Eulogize Memorials Can Enhance Both Family Healing and Your Direct Cremation Revenue

More and more families are choosing direct cremation for a variety of reasons, but simplicity, affordability, and flexibility certainly top the list. It’s estimated that about 40% of U.S. families opted for a simple and straightforward direct cremation with no memorial service in 2024. But because this disposition option bypasses traditional rituals, families can sometimes feel emotionally unanchored or as if something is missing in the grieving process. Creating a memorial or tribute, even weeks or months later, can offer meaningful benefits to families choosing direct cremation. By offering these families access to Eulogize’s innovative and easy-to-use self-service platform, your funeral home can help families to grieve on their own terms, while at the same time enhancing your direct cremation revenue.

A win-win for families and providers

Pairing Eulogize’s self-service tribute creation option with direct cremation services is a strategy that’s already being proven successful by direct cremation providers across the country, says Eulogize co-founder Nick Kelly. 

“Our direct cremation partners wanted to have a way of offering a tribute and memorialization process to families,” Kelly shared in a recent interview with DISRUPT Media’s Ryan Thogmartin. “Offering families a single email link to create keepsakes like video books or photo albums can make quite a difference in post-cremation revenue.” 

The Eulogize platform was designed to enable people with any level of technical or creative expertise to produce beautiful, high-quality results. Users can start with professionally designed templates and choose from a growing number of personalization and product options from stunning slideshows to lovely leather-bound video books.

“These are beautiful meaningful pieces — not the kind of stuff that will be thrown away,” Kelly adds. “They’re personalized and unique to each family, and they help to tell their story and continue that memory.”

Grief and healing have no timetable

Direct cremation doesn’t mean skipping grief, and it doesn’t have to mean skipping tribute. By decoupling the cremation from the memorial, families gain time, space, and creative freedom to honor their loved one in a way that feels right to them. In fact, grief experts have reached out to the Eulogize team to discuss the incredibly beneficial cathartic effects of families working together to memorialize a loved one.

Whether tribute creation happens immediately after a loss or continues for months, the therapeutic benefits are undeniable. When you give your direct cremation families self-service access to the Eulogize platform, you also give them: 

• Space for intentional grief and reflection, making room for emotions that might otherwise be overlooked when there’s no service;
• Opportunities reconnect with loved ones who may have missed the chance to say goodbye and share their stories;
• A way to shift focus from a person’s death to the value of their life by honoring their personality, values, and achievements;
• Freedom to design an authentic and comforting memorial to suit their loved one’s unique character or passions without the pressure or timeline of a traditional service;
• A ritual that marks an emotional transition and closure — something they may miss with direct cremation;
• Tangible digital and physical pieces that keep a loved one’s memory alive and supports long-term remembrance they can return to over time; and, perhaps most importantly, 
• A catalyst for healthy mourning that gives people permission to feel, remember, and speak openly about their loss.

“The process of going through those photos can be a beautiful moment,” Kelly says. “Families can look back on someone’s life and find the anecdotes and the quotes and things to include in the tributes. Without a platform like Eulogize, this could be a huge task, but we can make that process easy and simple so they can focus on telling their loved one’s story.”

Personalize what you provide

The limitations of direct cremation often leave deathcare professionals little opportunity to do what you do best — provide professional care and personalized service. The Eulogize platform allows you to extend the scope of your support well beyond disposition. Even though you’re giving families access to the Eulogize portal to work at their own pace, the Eulogize team and your own staff will be available to answer questions and provide oversight on their projects. If you prefer for your team to be more involved in the creation process, you can always turn off some of the self-service features.

“You personalize how you work with people,” Kelly says. “I believe that Eulogize is offering you another way to personalize your level of service, not just in a creative sense, but in an engagement and interaction sense.”

Best of all, because Eulogize can be hosted through your funeral home’s digital assets, anyone collaborating in the tribute creation process or viewing the finished product will be visiting your website and driving highly valuable traffic numbers and providing ongoing lead generation opportunities. 

It’s easy to add access to the Eulogize platform to both your direct cremation packages and your traditional deathcare services. To learn more about Eulogize, book a complimentary demo with the team or reach out via the Eulogize website. 

Going to CANA’s 107th Cremation Innovation Convention next week? Add Booth 49 to your agenda and stop by for a one-on-one chat with Nick Kelly and a Eulogize demo!