Attention funeral professionals! It might come as a shock to you, but all my blog posts about how your families are changing and how you need to adapt your way of doing things to attract the families of today wasn’t just my own personal opinion (GASP!).

There are plenty of credible sources backing up my claims about how the Internet and technology have changed the way today’s families research funeral service providers and ultimately make their purchasing decisions.

If you’re not sure whether optimizing your funeral home website should have a place in your marketing strategy, some of these thought-provoking stats just might make you rethink your stance.

Here are 25 thought-provoking stats about today’s families that you CAN’T ignore!

1. There are 1.83 billion Internet users worldwide. (Source: Internet World Stats)

2. 97% of consumers now use online media when researching products and services in their local area. (Source: BIA/Kelsey)

3. The phrase “funeral home” is searched over 6 million times per month on Google alone. (Source: Google)

4. People spend twice as much time on the Internet as they do watching television, and they spend eight times as much time on the Internet as they spend reading newspapers and magazines. (Source: IDC)

5. 73% of all online activity is related to local product and service providers. (Source: Google)

6. 75% of Internet users never scroll past the first page of search results. (Georgia Institute of Technology)

7. A business website is 50 times more likely to be ranked on the front page of Google if it contains video. (Source: Forrester Research)

8. Only 20% of web visitors will sit and read the majority of the text on a website, but 80% will sit and watch the same content when presented in the form of a video. (Source: Forrester Research)

9. Social media is the #1 Web activity. (Source: Socialnomics)

10. Nearly 60% of adults maintain a profile on a social networking site. (Source: Forrester Research)

11. The Baby Boomer generation spends more time and money online than any other generation in the US. (Source: eMarketer)

12. 78% of Baby Boomers are online. (Source: eMarketer)

13. The term(s) “sympathy gifts and flowers” are searched nearly 200,000 times per month on Google. (Source: Google)

14. 93% of consumers have sent sympathy gifts or flowers as an expression of love, care and concern for the bereaved. (Source: Society of American Florists’)

15. eCommerce will be a $279 billion industry by 2015. (Source: Forrester Research)

16. Of the 11+ billion searches performed on Google a month, 20% are for local businesses. (Source: Google)

17. 54% of search users have substituted the Internet for the phone book. (Source: ComScore)

18. 82% of local search users follow-up with an online inquiry, call or visit. (Source: ComScore)

19. Adding video to your website makes your site 6 times more likely to convert a “browser” into a paying customer. (Source: Forrester Research)

20. 84% of Internet users have shopped online. (Source: Nielsen)

21. Americans spend more than 33 hours per week watching online video. (Source: Nielsen)

22. 55% of all Americans use the Internet every day. (Source: Pew Research Center)

23. The average American spends 60 hours a month online. (Source: Nielsen)

24. The average Internet user visits 2,646 websites in a month. (Source: Nielsen)

25. 75% of the people who visit funeral websites don’t contact the firm. (Source: RTM&J)

I hope now you see why it’s so important to understand how your client families are changing and adapt your funeral home website to meet their needs. Did any of these statistics surprise you? I’d love to hear your comments below! 🙂

For a more detailed look at how to attract the families of today, read 6 Ways to Make the Right First Impression with Your Funeral Home Website.

Rochelle Rietow

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