Everyone talks about funeral marketing being an outward moving energy.

As if funeral marketing is something where we ONLY talk, share, show.

But what about the most important thing of all… listening?

That’s where the idea of “social listening” comes in the picture.

What is social listening?

According to Sprout Social, social listening is:

“Social listening refers to analyzing the conversations and trends happening not just around your brand, but around your industry as a whole, and using those insights to make better marketing decisions.

Social listening helps you understand why, where and how these conversations are happening, and what people think—not just when they’re tagging or mentioning your brand.”

Why is social listening important?

First, let’s take a more personal approach to the value of social listening. Can you imagine if you offered your funeral services to client families, and never got to hear their feedback? It would be like working blindly! 

On a more business approach, there are 5 key value markers of social listening:

#1: The health of your funeral business. Understanding how your client families and community feel about your business and offerings.

#2: Funeral industry insights. What are your client families saying about the funeral industry and funeral professionals? Are there any hot topics happening now (ie. the death positive movement?). No one wants to live under a rock when it comes to their funeral business.

#3: Competition, baby. We definitely don’t recommend a die hard competitive attitude towards your peers in your community. However, it’s always nice to know what’s working well for them, and what’s not working, to inform your future decisions.

#4: Marketing analysis. Is what you’re posting out in the world being received by your community? Or are there crickets, complaints, or arguments? It’s always a good idea to analyze how your efforts are being received in the community.

#5: Event analysis. If you do host events for your client families and community, it’s important to keep tabs on the buzz being generated around the event, so you can tap into it and utilize it. Or, maybe there’s a lack of buzz which gives you understanding of the relevance factor of your event.

8 Ideas to incorporate social listening into your funeral home’s marketing plan

#1: Look for your funeral home’s biggest cheerleaders

There will be some people who are ranting and raving about your funeral home online. Tap into their positive shares by sharing them, responding to them, and even asking if you can use them for future marketing materials.

#2: Find out what your client families want

If you don’t ask, you’ll never know. Find different ways to ask your client families and community how you can best serve and support them. Of course if you ask that blatantly, you might not get a response. 

Instead, try asking a question like: “Best funeral you’ve ever been to and why?” or “If I were to die tomorrow I’d want to be _________” and have them fill in the blanks. 

Get creative and have fun with it!

#3: Identify partners and collaborators

Some people on social media have loud voices that everyone loves to engage with. We like to call these people influencers. It’s a great idea to partner with influencers to create events, workshops and offerings with them to expand your audience. 

For example, you could partner with:

• Grief expert influencers
• Death doula influencers
• Death Cafe hosts
• Funeral entrepreneurs

Those are just some ideas to get your wheels turning. As you begin this, it will feel more natural and easy to reach out to people. Keep it casual, offer something to them in return, and make it fun and valuable for everyone involved!

#4: Create content with what you find online

Social listening is a great tool if you want to be more of a thought leader in the funeral industry through videos, blogs, posts, etc. I love to curate content I find online that covers the topics that are relevant to the funeral industry. 

I also love to create “response” content that offers my own perspective to different types of big news happening in the funeral industry. This is a great way to generate buzz around your brand and keep people engaged with trending topics.

#5: Find out what your client families and community love about you

If you listen closely, you’ll find people sharing about their experiences with your funeral home online. Maybe you could even encourage them to share their experiences, and incorporate them into your own marketing materials and business strategy. Find out what they love most and really take that into your business and marketing.

#6: Pin point FAQs (and answer them)

Are your potential or past client families online asking questions relevant to your funeral home or the funeral industry? Answer them, and incorporate them into your own marketing strategy. Gather all the FAQ’s you find over time and add them to your funeral home website, or use the questions you see to create content that answers these questions.

#7: Find out what your competitors do really well

What’s working out really well for your competitors? Could you learn from their success, or failures? Keep an eye out for how people are talking about them online, and incorporate your findings into your marketing strategy.

#8 Use social listening as a form of event marketing

If you host events at your funeral home or with other influencers, it’s important to create a hashtag or thread around your event. Invite everyone to share their experience on the event, to create a buzz, and share about it. This will encourage people to come to events of yours in the future. 

On the other hand, if an event is getting zero response or buzz around it online, it could be a meter to the success of your event and its attendance. Listen closely and you’ll get the clues you need to successfully produce events around your business.

How to do social listening

Although you can just manually go in and read responses to your posts online, you also create a gap that might make you miss out on key content and information. We love using social media tools with social listening add-ons like Sprout Social, Hubspot, Buffer (free option available) and Hootsuite. 

If you use any of  these tools, and want deeper insight on how to use them, feel free to let us know in the comments below and we can offer insights for you!

What other ways have you incorporated social listening into your funeral home’s marketing and business strategy? Let us know in the comments below!

PS. Looking for a funeral home website that’s as social media savvy as you after reading this article? Get in touch with us to learn more about the funeral profession’s leading website platform, f1Connect by clicking here.

Rochelle Rietow

More Posts - Website

Follow Me: