I think every funeral home owner and marketing directors of larger funeral home, crematory, and cemetery operations by now understands that social media has some say in how people perceive your business is operated and how it may take care of their family if and when necessary.

 

One big question, however, is are those people who you are reaching on social media and telling your story to the same people who are in the “profile” of who would use your funeral home.  For instance, if your use of social media reaches predominantly 25-year olds that media cost may have little effect on pulling people into your care.  The same holds true is if you are reaching people who want full traditional funerals and your clientele profile is 90% direct cremation.

 

I thought of this when I read two items the other day.  One was from Bloomberg News and was a paywall  article that mentioned a huge population shift in our country  — that over 2.2 million people have moved in the past two years from other parts of the country to the Southeast portion of our country.

 

The other information that I read was in a distributed email from my friends at the LA Ads Agency and told of a true story of the agency doing an “audience and demographic” study for each of a funeral home’s locations.  It turns out from that study that the funeral home owner was really surprised as to how the demographics of his neighborhoods have changed and his social network postings were missing the mark.  He was not aware of the new neighborhood profiles and realized he needed help in “pinpointing” his social media offerings to make sure he could reach potential new clientele.

 

I think those two items — people moving to different areas, which I believe was exacerbated by the pandemic, and neighborhood demographics changing — are happening more rapidly than most of us have thought. . . . and, that might make a major difference on who will be using your funeral homes in the near future.

 

I’m located in a small town in Minnesota, yet I know that the neighborhoods in the greater Minneapolis area have changed.  But, while it is probably not so evident, the profiles of those in my small community, and how they pick funeral homes to use, has more than likely changed also.  I believe it is those, probably more subtle changes, that many of us don’t see.

 

I like to think that our funeral home has had a great relationship with churches and we could always count on “word of mouth’ recommendations to pull death calls from that membership.  However, with a lot of new retirees in our area and less and less church membership we have to find out how to reach those new residents and let them know about us.  Traditionally, that’s been through the legacy media such as radio and newspapers.  However, these new people don’t subscribe to or listen to those mediums any more so the obvious choice is social media.

 

Social media has to be part of that solution.  However, having our social media dollars land in front of the eyes of high school students probably is not a very good investment.  My guess is that we need to make sure that our dollars spent produce a difference to those who are in the 55 and over profile category and also reach the children of those people whom help them make many of their decisions.

 

That, I would see as my goal. . . .but, I have no clue on how to accomplish that with the dollars that I have available.  I think the best option would be to turn to somebody like RingRing Marketing or LA Ads to find out how to target those dollars so that they give me the most “bang for the buck”. . . . . But, remember, it is not only the placement of those social media dollars, but the content of your message as well.

 

I find in today’s day and age of cluttered messages seemingly everywhere – especially with artificial intelligence moving top content spots to the best profiles for your business – that combination of placement and content is increasingly more difficult to do in a financially sound way without an expert on your side.

 

More news from the world of Death Care:

• Columbarium wall installed at Ballyglass Cemetery.  Westmeath Examiner (Ireland)
• Long Island sisters sue funeral homes allegedly responsible for burying stranger instead of their loved one.  WFIN Radio (NY)
• Family funeral directors expands to open new branch in Overton.  Andover Advertiser (Great Britain)
• Memorial to Revolutionary War soldiers unveiled.  Essex News Daily (NJ)

 

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