Products

Our take: Post-Cremation products are here to stay

By Funeral Director Daily / May 15, 2024 /

  One of my friends attended the latest convention of the International Cemetery, Cremation, and Funeral Association (ICCFA) and reported to me that “there were a crazy amount of post-cremation product vendors exhibiting available options”.  And, sometimes when I walk into arrangement rooms where many post-cremation options are available I get a sense of how big…

Take a cue from Apple. . . Sell more services

By Funeral Director Daily / May 7, 2024 /

      Apple has been seeing sales of its iPhone declining.  The product, which makes up about 1/2 of the company’s sales, dropped in sales revenue another 10% in the last quarter according to Apple’s 2Q Financial Report which came out last week.   According to this article however, Apple had a jump of…

Technology will be/is here for your funeral home

By Funeral Director Daily / May 2, 2024 /

    A pager that allowed me out of the funeral home. . . .telephone transfers that allowed death calls to be “transfered” to one’s home phones.  That’s about the extent of technology when I started in the funeral business. . . Oh, I suppose you also could consider electric typewriters and better carbon to…

Because that’s where the money will be. . . .

By Funeral Director Daily / May 1, 2024 /

  Again today I’m building off some of the impressions that my friend, Rolf Gutknecht of LA Ads – A Marketing Agency had during his time at the recent ICCFA Convention in Tampa.  As mentioned in yesterday’s article, Rolf puts out a little paper titled “Insights” which included his impressions of the convention.   Today,…

Batesville named one of America’s “Most Trustworthy” companies

By Funeral Director Daily / April 30, 2024 /

    A recent press release from Batesville give us information that the company has been named to “Newsweek’s list of Most Trustworthy Companies in America for 2024.”  According to the press release “Batesville achieved a top 25 ranking in the Consumer Goods category, alongside a variety of global brand leaders, coming in at number…

C&J Financial expands in Insurance Assignment funding

By Funeral Director Daily / April 29, 2024 /

  It was announced in this press release from last week that C&J Financial would be expanding by “becom(ing) the exclusive insurance assignments partner for Tribute Technology, taking over operations previously managed by the Tribute Insurance Assignments division”.   Jamie Meredith, Executive Vice President of C&J Financial, made this prepared comment in the press release,…

Titan Casket continues “edgy” journey to find their audience

By Funeral Director Daily / April 26, 2024 /

    On Wednesday of this week arguably the most innovative and edgy marketing tool was turned loose on the funeral buying public when Direct-to-Consumer casket company Titan Casket unveiled their new relationship with Elan Gale’s “The Year of Elan’s Productions” and actor David Dastmalchian in releasing “Grave Conversations”.   Here’s what an article from…

County governments seem to have lots of problems, are human remains another one?

By Funeral Director Daily / April 22, 2024 /

      Funeral Director Daily recently learned through this article from Public Media for Central Pennyslvania that Centre County will be building a 160-unit columbarium in Zion, Pennsylvania, to house urns that have went unclaimed.  According to the article, the columbarium will cost over $19,000 and the county has 41 cardboard urns at this…

Starmark acquires AMA Containers

By Funeral Director Daily / April 19, 2024 /

It was announced earlier this week that Starmark, a leading manufacturer of innovative funeral products, has acquired AMA Containers.  AMA was originally founded in 1991 as Airline Mortuary Associates.   Starmark, according to the press release, was founded in 2004 and since that time have provided what they call “Sensible Solutions®” for cremation.   The press…

Empathy startup raises an additional $47 million

By Funeral Director Daily / April 16, 2024 /

      In the recent past I served as Board Chairman for a large Senior population health and living company for three years and as Chairman for a smaller home care and hospice company for about five years.  All told, I’ve had over a dozen years of that leadership service in those industries.  …