Funeral Convergence announced the expansion of its Funeral Market Share Reports, now covering Massachusetts and Mississippi. Breaking down market share by individual funeral establishment and knowing your own cremation rate as it relates to your competition assists in understanding changing consumer preferences.
“We launched our statewide California reports in 2014, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive,” said Gerard Reinert, Founder and Principal of Funeral Convergence. “Today, many firms, corporations, acquisition companies and suppliers rely on our reports to develop their strategy for growth in 20 states. Without knowing your actual market share, you have no basis to judge your progress. While our primary focus has been on funeral establishments, we have been fortunate to also have data on cemeteries and crematories in certain states.”
Market share is the most important metric that funeral establishments can use to judge the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. This includes branding initiatives, advertising campaigns, CRM programs and
any other revenue generation efforts. Market share metrics are more important than Return On Investment (ROI) measurements. The reason is quite simple. Market share is a relative measurement against external benchmarks. Market share tells funeral establishments how they are doing relative to their competition.
Funeral Convergence has developed proprietary software to calculate actual market share and cremation rates based on actual death certificates filed by every funeral home. “Our numbers are right on the money as far as actual cases handled. There is no questions anymore about missing data.” Reinert stated.
“It amazes us how many funeral establishments ignore true market share data and continue to count obituaries. Others focus on internal metrics like satisfaction, awareness, loyalty, leads, recall, revenue growth, and margin improvements. The problem is that internally focused metrics can be deceiving. By itself, volume measurements are a start, but need to be further described by the value of your market share. Having a 70% share of a market in which you are losing money is not a sustainable strategy.”
There is only one way to succeed given our circumstances, and that is to continually increase the number of families we serve. As a result, marketing is no longer an optional addition to a successful funeral home.
Growth in market share is a prerequisite for long-term survival, marketing and being aware of your market share must be an integral part of the management and decision process.
Funeral Convergence presently produces reports in Alaska, Colorado, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin.
For more information, visit www.FuneralConvergence.com or contact Funeral Convergence at (831) 221-0075.
