PreneedBy Patti Martin Bartsche

PreneedTouch Points

As a funeral professional, you understand the importance of a strongpreneed program. But how can you make sure your preneed efforts are asgood as they can be and your staff is working in the most thorough andefficient manner?

Our preneed partners are here to help, offering insights on your mostcommon preneed problems.

PreneedTouch Points

This article originally appeared in the December 2018 issue of American Funeral Director, published by Kates-Boylston Publications,and is being shared with permission. Visit www.americanfuneraldirector.com to subscribe.

This article originally appeared in the December 2018 issue of American Funeral Director, published by Kates-Boylston Publications,and is being shared with permission. Visit www.americanfuneraldirector.com to subscribe.

It’s no secret that digital technologyhas taken a front seat in marketing.Businesses large and small, old andnew, rely on digital marketing andthe ability it provides to target, test,measure and optimize every messageto every audience subset – to reachand influence consumers throughoutevery stage of the marketing funnel.

Because consumers today are soconnected to their mobile phonesand computers, digital marketingstrategies can be used to reach themwherever they are, whenevermarketers want, in a dizzyingvariety of ways. We’ve all beentargeted by display advertising,social media advertising, emailmarketing, content marketingcampaigns, survey capture forms,text messaging and more.

The funeral business is nodifferent. But while the way you goabout marketing your funeral homehas probably changed dramaticallyover the past five or 10 years, yourNo. 1 marketing priority hasn’tchanged from the days beforedigital: it’s still connecting andengaging with families.

Do you know how to bestreach your target audience?

Today, baby boomers are thecore target audience for funeralhome marketing. Research showsthat, like their younger millennialcounterparts, they are activeconsumers of digital media. Anoverwhelming 82 percent ofboomers use social media – mostlyFacebook – while 95 percent usesearch engines and email(SOURCE: DMN3, 2018).

Although they’re not nearly asreliant on social media and digitalplatforms as millennials, a signif-icant portion of leading-edgeboomers (those born between 1946and 1955) use Facebook 11-plushours per week (DMN3). And likeyounger consumers, they regularlyvisit and research information oncompany websites after beingexposed to business messages onsocial media sites.

So it’s reasonable to concludethat no funeral home marketingplan is complete without strategiesthat target baby boomers online.

Yet, results measurement can bemisleading.

With the advent of social mediacame the ability to measure what’sknown as “engagement.” Suddenly,counting impressions gave way tocounting “likes,” “shares,”“comments” and “reposts.” Theseengagement measures are what wecall “vanity metrics” because theymake marketers feel good andbecause they look good on paper.Vanity metrics have been adopted asa proxy for evaluating a marketingcampaign’s impact.

But more recently, the marketingworld has grown skeptical of thevalue of vanity metrics. An articlepublished in the Harvard BusinessReview explains why social mediamarketing by itself is not effectiveunless it’s part of a comprehensive,multi-channel campaign. The articlepointed to recent research thatshowed 80 percent of U.S.companies are unable to quantifythe value of their social mediaefforts. Further, the research foundthat 87 percent of chief marketingofficers at Fortune 500 companiesacknowledged that they are unableto document whether social mediacreates new customers.

Harvard Business Review’sresearchers found that vanity metricsdon’t work the way many marketersthink they do. In contrast to conven-tional wisdom, the simple action ofliking a brand is not the same as

How important is preneedmarketing in the digital age?”

Tyler Hornibrook, vice president of marketing, Precoa

Q“A

This article originally appeared in the December 2018 issue of American Funeral Director, published by Kates-Boylston Publications,and is being shared with permission. Visit www.americanfuneraldirector.com to subscribe.

endorsing it in the traditional sense,because people tend to click on“like” indiscriminately; therefore al ike is not indicative of anindividual’s behavior or intent topurchase from that brand. Liking abrand isn’t even predictive of aperson’s future exposure to it :Because of Facebook’s complicatedalgorithm, there’s no guarantee thata follower will ever see a brand’sposts in their newsfeed, or that afollower’s friends will be aware oftheir endorsement of that brand.Therefore, l ikes alone do notconclusively influence behavior andpurchase intent among friends.

Integration makes social mediamore effective

Preneed has a long purchasecycle, one in which the audience’sinterest must be nurtured. Withinthat span, we have the opportunity,

and obligation, to be respectful ofprospects’ time and attention, so wehave to be highly intentional aboutevery marketing interaction.

Social media is just one of manytouch points to be used throughoutthe preneed marketing pipeline.Utilizing traditional marketingdemographic data can help apreneed marketer build and refinetheir target digital audience and canalso enable them to create personas –highly refined consumer descriptionsthat enable businesses to understandand categorize the motivationsbehind different target audiencesegments. Tying it all together into amultichannel marketing strategy,with informative content, adver-tising, and customized messagingthat explains the value of preneedand why it matters, is the key. Youmust strike a careful balancebetween design, testing, tracking and

follow-up at every touch point.

ConclusionsIt takes a tremendous amount of

resources to be truly effective. Youneed preneed experts who areavailable on-demand to nurtureprospects, follow-up with inquiries,respond to chat requests, and replyto emails with information tailoredto each particular lead source.When the need for preneedplanning or funeral services arises,families will make their first call tothe provider who has invested inbuilding a relationship with them.Most funeral homes can’t do it allalone; that’s why partnering with amultichannel preneed marketingexpert is crucial. Using fewer in-house resources, you will be able toserve and provide a path to healingfor more families in yourcommunity. •

Visit kates-boylston.com/preneed-partners for more information.