Ice-Age Squirrels & Fitting Fines | 4M #82
Welcome to the eighty-second edition of Morticians’ Monday Morning Mashup, 4M #82, where we’ll serve up bite-sized, easily-digestible nuggets of the deathcare news you need to crush conversations in the week ahead. Bon appetit!
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A fine in Florida
In what many might call a case of karma — or just plain justice — the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida has required Anthony Joseph Damiano and his various businesses known as both Legacy Cremation Services, LLC and Funeral & Cremation Group of North America, LLC to pay a civil penalty of $275,000 for deceptive marketing practices. For several years deathcare has been plagued by Damiano and his associates, who misled families about who was actually performing cremation services for their loved ones as well as the actual price for such services. In addition to the fine, the companies were ordered to “comply with the FTC Act and the FTC’s Trade Regulation Rule Concerning Funeral Industry Practice.”
Positive PR partnerships
How do you let your community know you’re offering something new, innovative, or just plain cool? Why not send a press release to your local news outlets? Trust us — they’re usually hungry for content, and there’s just something about deathcare that never fails to pique their interest. And here’s a bonus: Promoting a product or service not only boosts your visibility among the folks you serve, but also gives the product or service provider a little positive PR, which never hurts. Here are some examples of some partnership promos from this past week:
- Delaware County funeral director offers AI obit writer to community (about Tribute Technology’s new Tribute Obituary Writer)
- Local funeral home partners with ‘Shark Tank’ featured service (about Parting Stone’s April 7 appearance on Shark Tank)
Is this the beginning of The Last Of Us?
If you’re a fan of the video-game-turned-hit-TV-drama The Last of Us, which recently wrapped up its first season on HBO, you’ll remember that the pandemic that wiped out a majority of the population was caused by the Cordyceps brain infection, which stemmed from a parasitic fungal infection that was thought to have been brought on by global warming. Well, we’re not saying you should prepare for the apocalypse (yet), but some folks at Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History are a bit concerned about a “proliferation of possible fungus colonies” that has been found growing on a mummy (ahem — mummified remains, to be PC) they’ve had on display for decades — and is still being viewed by thousands of tourists each year. Gulp.
Cool idea, Kansas!
What’s the best way for an aspiring embalmer to figure out if deathcare is truly the right career choice — before they commit to mortuary school? Aside from shadowing a professional (which is always an excellent idea), an apprenticeship is actually a great plan. However, many states don’t allow apprenticeships prior to mort school graduation. Kansas would like to change that. A new law, proposed by the Kansas Funeral Directors Association and passed on March 31, will allow potential embalmers the opportunity to split their 12-month apprenticeship into two six-month stints, with one of those occurring prior to mortuary school. It’s a win-win-win; the candidate gets real-world experience, funeral homes get an extra hand, and more families can be served.
Squirrel!
While digging for gold in them thar hills of the Klondike’s Yukon territory in 2018, a group of miners came across something just as valuable — to anthropologists, at least. The “unrecognizable ball of fur, claws and limbs” they unearthed turned out to be a curled-up 30,000-year-old mummified Arctic ground squirrel, which is being prepared for its “public debut” in a Canada museum. The squirrel, which has been nicknamed “Hester” by researchers, isn’t the first super-old mummified discovery in the area; within the last seven years a 30,000-year-old baby wooly mammoth and a 57,000-year-old wolf pup have been unearthed in the Klondike gold fields.
Something to bookmark
From the pages of the always-loved Reader’s Digest: 40 Comforting Funeral Poems That Honor Loved Ones
The secret’s out
It’s more than likely there is no course on search engine optimization (SEO) in mortuary school. But that’s ok, because the cool kids at MemoryShare know all about it — and they know how to improve yours … while at the same time making streaming services super simple for your staff. Get ready for a little mortuary math here (also probably not a class):
SEO + superior streaming services + super simplicity + safety and security =
The MemoryShare not-so-secret sauce for success
MemoryShare’s exclusive app makes streaming super easy; you can record your full service with the touch of a button. By sharing these streams with your community, you showcase your excellent service and create name recognition with the viewers. Aaaannnd that’s not all, folks. Because MemoryShare videos are embedded on your own website (and not on the site of a separate streaming provider) your site gets more views, which results in street cred with the search engines.
Two things funeral homes need in 2023 are visibility and increased call volume. MemoryShare provides both of these things as well as a team of REAL people you can talk to if you ever run into trouble. So what are you waiting for? Learn more about MemoryShare today!
