Advertising to bring results

September 27, 2023/Business, Preneed/

If you want to grow your business — whether through at-need or pre-need — there are some basics you need to understand about the consumer mind. You also need to understand how to reach those consumers. . . . Today’s column will touch on both of those aspects and hopefully point out some strategies for you to move forward and improve your reach to bring more client families to your door.

When I attend the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) annual convention it is with several priorities in mind. One of those priorities is to accumulate Continuing Education Credits in order to re-new my own funeral director license. In Las Vegas earlier this month I was able to pick up six of my two-year requirement of 15 credits. Over the next few weeks I will let you know what I learned.

One of the seminars I attended was entitled “How to invest your advertising dollars wisely” and I learned a little that I will try to pass on in this column.

First of all, it was pointed out by the instructor that there is a natural sales funnel that the human mind goes through in making buying decisions. The consumer’s journey goes through the process of:

Awareness
Interest
Desire / Decision
Action

In my opinion, in death care decisions sometimes the “Action” portion can come without much deliberate thought as to the preceding three processes of awareness, interest, and desire/decision. This would happen in the case of sudden deaths where the family is almost immediately asked by medical personnel, “Which funeral home would you like us to call for you?”

From my point of view, that’s where what has been done previously by the funeral home in creating what is known as “Top of Mind Awareness” (TOMA) really pays for itself. Creating “Top of Mind Awareness” in a consumer’s mind is making sure that when a funeral home is mentioned, your funeral home comes to mind,

That positioning as “Top of Mind” has to be done with a consistent, regular messaging system to consumers over a period of time. At the NFDA convention it was quite apparent to me that most media specialists now believe that messaging has to be done, in today’s world, not only through the old-fashioned method of radio where affordable but increasingly through social media channels.

Interestingly enough, there seems to be little appetite for putting any dollars in the print media, such as newspapers, anymore.

The instructor went on to educate those in attendance about what he called “The 4 Pillars of Advertising”. He mentioned that to get your message across to potential clientele you needed to follow these four criteria:

Reach
Frequency
Consistency
Copy

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

All four of those pillars are important for getting your message out. For instance, you need to know your reach or how far out do you want to bring your message. . . .it makes little sense in spending to get it out in areas that will not geographically come to your business anyway. With social media however, reach may not mean geographic. . . it may mean “Boosting things like Facebook posts” to reach a larger audience. That’s something that professionals will be able to help you with.

Fequency and consistency are also important to keep reminding the consumer that your are there. However, the presenter mentioned that the most important pillar of you advertising should be the “copy”. . . or what you are saying to the consumer. What do you want them to know — “We provide great service”, “We are convenient”, “We are fair”, We’ve helped your neighbors”. . . . . .and how you do it matters.

So, if you want to grow your business make sure your advertising is “hitting the right potential clientele with the right messaging”.

One of the sponsors of Funeral Director Daily, Ring Ring Marketing is an expert on this topic and if you are looking for help you can reach out to them here.

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