First Things First
Owners and sales managers need to understand that marketing dollars needs to be budgeted across a 12 month period. The rule of thumb is 5-10% of sales, depending on the organization’s goal. The dollars need to be allocated between branding & visibility, direct marketing outreach & lead generation.
A well established, high name recognition Cemetery may need to spend less on branding / more on direct outreach. A newer establishment may need to spend a higher percentage of their marketing budget on branding & awareness.
At Need – The Simple Visibility Test
How does a Cemetery know if they have visibility in their marketplace? A simple Google search will tell the story in one minute. Take this quick test. It’s the easiest way to see if consumers can find you on-line. Type in your cemetery / funeral chapel name into either Google or Bing. What do you see? What don’t you see?
If you don’t see your own cemetery/funeral home listed, chances are that no one else can see you either. This is a time to be proactive. You need to get nervous, get serious and find a resource who will help you get visible asap.
If your Cemetery/Funeral Home is way down on Google’s list, you also need to be concerned because consumers tend to click on the listings closer to the top.
However, if you are near the top of the list, that’s great because now you can concentrate on the actual process of lead generation. You’ve already done a lot of the work that focuses on driving consumers to your website and phone #.
Local Search
There are many resources in the marketplace who work with you to position your organization on-line for both local search and pay-per-click advertising.
Part of Local Search is to drive free traffic to your site. It is paramount that your cemetery or funeral home is properly listed in Google Local Plus. Make sure the mapping sections of Google and Bing are active and accurate. You want to make sure that a consumer using a mobile phone can find you. They need to be able to see your location and simply click to get directions. Your ad also needs to connect right to your phone number. This is vital. In the world of At-Need, when a death occurs, consumers are not going to spend time looking around. They will reach for their cell phones and start clicking on the top listings they see. They need convenience, they need efficiency and you need to insure that your name will be front and center.
Other components of local search include submissions and registrations on other local resource websites, including the internet yellow pages. Again, when it comes to At-Need, you need to be found at the top of the list. You need to be found quickly and the system has to be in place for a quick click to call.
Pay Per Click
This is where you pay to have you cemetery or funeral home listed in prime internet real estate. You want consumers will be able to find your listing near the top of the page. If you cannot get to the top of the part with free organic Local Search efforts, then you need to bite the bullet and pay for it. Again, when you’re talking about generating leads for pre-need vs at-need sales, the At-Need consumer is not going to start scrolling around looking for your listing. Visibility is key.
Most firms work with an outside company to set up their Google Ad Words account. These firms will create the actual Campaign Ads and put together an appropriate keyword list. It’s vital to select the right keywords and phrases that consumers typically click on when they search for a cemetery or funeral home. At the same time, you need to strategically budget the keywords to maximize your results.
There are companies that will set this up for you and then turn it over to you to manage your campaign. Other companies provide monthly reporting and maintenance options. Either way, cemeteries & funeral homes need to allocate dollars to this part of their marketing budget.
Facebook / Social Media Advertising
Many cemeteries and funeral homes are using Facebook and social media advertising to help them get in front of prospects in their local area. Options include uploading their own customer list and asking Facebook to find “look-alikes”.
Facebook ads can help with visibility and branding. You cemetery or chapel can pay to have your ad appear in your prospect’s Facebook newsfeed.
You might also want to upload the email addresses of your customers and prospects to Facebook or Gmail to create a blended campaign. Marketers can time their Facebook ads so they will start to appear just before the mail hits in home. Since response increases with the number of impressions a prospect experiences, adding another channel to the marketing mix will be a real plus.
Digital Display Advertising
Digital display advertising is a form of advertising that utilizes custom or branded images to reach a specific audience. These ads are also known as “internet banners”. Marketers create an ad using photos, videos and graphics to attract users to click and be taken to a landing page.
What’s exciting here is that a marketers can use this as a companion to their direct mail. New technology enables us to match the direct mail list and digitally market to the addresses on that list. Studies who that responsive digital display advertising can give a marketing campaign a big lift in response
Lead Generation for Pre-Need
Direct mail is still the #1 driver of lead generation in the Death Care Industry. Doesn’t matter whether it is used to invite prospects to a lunch seminar or offer a home-delivered premium. Your goal is to drive an in-home or in-office presentation.
Cemetery owners should not fool themselves by thinking that they can do one direct mailer and people will be walking in the door. Direct mail is not an event, but a well-planned series of touches. You mailer affirms your brand and becomes part of the conversation regarding pre-need. Studies have shown that direct mail initiates the pre-search for this kind of purchase. It is an essential part of pre-need marketing tool box.
Direct mail does not sell pre-need. It sets up the opportunity for your salespeople to sell the pre-need.
It is a lead generation tool to help with generating leads for preneed vs at-need sales.
Many Death Care marketers have explored EDDM. Some have done well; others not so much. Most marketers have found that it’s far more efficient and cost-effective to target the best-performing market segments for pre-need.
Top Performing Segments
- Households with presence of older adult
- Planners
- Selected Seniors
- Birthday Lists
- Veterans
- Individuals whose parents had pre-need plans
Marketers need to keep in mind the importance of matching the creative and the offer to the market segment for best response. The message to a 60 year-old about their parent is substantially different than the message that will resonate with a Veteran.
But you have to test. One of primary strengths of direct mail is our ability to measure its’ efficiency. So keep in mind the 4 Principles of DM Testing: Run a test – Analyze the results – Tweak based on findings -Repeat. Test only one element at a time. This is the best way to know for sure if your mail piece is working.
Funeral home & cemetery management also need to look at their own databases. This can be a tremendous source of great information which can be used to clone / develop new prospect lists. These lists can be kept current through NCOA (National Change of Address) and data appending processes.
It’s also a great idea to contact those families on your Customer list. Since these are your actual customers, it’s OK to call them on the phone. The personal touch can update data and obtain new next-of-kin and family information. Remember, those individuals who had a positive experience with a family member’s pre-need arrangements are great leads for a pre-need policy of their own.
Telemarketing
Even though Do Not Call Laws have made the search for quality telephone numbers much more challenging, telemarketing can still bring home quality leads. Sure, in the “old days”– it used to be great to call 10 homes, speak to 2 people, and make one appointment for a home visit which gave a salesperson the opportunity to close the sale. Nowadays, only 10% of consumers are available to call and the best phone numbers have been taken off the market. For more info, visit the FTC site.
However, for those funeral homes and cemeteries in a rural market with spotty cell phone coverage or an area with a high Hispanic population, telemarketing is still a great, low cost outreach tool to troll for leads and set up appointments for either Pre-Need or Final Expense solutions.
The Last Word
People buy from people. No one is plunking down $10,000 on a mausoleum space because they got a mailer. The goal of a lead generation program is to set the stage for the personal appointment. That’s what will close the sale.
Final comment – Cemetery owners and sales managers need to understand that they must have a working Marketing Plan that the entire sales team buys into. It’s takes a team effort to create and embark on an on-going marketing program that takes into consideration both At-Need’s Need to Be Found and Pre-Need’s Need to Find.
For more information, visit the section of the Dataman Group website devoted to the Death Care Industry or call 800-771-3282 and speak with DataDale or any member of the Dataman Group Team.
