Breaking Down Digital Marketing Strategies in 3 Easy Steps

Easily understand digital marketing strategies with these tips below.

After much consideration, you’ve concluded that your funeral home needs a digital marketing strategy.

So, you begin researching your options.

A quick “digital marketing” Google search brings up a somewhat understandable definition, along with countless articles ranging from “Digital Marketing Overview” to “10 reasons you need a digital marketing strategy in 2023.”

You click on a handful of links and are quickly bombarded with unfamiliar phrases like click-through rate, organic reach, impressions, conversions, and others. You’re confused but determined, so you keep researching.

More complicated phrases fill your screen: engagement, clicks, SEO. Your confusion grows, along with your frustration and discouragement.

‘Why do they make it so difficult to understand? Surely, it can’t be this hard. And if it is, maybe I don’t need digital marketing after all.’

It’s true – there are a lot of mysteries surrounding digital marketing, but there is good news. We can make it easy for you to understand!

Here are 3 ways to simplify your digital marketing strategy.

1. Understand marketing terms

In the digital marketing world, there’s a lot of technical jargon that can confuse you. However, some of these terms can be useful to know and provide clarity on your results and return on investment for your digital marketing budget.

Here are a few of the most important terms to understand:

Organic reach: Organic reach describes a result you get for free. Organic means the social media platforms choose to show your marketing to a user at no cost to you.

Impressions: The number of times that your ad appeared. Impressions could mean that your ad appeared multiple times to the same people over a period of time. Impressions are a good metric to measure brand awareness.

Clicks: Any clicks on your ad or post. Not necessarily a link click.

CTR (click-through rate): The rate at which people who saw your content clicked on the link in your post or ad to take action.

Engagement: Any action taken on your post or ad – clicks, comments, shares, etc.

Conversions: Actions taken after the user has clicked on your post or ad. This could be a phone call, filling out a lead form, etc. Conversion settings need to be precise. Conversions could be page views or scrolling on a page. Be clear about which conversions you want to see!

Conversion Rate: The rate at which people saw your ad and then filled out a form or called.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Optimizing your website so that search engines like Google put your website higher on a search result list.

Learn more about marketing terms in our Digital Marketing 101 eBook.

2. Decipher marketing numbers and results

Digital marketing companies might show you impressive numbers, such as 10,000+ impressions or reach. But there is often a need for more transparency surrounding how those results impact your bottom line or your goals for digital marketing.

Looking beyond the numbers is essential to ensure you reach the right audience. Those 10,000+ impressions? They may have been primarily 20- to 30-year-olds who live across the entire state – not exactly your target market.

Make sure your digital marketing team understands and sticks to your target market parameters.

For example, with most of our clients, we target ages 55+ in a 5–10-mile radius around the funeral home, depending on population density. These parameters ensure that money isn’t wasted on marketing to the wrong target market or using the wrong keywords.

3. See your return on investment

If you’re investing in digital marketing, you need to know that your funeral home’s resources aren’t being wasted. But how will you know if you are getting a good return on investment if you aren’t clear about your goals first?

When working with an agency or digital marketing partner, be crystal clear about what you want from your digital marketing plan. Here are a few goals to start with:

– Do you want preneed leads?

– How many preneed leads do you want throughout each quarter or year?

– Do you want to improve your funeral home’s brand awareness?

– Is being at the top of Google results for certain search terms important to you?

– Do you want to grow your at-need call volume?

Sharing your goals will help your digital marketing team focus its efforts and your dollars where it needs to go. Once your goals are clear, the numbers provided in reports should make much more sense.

A few key results we look for and report to our clients are:

– Preneed leads and sales

– At-need phone calls and clicks through Google search

– Brand awareness and reach through Facebook and YouTube

Once you establish your digital marketing goals, you can easily measure the effectiveness of your marketing by looking at results, whether those are on a monthly or quarterly basis.

Questions to ask yourself about your digital marketing strategies

To assess your digital marketing strategies and make sure you are headed in the right direction, ask yourself these questions:

Is my marketing strategy reaching the right people?

Make sure that your primary target market is defined so that your ads don’t show to people who are not interested in your funeral home’s services.

Does my marketing provide real value to families?

Shouting your name out over and over again in a crowd gets old. Instead, ensure that your strategy includes providing value to families, such as education and engaging content your audience enjoys.

What is my ad money generating? Do the results match your goals?

Make sure that you have clearly communicated your goals to your marketing partner. Understanding where and how your marketing dollars are spent helps you ensure your money isn’t wasted on conversions or goals you aren’t interested in.