfway done: you’ve established a relationship with the family and begun showing them the useful and important tools and services you can offer them.

Don’t let your funeral home fade away with old-fashioned marketing tools. Utilize digital marketing strategies to continue creating, building and nurturing valuable relationships with your families. Visit funeralOne to start building your f1Connect website and enhancing your firm’s Internet visibility today.

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