5 Benefits of Social Media, Other Than Leads, Every Funeral Home Needs to Know

Social media is ‘marketing.’ It’s not the new marketing, it’s the current state of marketing, and funeral homes and deathcare companies can no longer afford to ignore it. There are so many reasons why deathcare companies need to get their heads out of the sand and start engaging on the platform used by over 75% of all Americans over the age of 45.

I am privileged to speak at many state, national, and even international funeral conventions each year. This allows me the opportunity to talk with hundreds of funeral professionals and to answer thousands of social media questions. Funeral professionals often want to know ‘what’s the true value of Facebook marketing?’

The answer is two-fold. First, it depends on what you want to achieve through Facebook marketing. Essentially, what are your goals? The value of what Facebook can provide would then be directly related to the set goals. OK, so, that’s a boring answer. Part two will be better.

Part two of this answer is Relationships. This is a very common and generic value of Facebook marketing but is also the most powerful. The relationship that is established with the consumer through recurring organic content engagement is the leverage to achieve all goals. Without an established relationship, Facebook marketing becomes super generic and unemotional for the consumer, which leaves your brand unmemorable.

One of the most profitable byproducts of establishing consumer relationships at scale through great organic content is the ability to leverage that relationship to drive preneed leads. But more business is not the ONLY reason to embrace Facebook marketing.

I say this because there are hundreds of funeral directors who don’t want to push preneed sales through Facebook, and that’s OK. This is what I want to address in this article. What are five super valuable benefits of great, organic content driven Facebook marketing, other than preneed sales?

Increased Brand Awareness and Establish Deep Relationships

Facebook is the best way to build your brand in today’s market. Facebook lets you have an open dialogue with consumers and generate meaningful conversations and relationships. If you don’t have a Facebook Page for your funeral home or deathcare business, you’re already behind. This is an eyeballs game – the more you are seen, the more noticeable you become, and that attention builds engagement and ultimately establishes a relationship. This relationship will also build trust and transparency with the consumer and start to breakdown all the stereotypes and pre-conceived ideas consumers have about funeral homes and cemeteries.

Ready to start benefiting from great Facebook marketing? Schedule a free demo with Ryan Schedule a Demo with Ryan

Improve Brand Loyalty and Create Raving Fans

This is the new word of mouth. Brand loyalty is about knowing more about your consumer than your competition does. Creating valuable content that consumers can engage with leads to a deeper relationship with clients; the more you know about someone, the more complex the relationship becomes. Focusing on creating organic content and humanizing your brand allows funeral companies to educate the consumer better and establish a deeper relationship. If you want to deepen the relationship, you have to deepen the conversation. When you have the opportunity to serve a consumer who has been engaging, and you deliver an amazing and healing experience, you have now created a raving fan who will be loyal.

Humanize Your Brand and Be Approachable and Trustworthy

Consumers connect with people and connect with a story. You have heard it said a million times, but it is 100% true – PEOPLE BUY FROM PEOPLE. Use your Facebook Page to get personal with your audience. Showcase your staff members so consumers can get to know your funeral home. Transparency is so important in this profession; transparency is what will attract consumers to your brand.

‘YOU’ are the brand. Your personal brand will always be more valuable than the business brand. Families come to see you – not the ‘business brand.’

Targeted Advertising That Engages Your Most Profitable Demographic

Targeted advertising allows brands to target a specific demographic with ads. Funeral homes can choose who their ads target based on age, race, gender, income, and interests. Knowing who your ideal customer is a major key to targeting the correct audience. Getting as granular as possible is critical. For example, if you are advertising a cremation item from your sympathy store, then you would want to target a user who has liked other pages related to cremation, shops online and has experienced a recent death. Targeting everyone within 10 miles of your funeral home between the ages of 18-65+ would not be a good idea. This is such a valuable tool; once you go through that checklist, Facebook will only show that ad to the specific person you are trying to reach and, therefore, saves money. A smaller pool of people are targeted, so you’d be spending less money and reaching a more specific group of consumers.

Real-Life Example: We (DISRUPT Media) ran an ad for a funeral home in South Carolina that carried a South Carolina Gamecocks casket. It was shared many times, and people were tagging family members in the comments to tell them that this was the casket they wanted for their funeral. One man, in particular, loved it but had already made preneed arrangements at another funeral home. The funeral home was able to message that user privately and switched his preneed to their funeral home. This targeted advertisement, towards older males, brought in business for this funeral home.

Facebook Ads are the most cost-effective way on Mother Earth to get your message through to your community, and its targeting functionality makes it truly unique compared to its closest competitors. At its root, Facebook advertising cost is determined by three factors:

Audience
Relevance
Estimated action rate

The main takeaway? If the ad is targeted to a specific audience, it is likely to be more relevant, causing the audience to interact and convert. Again, knowing how your audience is key to your success with Facebook ads. This lowers the cost and increases the ROI.

Disrupt media is a Facebook agency partner, which means we’ve demonstrated to Facebook that we can actually achieve results. We know how to target your ideal audience and get you in front of them. We can also show you results; we have conversion data that tells you who clicked on your ads and who’s engaging in your content. You can’t get that information from a billboard company.

Ready to start benefiting from great Facebook marketing? Schedule a free demo with Ryan Schedule a Demo with Ryan

Cut Marketing Costs

This graphic from LYFE Marketing that shows how much money you save by marketing on Facebook rather than traditional forms of advertisement. They calculated the CPM for seven different advertising mediums to show how much money you would have to spend to reach 1,000 consumers. This study shows that it only costs $2.50 to reach 1,000 consumers on Facebook. This statistic should cause businesses to reconsider their marketing strategy; this has the potential to allocate their funds to different categories in their budget, resulting in companies being able to spend more time focusing on the consumer and their needs.