Marketing Your Funeral Home Business

The Benefits of Blogging

Mon, 05 Dec 2022 20:51:35 GMT

The Benefits of Blogging for Funeral Homes

You may have considered starting a blog for your funeral home, but wondered if it is really worth the time, money, and effort. The answer is yes—blogging benefits your SEO, enhances your profile and local marketing options, and enriches social media activities. Blogging is a critical component of comprehensive digital marketing programs . As such, FAC offers the services of several blog writers to assist in starting or continuing a blog. Once you begin, you will see how blogging benefits your crematory or funeral home in being found online and in enhancing and supporting your reputation.

SEO Benefits of Blogs

The most important reason to have a blog is for the SEO benefits it provides. First, updating a blog ensures that search engines crawl your website and find new content. Second, a blog post can be optimized for SEO. This means it contains information mentioning your location and other keywords associated with your business. Third, a blog can contain links to other content on your website, which is yet another way to improve SEO.

These technical aspects of a blog work behind the scenes to improve your ranking on search engines. Getting onto the coveted first page of search results is easier when you have a current, regularly updated blog as opposed to not having one. Learn more about SEO .

Demonstrating Expertise & Reputation

Another benefit of blogging is that it demonstrates your expertise, knowledge, and compassion for families in your area. Blogs are a great place to answer questions about funerals and cremations and use your own examples and images, when possible. Showing your local involvement in community has become more important as outside investment companies purchase funeral homes. Blogs that make a point to highlight you and your staff in the local community reinforce local ownership and compassionate care.

Providing a Content Hub

Your blog provides a content hub for your community, including people who follow you on social media as well as the local news outlets. Funeral homes can develop a broad library of excellent content that can be shared via email, direct mailings, and Facebook. Each blog post will have a unique URL, making it easy to share.

In addition to providing content about funeral home topics of interest, blogs provide a wonderful format for sharing your staff’s activities, upcoming events, community event participation, and more. Use a blog to feature:

· News

· Staff anniversaries

· Testimonials

· Videos

· Community involvement

· Preplanning seminar details

· Holiday memorial services

· Other topics of interest

Funeral Home Blogging

While you may be able to write your own blog posts, outsourcing blogging allows you to spend minimal time on the task. With the assistance of FAC Marketing’s experienced funeral home bloggers, funeral directors can focus on serving families while we take the time to write content. FAC offers the services of several bloggers with experience writing for family-owned funeral homes and crematories. We can guide you on topics, write content, and select photo options to make the blog more visual. We will post your blog and image, and, if you are one of o ur Facebook Package clients, we can post it to social media, too. Before you know it, your blog will begin to be filled with quality content!

Please let us know if you are interested in blog writing services . We would be happy to talk to you about topics and let you know about our latest digital marketing successes.

Funeral Home Website SEO: What You Need to Know

Fri, 11 Nov 2022 20:44:45 GMT

Funeral Home Website SEO: What You Need to Know

Have you ever wondered about SEO, or search engine optimization, for your funeral home website? Do you know if your site has SEO built into it so people can find it by searching Google or another online search engine? Or, has someone worked on SEO for you, but you’re not sure if it’s working?

Owners of funeral homes and crematories should have general knowledge about SEO and how it works. While some SEO work is technical in nature, some of it is related to the words used on your website. Some SEO steps also involve how your website is listed in Google Business and other websites and search engines.

Local Search 101

Local search is the main reason funeral homes need SEO. An example of a local search would be “Burlington Iowa funeral home” or “[neighborhood] cremation.” At least 30 percent of all mobile searches are location related. A whopping 92 percent of searchers will choose a business that appears on the first page of results, so improving your local SEO will help you enhance your position in searches.

Funeral homes and cremation services are local services, serving an area of a certain number of miles from the location. In rural areas, this can be a larger area, but for fewer potential customers. In densely populated cities, funeral homes are competing with neighboring funeral homes and crematories for online search position. Localization of SEO content makes it easier for people to find your crematory or funeral home.

SEO Layers

SEO content should be found on every page of your website, including behind the scenes in tagging, naming and saving photos and graphics. The SEO work involves three main layers or elements, usually starting with an SEO audit and progressing to research and content development.

