Funeral Directors & Social Media: What’s Missing?

I’ve said it before, funeral directors were born to do social media. They are the very first social media community managers. What most of us in the digital realm had to learn comes naturally to the funeral director.

I know, you, Mr./Ms. Funeral Director is saying, “I have no clue about social media whatever.”

You do. Listen and let me explain.

History shows us that the one place communities gathered for support were churches. When a person died, the community gathered for the funeral service in the church. Funeral directors or undertakers, were there to help the grieving family through the difficult transition into their new normal.

Social media and digital marketing mean you do the exact same thing online. Your social sites are now places where your families can find comfort and support through your postings and conversations. Your platforms, website, and blog are all areas where you can direct the conversation and educate the community on the value of funerals, the value of having a service, etc.

A few weeks ago, I did a Facebook Live video introducing myself and naming the one thing I felt funeral directors were doing wrong in their digital and social media efforts. You can view that video on my page Funeral Social Media.

The one thing I think funeral directors are getting wrong in their digital marketing efforts is conversations. I find many pages are only posting about obituaries or they are talking about pricing. Nobody seems to be talking about all the important things each community wants.

As a funeral director,  you are in charge of honoring the dead and caring for the living. Your job is to provide a safe environment for a grieving family in addition to gentle direction & support as they begin their grief journey into their new normal. There are so many conversations to be had around these issues. You are more than a funeral director, you are a community manager. You are a human being.

I encourage you to think conversation when it comes to your websites, your digital marketing ads and social media efforts. What conversations could your funeral home firm be having that make the most impact in your community? What does your community want to talk about? I bet it’s not just Obituary’s.

About the author: Tamara MacDuff has grown up in the funeral industry. Her grandfather began her family funeral home in 1956. Her grandfather and father were leaders in the funeral industry; her grandfather being first to bring the traditional idea of calling hours to their area in the late 50’s-early 60’s. She has worked in her family funeral home and she began her education to become a funeral director. While she didn’t finish her licensing requirements, she did graduate from AAMI (American Academy McAllister Institute) in New York, NY & passed the National Boards; she also completed a partial residency. She knows the funeral industry better than many people do. After she left her funeral firm, she began her digital marketing & social media career. Having unique insights into both the digital marketing world and the funeral home industry, allows her to help funeral directors and funeral home owners in a unique way. Have a question for Tamara? She loves great conversation and she is passionate about helping funeral directors and owners embrace the social sphere. Connect with her online: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

 

Funeral Home Social Media Strategy

 

Funeral homes have a lot to say to the community. They were the original community managers; and continue to be in many cases. One of the many duties of a funeral director, when talking with a family, is to open conversations about difficult topics during an emotional time. Social media is all about conversations too.

Funeral homes have a goldmine of content at their fingertips too. The start conversations based on questions they have received, on workshops or classes they have taught and their own community service. After all, funeral directors are more than just funeral directors, right? They are little league coaches, the head up community service organizations such Rotary or Lions Club; or they sit on the boards of their churches or local non-profits.

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What does a funeral home social media strategy look like? It looks like this:

First comes WHY

Start here with WHY. Why did you become a funeral director? What drives you as a funeral director or a business owner? Why do you do what you do? This why is bigger than your company  mission statement, so dig deep and this will be your foundation to your strategy.

Focus on Service

Focus on the service you give to your family, community and the family’s you have served. This service should be aligned with your WHY. Share your experiences. Share your stories. Funeral directors can relate to many people in the community.

Goals of your funeral firm

What are the goals you have for your funeral firm? What are your competitors up to? Listening is as much a part of a funeral director’s job as opening up conversation; so it is with social media. If all you do is set up a Facebook (or other social media) page and post nothing but inspirational photos or obituary’s you have missed the point of social media. Tie your goals into your strategy – it’s more than just developing content. It’s about storytelling and conversation.

