The Biggest Secrets in Funeral Marketing Revealed – Part 2
September 13th, 2011
5 Ways to Use Inbound Marketing to Grow Your Funeral Business
In the previous post of this marketing series, I revealed to you the Biggest Secrets in Funeral Marketing. Now, I’m going to share with you 5 easy ways to incorporate inbound marketing into your funeral business.
Here’s 5 Ways to “Go Inbound”
- Social memorial websites. Get rid of the standard obituary and guest books on your website – families want more! They want conversations that can bring healing. We all know that funeral services are a great way to facilitate healing because they bring people together to connect, converse and share memories at the passing of a loved one. With social memorial websites you provide another valuable platform for families to connect beyond the funeral service.
- Create a website that brings people back over and over. Don’t send your families to outside obituary sites! The relationship you’ve built with your families shouldn’t end after the funeral service. Utilize your website as a platform to continue to connect and nurture relationships with your families and the community. Keep your firm fresh in their minds so they’ll come back when future needs arise.
- Make it easy for visitors to share photos and videos. Give friends and family a way to “tag” (label) people in photos or videos posted on the social memorial website. Once an individual receives a notification email saying “You’ve been tagged in a photo for John Doe at AbcFuneralHome.com”, they will be drawn to your website. Just another way to attract families to your funeral firm and educate them on the services you offer!
- Give them ways to join in healing conversations. Healing comes when you allow people to not only reflect, but have conversations about the loved one, share photos and memories, build family trees, and record personal video messages. It’s the conversation that makes a website viral. Just think of a social memorial website as today’s version of word of mouth marketing.
- “Plug into the Social Community” such as Facebook and Twitter. Give friends and family of the deceased the ability to “share” the memorial website of their loved one through popular social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter. By providing that social networking integration, you’re giving your client families the convenience of connecting with friends and family across the world in a matter of seconds.
The Bottom Line of Inbound Marketing
- This will work whether you serve 10 families or 10,000.
- Your community is using social media every day – so should you!
- It’s affordable and you can’t afford not to do it! Just make sure your working with the right company.
So there you have it…5 easy ways to incorporate inbound marketing into your funeral business. The next steps are up to you! Give it a try, and let me know how inbound marketing works out for you! In my next post of this marketing series, I’ll tell you how one funeral firm has used these tips to grow their funeral business.
Stay tuned!
It has been a few years since I have actively practiced as a funeral director, but I do wonder if it is now common to get a family’s email address when you are collecting all of the other information. If it is being collected then what is being done with it? A monthly newsletter or grief blog can easily be put on your website and automatically emailed to the families you serve.