An SEO audit provides an analysis of the existing website, including how quickly it loads and which pages might be missing SEO content. The SEO audit includes SEO recommendations for the website, which may include editing and adding content, creating a blog, and correcting technical issues to improve the user experience.

After the audit is complete, additional layers of the SEO work can be pursued with greater confidence. That includes on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and SEO research. SEO research can help identify funeral home competitors and the keywords local residents use to search for funeral home and cremation services. SEO research can enhance SEO content, but it can be done at a later time, when budgets allow. Off-page SEO includes managing Google Business Profile and other directory listings as well as reviews.

Developing on-page SEO content comprises a critically important layer in improving local search for a funeral home website. This includes adding local search terms, completing copy on pages that are lacking, tagging photos with local search terms, providing localized metatags to be placed in the website code, and so on.

Following the SEO audit recommendations, SEO content work often focuses on key pages, such as the home and contact pages. Filling in missing content is a priority, because the quantity of content as well as the quality both contribute to local SEO results. Ideally, all pages would have on-page SEO content work completed—another task that can be done over time as budgets allow.

Funeral Home Website SEO

SEO serves an important role in improving your website’s position in search results. Please let FAC Marketing know if you have questions about SEO and the affordable SEO packages we offer funeral homes and crematories.

Business Relationships do Matter

Fri, 26 Aug 2022 02:54:38 GMT

Business Relationships Do Matter

Marketing is always adjusting to the best way to find and communicate with your customers. According to Wikipedia, the term marketing was found in a 16th century dictionary, where it was defined as buying and selling in a market. That is a great place to start, because people were buying, selling and building relationships in person back then.

Like most things in history, products, services and trends repeat themselves. Today’s prevalent Social Media takes us back to the market place to build relationships with our clients. We need to go where our clients are, and that is on social channels such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Popular Marketing Methods

Marketing has evolved as technology evolved.

1450 Print

1741 Magazine

1839 Posters

1867 Billboards

1922 Radio

1941 Television

1954 TV ads

1970 Telemarketing

1981 Computers

1985 Explosion of Print

1990-1994 Cable TV is the largest ad medium

1995-2002 Internet Search Marketing (search products & services)

1998 Blogging emerges

2003 The Age of Inbound Marketing

2004 Social Media begins with Linkedin, Myspace & Facebook

2010 Email Marketing

2012 Businesses begin budgeting for social media marketing

Today, Social Media Marketing reflects the concepts of the early market place: Communicating, building relationships, buying and selling. We can do all of that and more on social media platforms such as Facebook.

First, we have to know where your clients and community members are connecting online.

81% of adults are on social media
Facebook has the highest number of daily users out of all social media at 76%
The Facebook mobile app has 114 million users

Our specialized Facebook programs enable funeral homes and crematories to reach out to them through the positive, visually engaging posts we make on your behalf. Please contact us for details about our cost-effective Social Media Management packages .

Thinking About a New Logo? Keep it Simple!

Fri, 01 Jul 2022 01:58:13 GMT

Thinking About a New Logo? Keep it Simple!

We work with hundreds of Funeral Directors representing funeral homes from coast-to-coast, plus Alaska and Hawaii. Although most of their challenges are unique in scope and timing, there is one thing they all have in common. Each and every one has a logo they use to identify their business.

At F.A.C. Marketing, we've developed countless logo ideas and branded funeral homes for years to come. I thought it might be a good time to review some of the logo development basics just in case you're one of those professionals who is a far better Funeral Director than a logo designer! Here are the five basics we start with when proceeding with logo development.

1) Keep it Simple . Think of the most universal of logos and you'll find they are all tastefully, beautifully simple. When you see an apple with a bite out of the right side...what do you think of? How about a blue oval with four script-font letters? A simple stylized "swoosh" will bring to mind what company? I need not tell you that I have just given you the logos for Apple, Ford and Nike. These logos are embedded in our minds and are, unarguably, simple. When you design your logo, keep it simple. Avoid a flurry of curly serifs and line art.

2) Adaptability is important . Is your logo easily applied to vehicles? If your logo is "full-color," does it look just as attractive and clear as it does in its original state? Far too often, we see Funeral Homes with colorful logos that have not been adapted to a one-color image. These logos, when placed in small ads or on promo items such as pens, might as well be left off. Your logo should be placed on everything. If it doesn't look good in every application, consider adaptations.