Tactics are fun

Now you can think about all the social sites you could set up profiles on. Facebook isn’t the be all and end all to your social media strategy. Posting once a week and filling the feed with obituary’s is not a strategy. Create a content calendar to tie your firms events with community news and to stay on top of important dates or holidays. Share content from your partners in the funeral industry, churches, florists, local musicians, etc.

Next Steps to a Social Media Strategy

You have the bones of a social media strategy. In a few weeks you will have the opportunity to listen to Tamara MacDuff on Ready Set Podcast with Mallie Hart and Brooke Ballard discuss this very topic of Funeral Home Social Media. Mallie & Brooke had a lot of A-HA! moments, maybe you will have some too.

Contact us and schedule your Pick My Brain session today. No obligation. You can also hire Tamara to speak for your event or workshop for your firm to personally guide you and your staff in social media strategy. Check out other services you may be interested in with Web-Moxie Marketing too.

In closing, as funeral home owners and directors; you have everything you need for a successful social media and overall web presence – don’t be afraid to use it. I’ll see you on the Web!

 

Funeral Homes: Service with a purpose

As a funeral director and/or funeral home owner, you are in the service industry – a caretaker by nature. It takes a very special person to be great at funeral directing and the myriad of functions funeral directors perform. Some are better in the back of the house – with embalming, casketing, make up, setting up the rooms and some are better in the front of the house – meeting with families, directing the service, completing all the details. All of these tasks are done by licensed funeral directors and all are done with one purpose in mind: to ease, for a little while, the grief of a family. Are these tasks done without taking into consideration any of the other details a funeral entails? I can’t truly speak for all funeral directors, however, I do know at our funeral home they are not. Everything is done with the purpose of comforting the family in mind. To make at least one day a little more bearable on their grief journey. For some families, everything from the color of the flowers, casket and dress are coordinated with each item building on the other; other families also incorporate the season or the funeral home surroundings. Everything is integrated and everything is driven by the purpose of the funeral home and the passion of the funeral director. No one detail is done in a vacuum.

Funeral Home Marketing

So if no detail gets done in a vacuum, why does your marketing and advertising get done this way? Marketing is telling a story. Purpose is the reason why you do what you do. Passion is how you do it. The digital landscape of websites, social media, search engine optimization, search engine marketing – such as Google Ad Words, all lend themselves well and when they are integrated together with traditional marketing methods, stitched by your own purpose and passion … you can’t lose. Yet some firms only have a website – though they don’t use it as the awesome, amazing business tool it is. Some firms have a website and social media – but don’t integrate the two and therefore have fractured conversations and little traffic. Funeral directors go through their days (nights, evenings, weekends too ..) with a purpose. A purpose of community, a purpose of hope, a purpose of integrity. This purpose driven service should also spill over into your marketing of your funeral home. Being in the funeral industry, you, as a funeral director and/or owner, are the unique position to bring purpose and passion to your marketing.

Funeral Home Engagement

As a funeral director you have engagement from the moment a family calls your firm, whether it be for pricing, questions or need. As an industry you were the first social media organizations and you shined at engagement. Now take that expertise and integrate it into today’s digital landscape and you will take your firm to the next level.

Next Steps for your funeral home

1. Take an inventory of your current marketing mix – everything from church programs to sponsored events, including how you use your website & any social media or digital marketing you do.
2. Measure your tactics against the goals your firm has set.
3. Determine if your strategy & tactics are giving the community what they want, need or expect from your firm. (go beyond the click, like & follow metrics)
4. Contact us for a Digital Performance Review we can tell you how well your online presence is meeting your offline business goals.

Talk to Us

We love to talk digital. We don’t bite and we don’t charge to talk to you. If your firm is in the Rochester NY area – we do love coffee and would love to have a cup with you. We take all the hype and blow away all the smoke & mirrors to get you results.

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Your Mirror Is Lying To You

So your funeral home has been contacted by yet another SEO “expert” calling to say they can magically get your funeral home website ranked in the Number 1 position on Google. Really. Hmmm. Does the following conversation sound familiar?

