We started talking about advertising mix a couple of days ago when we breached the subject of looking at our budget for 2018.  Obviously, advertising is a variable cost that we decided you need to know how effective each portion is, what types of advertising work in your community, and how, or if, by knowing this information we can be more cost effective to our bottom line with our advertising.

So far we talked a little about how a company might not only improve their Yellow Page advertising – but pay less for it.  Then we talked about the three basic cornerstones of advertising, in non-metro markets at least, newspaper, radio, and billboard.  If you were in a Top 100 market you might include television in that mix also.  And, even in rural markets, if you have a cable operator who sells locally, that might be an option also.

Today, we are going to talk about what I term “Ancillary” advertising.  These are not the three “old world” staples as listed in the paragraph above, but may become the staples of generations ahead.  No doubt some of your decision makers in families are already responding to  these types of advertising as their medium of choice already.  What are some of these types of advertising and promotions — how about internet, e-mail notices,  text messages, Facebook, Twitter, and special events, such as promoting a local concert or stock car.

Let’s start with the internet.  You can almost group this with the cornerstones simply because in most communities the newspaper is now read on-line more often than off-line print editions.  So, our suggestion here is much like newspaper ads — smaller ads with simple messages seen very frequently.  The great thing about internet ads is that you can have them link to a larger ad of your business or even your web-site Home Page for even greater effect.

Next let’s go to e-mail and text message advertising.  I would refer to much of this as “Customer Service” for an asked for service.  For instance, in my community the local newspaper comes out only twice weekly. . . the on-line edition has information added frequently, but in many cases you just don’t think about looking in a timely fashion.  So, obituaries and service times are not always known about by those that want to know in time to make the visitation and/or service.  We’ve gotten around this problem by offering an e-mail and text obituary wire.  People sign up for this service and whenever we publish a service notice all people on the e-mail and text message list get a notice that “Jane Doe, age 89 of Anytown has died”.  It continues.  . “for more information check out our web-site”.   This is a great inexpensive way to keep your name in front of the consumer and also provide a valuable service for people.

When you think about it, mediums such as Facebook and Twitter are basically group messaging that can be picked up by others.  Use your Facebook and Twitter as above to get the word out on deaths.  They can also be used for general announcements about your participation in things such as Holiday seminars or Pre-Planning seminars.  Lots of great uses and a cornerstone of some industries, but in the funeral industry they seem to work bet as ancillary mediums to the solid community staples.

Finally, don’t forget to sponsor some events in your community.  The idea of sponsoring a bowling team doesn’t happen all that much anymore — and if so the advertising dollars do not get enough eyes on them to make a positive difference — except by those on the team.  Try something larger like sponsoring a free concert in the summer that appeals to a wide variety of ages.  Or do as we do —  to help get our name to a certain group of people in a certain demographic —  our funeral home, for years, has sponsored a stock car on the local circuit.  We truly are the only death care business getting any recognition with the thousands of fans that attend the races weekly during the summer.

Make your advertising count.  Not only must it draw attention, but it must do that at a relative cost.  Make a plan within your budget confines and stick to it.  My guess is that you will see results.[wpforms id=”436″ title=”true” description=”true”]