3) Vector is vital . Most people don't understand the difference between a vector-based image and a raster image. However, the difference is monumental in adapting and working with your logo across media platforms. Raster artwork is any digital art composed of horizontal and vertical rows of pixels. As a result, when raster images are enlarged, the image quality diminishes significantly. Typical raster file types include .psd, .tif, .jpg, .gif, and .bmp. Raster images are fine for placing into an ad at the exact size needed, but should not be enlarged. Overall though, your logo should come in a raster format which can then be saved as or exported to, different formats.

Vector artwork is digital art composed of mathematical lines and curves. As a result, vector images can be reduced or enlarged in size indefinitely, without any loss in image quality. Typical vector file types include .ai, .eps, .ps, .indd, .pdf, and .cdr. F.A.C. Marketing produces logos in all vector file formats.

4) Do people know what your logo looks like without seeing it ? That logo on your sign and in all your advertising and marketing should build a mental imprint on the community you serve. Try asking people in your community if they can describe your logo without looking at it. If they can't, especially after years of seeing it around the community, you might have a problem. Memorable relates right back to simplicity. If your logo ends up looking like an abstract work of art or is a gray, poorly defined line art image of your facility, you're not doing yourself any favors. Consider coming up with a memorable logo that easily imprints itself in the mind of your consumers.

5) You claim to be the best...one-of-a-kind. Does your logo claim the same thing? Be unique when you develop your logo. That said, I have worked with clients who started their logo design process requesting a pineapple be used to represent a funeral home in the Midwest. Another, in the Pacific Northwest, liked the idea of a palm tree. Luckily, those ideas were transformed into more practical, meaningful and location-friendly designs. We want unique, not confusion-inspiring. Your logo should look nothing like that of your competition. If the guy down the street has a stylized letter as the focus of his logo, steer clear of doing the same.

Your logo is yours. It should be as unique as you are. See examples of logos we've created for funeral homes . Keep these basics in mind as you develop a logo that will likely stick with you for the rest of your business life. Once you find the perfect logo, you'll be proud to wear it on your clothing, place it on your vehicles and send out your mail with your brand on the letterhead. If you're in need of assistance, give us a call and we can help you in whatever capacity you see fit.

Using All the Tools Available for Aftercare Marketing

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 22:03:07 GMT

Using All the Tools Available for Aftercare Marketing

How often do you follow up with your families? If it’s something you do “when you have time,” you know that’s not going to happen. It’s time to set up an aftercare program to stay connected with the families you’ve served so you can focus on the daily needs of your funeral home business.

The great news is that keeping in touch has become easier than ever. With social media and digital marketing opportunities, you can touch base with clients several times a week. You can also establish formal, traditional programs that will keep families thinking about the experience they had with your funeral home as well as the plans they haven’t yet formalized.

Take a moment to review some options available to help you succeed in your aftercare marketing, so you can keep your families engaged with your funeral home.

· Newsletters

· Social Media

· Digital Marketing

· Surveys

Remember the 80/20 rule? Eighty percent of your customers are people you’ve previously served. Only 20% are people who don’t know you. Your preplanning marketing should focus on that 80%. That is why aftercare marketing remains one of the most important ways to follow up. Regardless of your marketing plans, preneed programs, insurance partner, or service capabilities, keeping your families close to you and aware of you is key.

Aftercare Newsletters

Follow-up notes and letters are a wonderful idea — if you have the time. Most funeral directors are busy enough doing the day-to-day duties of their job. Meeting with families at the time of need and when preplanning can take a lot of time and energy. It makes sense that many funeral homes don’t bother with newsletters, because they, too, can take time and energy. But they don’t have to!

FAC Marketing has simplified the process of communicating regularly with families after the funeral. We offer the Bridges of Transition© Newsletter Program , which provides 8 printed newsletters to families over the 16 months following a funeral service. We take care of the details of mailing the Bridges of Transition newsletters to families you’ve served at the appropriate intervals. The messaging includes grief recovery, holiday support, and preplanning articles. All you have to do is provide the names and addresses of the families you’ve served each month, and our team takes care of the rest. This turnkey program frees you up to focus on more personal follow-up activities, yet it keeps your funeral home on their minds and shows how much you care about their wellbeing.

