We asked long time funeral consultant Alan Creedy about his opinion on the state of the funeral profession. His response will surprise you. Its not all positive and Alan makes a few very powerful predictions about the value of your funeral business. Are you in or are you out?
Alan is correct about using web sites and social media but he came up a bit short in his analysis.
He could have gone one step further and admitted that most web sites are flat and stagnant and offer little in the way of interesting or informative content aside from current services. Any marketing expert will tell you that a web site should be
representative of the business’ marketing message and image building and should leave visitors with a positive feeling that they learned something new. Why should the funeral industry be any different?
In today’s internet age people where people use the web for all of their research and planning, today’s consumers insist on useful information that they can use as they care little about what your firm did back in the fifties or sixties.
If your marketing message is that you only care about your firm’s history then you will be history.
Mr. Creedy makes some very valid points but he comes up a little short with his suggestions on reaching out to people and getting them to visit web sites. The ugly truth is that funeral home web sites are flat and for most of them, the only thing that ever changes are obit postings. Smart funeral homes understand they need to educate today’s consumer as every day more people use the Internet for their research and planning.
Web sites are an underutilized marketing tool and should be providing useful information instead of just the history of the business. Every single FH needs to have a Facebook page where they can interact with their community and help send out a new message that the funeral home is willing to change as consumers change.
BTW for those funeral homes that like to talk about their decades of service as the main part of their web site……… nobody cares what you did in the fifties and sixties, they want to know what you can do for them today. If you keep your marketing and image branding focussed on history, you will be history.