By Tyler Ward, Digital Sales Manager

Have you tried these preneed marketing strategies?

Let’s face it, families interested in preplanning aren’t walking through your doors with their questions like they used to in the past. They might call or visit you online instead.

And that’s not a bad thing for your funeral home. When you’re busy serving at-need families, you need a way for preneed families to instantly get helpful information about what you do and how you can serve them, whether on your website or social media. That’s where a robust preneed marketing strategy comes in.

These 5 funeral directors and VPs share what solutions work best for their preneed programs and how they ultimately found success through preneed marketing.

1. Make your website user-friendly

One preneed marketing strategy that’s somewhat overlooked is having a strong, educational website that helps families find what they’re looking for quickly and see the value of your funeral home. Many funeral homes don’t think of their website as part of their marketing strategy, but everything should work together to keep families interested in what you can offer them. It can even set you apart from your competitors.

“Our website is our storefront. So, you’ve got to make sure that your website looks amazing because if it doesn’t, the family is going to move on to the next funeral home. With so many tools like Google directing traffic to your website, you’ve got to make sure your website looks good, is easy to navigate, and is beneficial to families.”

– R.T. Delhomme, Vice President of Operations at Martin & Castille Funeral Home in Louisiana

Be sure to include a clear and straightforward way for families to learn about preplanning on your homepage. You could potentially get a few leads that way!

“We’ve seen significantly more leads. Our preneed counselor has been doing very well lately, and I’ve definitely seen an improvement in her sales. I think it has a lot to do with the website. We’ve worked with website providers in the past that didn’t help us nurture leads. FDL is different.”

– Tim Hoff, Owner & Funeral Director at Hoff Funeral & Cremation Service in Minnesota

Learn how a custom website can grow your funeral home.

2. Maintain your social media accounts

A family is more likely to learn about you online than anywhere else. In fact, if you’re only using traditional marketing, you’ll lose chances to serve new families if you don’t have an active and engaging social media presence.

“More and more people are looking for funeral homes on social media, so the risk is huge if you’re not there for families to see. You’re getting passed up every day if you think people are still looking for funeral homes in the Yellow Pages.

“We were doing preplanning events before, and if we had 5 people show up, that would be a lot. Now, we’re getting 40, 50, 60+ people to show up to our events. That’s all because of our commitment to advertising through social media.”

– John Davenport, Vice President of Sales, Service Group of Oklahoma

Plus, your social media pages are great avenues to promote any news in your funeral home or answer common questions people may have.

“I wasn’t expecting our social media to affect our preneed. I always thought Facebook was a good way to keep your funeral home active with the community and remind people that you’re there when they need you. But I’ve been pleasantly surprised. I got a phone call from someone who saw one of our Facebook posts about half-couch caskets, and he wanted to talk about how he remembered when all the caskets were full-couch. That conversation turned into a preneed lead because he mentioned how he’d been meaning to come to the funeral home to make his arrangements. So social media has really opened doors for a lot of our funeral home’s business, especially our preneed.

– Curry Belk, Vice President, Funeral Director, and Embalmer at Belk Funeral Home in South Carolina

Make sure your funeral home’s social media is active, engages with your audience, and offers value to families.

Learn more about digital marketing options.

3. Use YouTube to be top of mind

Did you know that YouTube has nearly 250 million users in the U.S.? Only Facebook has more.

YouTube is the ideal place for you to share your stories and connect with potential clients in a more personal way, especially if you have exceptional video content.

So, instead of wondering if YouTube is right for your funeral home, ask yourself this: “How do we get high-quality video content on YouTube?”

“YouTube is really great for users on the content side, but also for the advertisers on ways you can target people. YouTube is a search engine, so when people go to YouTube to find content, they’re searching. So, we upload the content that we produce [for funeral homes] onto YouTube and make sure that it’s easily found by funeral consumers. We also do ‘retargeting.’ For people who visit obituaries, the funeral home’s website, or an online planning and funding tool, we can retarget them later with ads [about your funeral home]. It’s a great way to keep the user engaged and keep the funeral home’s brand in front of them.”

– Mitchell McLean, Vice President of Digital Marketing, Funeral Directors Life

Use YouTube to showcase your facilities, staff, offerings, and testimonials to interested families.

See more video ideas here.

4. Prioritize relationships with aftercare

Besides helping families grieve a loss, your aftercare program is crucial to your preneed marketing strategy.

Extending support beyond the service establishes a deeper connection with families. This bond shows your commitment to families and can lead to referrals or inquiries about preplanning. Assuring families that their loved ones’ needs will be taken care of long after their passing can deepen their decision to preplan with you.

“Aftercare is so important for funeral homes and families. Once a service is over and the family leaves, you need to keep the line of communication open for potential referrals, preplanning appointments, and to simply check-in.”

– Michael Capehart, General Manager, New Hope Funeral Home

Your aftercare program can also help increase the number of Google reviews for your business and lead to a higher ranking.

“FDL’s digital aftercare has made it so easy to get online reviews. We’ve seen a lot more 5-star reviews and a lot of that has to do with the texting service.

“The digital aftercare uses a soft and gentle approach in asking families for reviews. It doesn’t feel pushy, and it doesn’t require the funeral directors to be the ones to ask. FDL’s digital aftercare has been hugely important to our funeral home and has helped us quickly raise our Google ranking.”

– Jonathan Acosta, Owner & Funeral Director at Norco Family Funeral Home in California

Supporting an at-need family can lead to new preplanning meetings. All you have to do is care for families like you always have. It’s that simple.

5. Throw in direct mail campaigns

While it’s easy to think that traditional marketing methods aren’t as successful as they once were, the truth is that direct mail campaigns are still widely successful for many funeral homes.

Direct mail has a personal touch and can stick with customers. A flyer or postcard can live on a refrigerator for weeks, so maintaining your direct mail campaigns alongside new digital efforts will ensure successful marketing results.

“We’ve seen some incredible results from just a few seminars done the right way. One client in Delphos, OH, held a seminar recently in his small town with a population of less than 7,000 people and does about 50 calls per year. A mail drop was sent to roughly 2,600 people, and close to 100 people showed up at two events! Sales totaled $279,278, with an average contract amount of $8,463. 

“Needless to say, he was very pleased with the results!”

– Mike Kachenmeister, Market Center Manager, Funeral Directors Life

Direct mail campaigns can still get people interested in your preneed program when done correctly.

Learn more about marketing solutions with Funeral Directors Life.

Ready to see preneed marketing success?

Families in your community are interested in preplanning. Your job is to make their path to you as easy as possible.

We can help you pave the road.

You can use these preneed marketing strategies to connect with new families and grow your business. Our marketing team has many other tips on how to best promote your funeral home.

Whether you’re interested in social media, Google ads, video solutions, or more, we’ve got the answers you’re looking for.

Request a demo to get started today!