Social Media

Another part of aftercare involves providing support via social media. When you have a good program for posting regularly to your Facebook page, you can direct families to follow you there for tips about dealing with grief, caregiving, and other topics of interest to the senior demographic. Our Facebook programs include posts that can reach followers several times per week. These posts help nurture a feeling of caring for the community. We frequently see comments from family members thanking the funeral home for posting helpful tips and ideas for coping with loss, holidays without treasured loved ones, and preserving memories.

Learn more about our Facebook packages

Digital Marketing

Emails and blogs can also be used for aftercare support. Blog posts and emails can address issues of grief, how to hold family discussions about end-of-life issues, and more. They can deliver support directly into a person’s hands through their mobile email. In addition, blog posts will improve your SEO, allowing search engines to bring up your funeral home when people search for a local provider.

Note that while current seniors are not digital natives, succeeding generations will be. We can help you reach those individuals now and going forward with thoughtful digital aftercare programs .

Customer Satisfaction Surveys

It may sound humble, but the direct mail survey still serves an important role. Surveys reach customers—it’s a fact. Direct mail continues to show strength in reaching customers, particularly through FAC Marketing’s Customer Satisfaction Surveys . The response rate continues to be an incredible 50%, especially when the timing of the survey falls within 6 weeks of a funeral service or cremation. Let FAC get your aftercare surveys in the mail and returned, so you can learn how your families feel about the services you provided. Everyone has an address—don’t be afraid to use it to keep in touch and learn how you can improve.

See Direct Mail Examples

In our experience, aftercare programs can lead the way to preplanning. Keep your families thinking warm thoughts about your staff and services. Aftercare programs like surveys and aftercare newsletters make it easy to stay connected and maintain a thread of communication with your best audience. Our Smart Marketing Package can be applied to aftercare, as it is directly related to preplanning.

Personalized Gatherings: The Future of Funerals

Tue, 16 Nov 2021 17:08:10 GMT

Personalized Gatherings: The Future of Funerals

Today, more and more individuals and families are realizing how they can celebrate a life rather than solely grieve a death. Colorful, creative gatherings have become more popular. Baby Boomers in particular want to embrace the positives of a person’s life and wish to include those elements in the funeral gathering. Overall, people are realizing that the more meaningful the services, the more healing and satisfying it is to family and friends who attend or participate.

The increased interest in highlighting someone’s unique and special qualities is changing the funeral industry for the better. How your funeral home addresses—and expands on—these personalization requests can result in excellent reviews and referrals to other families.

The expectation of continued interest in cremation with a memorial service at a later date provides opportunities for your funeral home to make a name for itself. When you meet families’ needs for personalized funerals, memorial services, and celebrations of life, you are more likely to be successful in future years.

Tell Healing Stories

We all know how wonderful it can be to see photos of the individual’s life, but adding extra details can make a gathering more meaningful. Some services include award plaques and other items, such as fishing poles and lures, dad’s bowling gear, quilts made by grandma, furniture crafted by grandpa, and displays of the person’s beloved collection.

Taking funeral personalization a step further can start even more conversations about the person and their passions. Here are some of the unique possibilities:

Motorcycle, semi-truck, or tractor processions
Superhero-themed gatherings
Customized menus, such as barbecues
Requesting fun and creative themed attire
Star Wars
Overalls for a farmer
Hunting camouflage
Pink or other cancer-awareness colors
Nautical, tropical or other theme
Colors besides black
Singalongs with popular songs
Tailgating events for alumni or sports fans
Unique favors, such as recipe towels, vegetable seeds, etc.

The person’s life becomes the center of the celebration. It takes the moment beyond a beloved song or great photo and into a moving and healing experience.

Some families continue to choose to offer online access to the person’s services. With many people choosing this option, it further helps make the distant attendees feel closer to the person, providing greater closure and enhancing the healing process.

Keep helping families celebrate life as well as grieve. Provide them with the ideas that go above and beyond what they can imagine and plan on their own. Remember to feature successful ideas, with permission, in your social media and marketing materials. Ask for their testimonials.

When you provide full-service personalization of funerals, you can become the top choice in your community for celebrating life and healing following a death.

Marketing Preplanning in the Pandemic and Beyond

Mon, 28 Sep 2020 20:36:02 GMT

Marketing Preplanning in the Pandemic and Beyond

While the days of meeting families in person aren’t gone, they have been curtailed by the restrictions of the pandemic. This doesn’t have to put a damper on your preplanning marketing. You can also conduct conference calls and online meetings with families to discuss and finalize preplanning with families, so it’s worth the time and effort to continue marketing preplanning in ways that keep your business flowing and providing your community with an important service.

After a brief pause in funeral home marketing at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, some of our clients have reengaged in promoting their preplanning services with good response rates. We offer a variety of ways to reach out to customers, including direct mail, print and radio advertising, social media, newsletters and lead followup. By providing several marketing channels, we can help you engage potential customers and fill your marketing funnel.

Planning guides
Direct mail
Newsletter articles
Newspaper ads
Radio spots
Social media
Lead management

Planning guides are an important part of the overall marketing of preplanning services, because they give people something to review and discuss while also giving them a head start on making their funeral plans. A family can spread it out on the kitchen table or pass it around the living room, using it as a conversation starter. They can fill out the details together and share those details with their children. For those reasons, we continue to recommend printed planning guides at this time. In the future, digital planning guides may become a stronger option, but for now, the benefits of a printed piece that people can hold and complete as time allows outweigh those of an electronic version.

Reach People Where They Are

Repetition must be an element of your marketing plan. Direct mail pieces may need to be delivered nine times before they receive a response. Research also indicates that there is less competition in people’s mailboxes today— with only two pieces of direct mail coming through to a household per day , as opposed to hundreds of exposures to online ads in a day.

We have found that direct mail offers you a way to reach people when and where they are. They may find that they are not ready to preplan their funeral now, but they may keep the information you send for a future date. When you provide additional mailings, they serve as a reminder to the family that can prompt their call or even a delayed response to the mailing. We have received responses that turn into appointments months after the initial mailing.

After the initial shock of the pandemic passed, one client continued their direct mailings and is keeping busy working the leads they received. They know that this is a long game. They don’t expect immediate responses. In fact, our office has received responses for clients weeks and months after the mailing.

Newsletters bring a softer approach to the marketing of preplanning services. Articles in your newsletter can tell a story about a client who is glad they have their funeral plans in place. Seeing their testimonial and the emotional appeal of preplanning provides another angle to reach families. Today, we do email and print newsletters. The print version can be mailed or provided at your funeral home locations as a take-home piece. They can also address grief, cremation and other important topics you want to convey.

When you advertise preplanning on the radio or in the newspaper , you can target your ads to appropriate audiences. Many older people listen to the radio, and in some regions, radio spots can provide targeted reach. You can get into peoples’ lives more intimately by providing preplanning reminders on social media . Facebook is popular with those aged 50+, which is right in the target demographic for preplanning.

Turn Leads into Appointments

No marketing program is complete without followup, and our lead management services can help your staff make appointments with families. When we call families who have responded to your direct mail or other promotions, our goal is to set appointments for your staff. This year, we saw an increase in followup calls beginning in May that has continued for months.

Families tend to be more mobile these days. Some may wonder if their plans will transfer. If you are willing to take on plans that will possibly be transferred to another city or funeral home, this may be a point of discussion.

With the pandemic, it’s more important than ever that people have plans in place for the unexpected. Having funeral plans in place will ease their minds in an otherwise uneasy time. We can help you be the calm point of contact that is providing something that will bring your community members great peace of mind.

Engagement on Facebook Increases Reach & Goodwill

Fri, 11 Sep 2020 15:54:38 GMT

Engagement on Facebook Increases Reach & Goodwill

Many funeral homes and crematories ask us what good Facebook can do for them. Our answer to them is that having a quality Facebook presence helps build and foster community goodwill.

One of the ways FAC Marketing achieves this is by encouraging engagement in the form of comments and shares. When people respond to posts (depending on their personal settings), Facebook shows a person’s responses and activity to others. This results in greater reach and awareness for your Facebook page.

Some examples of posts that encourage shares include those related to:

Charity and community events
Memorial services
Veterans services
Quotes about grief
Articles about the grieving process

Posts that experience good engagement in terms of comments include:

Obituaries
Staff birthdays
Grief related quotes and links
Events sponsored by the funeral home or crematory
Donations by the funeral home

Some of the most popular posts in terms of comments and likes relate to events and memorial services sponsored by the funeral home. We encourage our clients to let us know about any event they are sponsoring so we can post about it before and after the event.

We also find that many funeral homes experience good engagement during the last few months of year, when people are focused on doing good in their communities. One way we do this is through like campaigns that result in a donation to a nonprofit organization. With minimal effort, you can increase your following, which further leverages your investment in Facebook.

If you’re interested in learning more about Facebook, take a look at what we offer in our Social Media Management packages . Then, call us for details .

Don’t Give Up Too Soon on Direct Mail Marketing

Fri, 17 Jul 2020 20:14:39 GMT

Don’t Give Up Too Soon on Direct Mail Marketing

Small businesses often give up too soon on their marketing tactics. It’s one of the most common mistakes business make, either because they don’t see the results they expect or they decide to put the budget elsewhere. But remember, it takes time and repetition in order to get through to an audience! Many funeral homes and crematories forget that fact when results fall short of expectations, particularly with direct mail.

The reality of direct mail marketing is that even one postcard or letter can result in a preplanning sale or future family funeral—even if the family doesn’t respond immediately to your mailing. The other reality is that direct mail is the one medium that people will keep for future reference. Emails get deleted in a flash, but your postcard or brochure may end up in a folder or tucked in with important papers for family to find at their time of need.

To review, here are three ways to stay on target with your direct mail marketing plan.

Make a plan . Plan your marketing goals for the whole year and start to think ahead to any upcoming anniversaries for your funeral home or crematory. Leverage any events or changes to help keep your direct mail messaging fresh. Plot out your messaging about cremation, preplanning and personalization in advance.

Carry out your plan . Send your mail and prepare to respond in a timely fashion to any surveys or business reply cards. Review results as they come in to stay on top of the responses. Take the time to respond to inquiries with exactly what the customer requests, whether it’s a funeral planning guide or a preplanning appointment.

Stick with the plan . Unless the results reflect zero responses, we recommend sticking with your plan for the year. If you mail in the spring, summer and fall, you may find one time of year tends to provide more responses than other times of year. These seasonal fluctuations are normal and shouldn’t deter you from continuing to mail.

FAC Marketing has decades of experience providing cost-effective and response-oriented direct mail exclusively to funeral homes. Consider us your partner in persistent direct mail marketing. Get your direct mail ideas together and contact us .

Four Ways to Market Cremation Services

Mon, 13 Apr 2020 16:51:35 GMT

Four Ways to Market Services with Cremation

The current trend towards direct cremation has more funeral homes searching for ways to promote funeral and memorial services to accompany cremation services. We’ve given it some thought and want to share a few ideas to help overcome this challenge through your marketing presence.

Some families are seeking the lowest price for cremation. However, they may not realize that, when they decide not to have a service to remember their loved one, they may be confronted with condolences everywhere they go for months. As we know, memorial and funeral services provide much-needed closure for friends and acquaintances. Keep this in mind as you plan your marketing.

There may not be a lot that can be done about price shoppers, but we can develop relationships and raise awareness of services prior to the time of need that will help your funeral home be top of mind when someone has a need. Here are four ways to raise awareness of the need for memorial services and the great options you have available, no matter if the family chooses cremation or traditional burial.

Update Your Website

Because of the trend for people to shop online for cremation providers, your website is often the first place families see your funeral home and crematory. Perform an audit of your website to ensure that cremation is an option on your site—and make sure it is clear that you offer funeral and memorial services, burials or interments and visitations for cremation. Any urn offerings should be present as well. Make sure your site contains the search terms and information people need to know about cremation and services. Finally, check your veterans page to make sure it mentions and links to cremation with services, as well as personalization of services.

Review Your Preplanning Materials

Preplanning information on your website and in brochure form should also clearly state that cremation with a funeral or memorial service is an option. Preplanning makes it easier to pay for cremation and the services of the person’s choice, so address that in marketing materials. Emphasize your expertise in preplanning and the easy of prepayment, as well. Mention preplanning on social media, in newsletters and in direct mailings . Hold seminars to allow people to ask questions about prepayment and preplanning in a casual setting.

Raise Awareness of Personalized Memorial Services

Demonstrating the beauty and comfort of personalized memorial services to potential families will help them see the value in having a service with cremation. You can ask permission to take images of a service that is highly personalized with an individual’s hobbies. Or, consider making a video in which you talk about a recent service and how the personalization was accomplished through food, music and images. To help people envision how it might work for their family, share the information on your social channels and blog about the custom choices another family made that contributed to a special and touching sendoff.

Leverage Social Media

Take time to share information and testimonials on your social media channels. Social media provides the perfect platform to share with the 50 and up audience all of the options, including personalization and preplanning. Post visuals of a cremation with a service, or mention how a meaningful memorial service followed the cremation and interment. You can also share links that address how services contribute closure to the grieving process. A blog post could emphasize how important it is to take time to hold a visitation, which allows friends a less formal, less time consuming option to express their condolences with the family, while the funeral serves primarily family in a more formal setting.

You have many options for enhancing the marketing of your services to accompany cremation. As the tides continue to shift in the industry, please let us know when you need expert help marketing your services.

Content is King

Mon, 14 Oct 2019 16:40:20 GMT

Content is King

What rules the realm of digital marketing? Content!

Content—what you include on your website, social media and blogs—does two things: It engages your potential customers and keeps Google happy. Content can be graphics and images as well as written information, articles and posts. It can provide information that is educational and comforting as well as entertaining.

Here, we present a few ways you can update or develop content to engage and educate your local audience.

Website Content —Keeping your website up to date shows Google (and your community) that you are maintaining your presence. Some easy pages to update include your contact page, about page and staff bios. In your busy times, these pages may get overlooked, but you can update them anytime with a quick rewrite or edits that bring in current information.

Social Content — Social content provides an excellent path to building community and engaging people with your funeral home or crematory. Our Facebook packages include content that resonates with your local audience. Engaging links to articles, health and safety related graphics, grief quotes and holiday posts allow people to share as well as like content. Preplanning information can also be posted as well as the more popular custom posts—staff birthdays!

Blog Content —When you want to educate your community, one very effective way to do that is through blog posts. Blog posts represent one of the best ways to improve your SEO. Google loves to find fresh content. People love it, too. When your potential customers can learn more about preplanning on their own time, when they are ready, they are more likely to act on what they learn.

A well-populated blog, full of good content, can serve as a hub for your social media efforts. When you share your own content on social, it’s that much more tied to your brand and its unique story. And you can write about community efforts as well as your personalization or cremation services.

Long live content! When you pay special attention to your content, people can learn more about your funeral home or crematory and to act when they’re ready to preplan or at their time of need. Call FAC Marketing to learn more about how we can help you craft effective messages and content for your marketing needs.

More than a Facebook Like

Tue, 13 Aug 2019 02:02:44 GMT

Facebook for Business

Likes still reign supreme on Facebook, but other reactions have increased in popularity since their introduction in 2015. According to a recent article , Facebook’s Reactions—Love, Haha, Wow, Sad and Angry—have moderately increased in use.

For funeral homes, the Sad face and Love symbol are popular additions to the landscape of reactions. These reaction options allow people to share their sympathies about the death of a beloved friend or family member with more emotional impact than the typical thumbs-up symbol.

According to Facebook, the News Feed algorithm has been updated to take Reactions into account. They claim that reactions weigh more heavily on the algorithm because they reflect a higher level of engagement between the reactor and the page. More reactions should mean better reach into the news feeds of Facebook users.

For the purposes of increased engagement, funeral homes may wish to consider posting obituaries on their pages. Obituaries typically result in a lot of Likes, Loves and Sad reactions. In our Facebook management work, we have also found that posting images of staff members result in high engagement through both comments and reactions. We recommend developing posts around staff birthdays, work anniversaries and so on.

Take a look at your page and see if you are experiencing more reactions, such as Love, Wow and Sad.

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