“Mr. Funeral Director, I am calling today to offer you a great opportunity to appear in the number 1 position on Google. As you know, being on the first page of Google, especially in the Number 1 position is what drives all the traffic to your site. Would you be interested in hearing more?”

FD: “That’s interesting. I am aware of the power of Google and the Number 1 position, how would you do that? You must need to have access to my site?”

SEO: “No. We can do this without access your website’s backend. We create a mirror site for you – a site that looks exactly like yours with live links to your actual site, and we have our mirror site programmed with all the SEO necessary to secure the Number 1 spot. All this is yours for $xxx per month.”

FD: “A mirror site? All the content remains the same? AND I can be Number 1?”

SEO: “Yes, an exact replica of your site and the Number 1 position”

FD: “OK. Sign me up – what do we do next?” STOP.   STOP.   STOP.

Put down the Kool Aid slowly and back away … slowly. Sit down, breathe, relax and remember this:

Nobody can guarantee a ranking on any search engine in any position. There is no shortcut to SEO success.

I know it sounds tempting. I get it. I’m crystal. You want to be Number 1 because you believe all the traffic will come if you are in that position. Another lie (and another blog post.) We all want to be Number 1 or at least be on the first page of Google. Got it. I deal with this every day.

Let me be clear – DO NOT USE A MIRROR SITE. A true mirror site will have duplicate content, duplicate page title, duplicate everything, because it’s a true mirror site. Therefore, Google can’t tell which is which and therefore neither of them get ranked.

They never said they could keep you at Number 1, just that they’d get you there, remember?

The mirror site is lying to you because it’s not usually a true mirror site; there’s some differences somewhere, it may not even be your funeral firm’s site that is ranking. In one instance, I noticed a local funeral firm’s site wasn’t truly ranking. The site that did rank for some influential keywords was actually the local SEO company’s development site for this funeral firm. On that development site, the background of the firm’s site was the same, navigation the same, there was even one picture from their slide show included. Content? Not by a long shot. I could tell it wasn’t written by the funeral director or their staff. The links were live – so if you clicked on a link, it took you to the right site.

What’s the risk? Aside from that SEO company taking that firm’s money, that firm is fooling their potential families. They are diluting their brand in the community. The next thing that happens is that when the firm decides they do not want to renew their contract;  Guess what happens to that ranking? It goes away. That’s right. If you don’t renew with that SEO company, your first page rankings will go away and you will fall off the rankings. So what can you do? Here are a few things you can do & remember when dealing with SEO company’s:

1) Ask them what happens if you do not renew the contract with their firm. What happens to the rankings?

2) Understand what really drives SEO rankings: Clean Web Coding, Content, Foundation Aspects & Traffic. Foundation aspects for SEO are Page Titles, Alt Tags for photos, Fresh Content and Descriptions. Do not leave these valuable website real estate blank.

3) Know your target audience and define your success. Like anything else, SEO requires a strategy and it starts with setting goals and defining success. Integrate that definition into your content marketing strategy and SEO, so that no other company does it for you.

4) Find your keywords that tell your story.  Why are you unique compared to the other funeral firms in the area? What is your specialty? How does your community search? What does your community want from you? What are they talking about?

5) Understand that SEO is a powerful tool and not a solution. It is not just for websites anymore. It is meant to be integrated across all your complete digital strategy.

If you have a handle on these, you can develop a very tight and comprehensive digital strategy that your firm is implementing from a position of strength.

Have some more SEO questions? Want a FREE Website audit? Contact us – we love to hear from you. We don’t charge & we don’t bite. Talking to us is free; and if you are in the Rochester NY area – we love coffee …

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Funeral Home’s need digital too

The last time I checked, funeral home’s are businesses too. They may be filling a specific need in society, they are nevertheless a business first and foremost. This is why I sometimes scratch  my head when those in the funeral industry do not follow or participate in marketing strategies other businesses do, especially today.

I know that when a funeral home markets there are sensitivities that need to be addressed & honored. I get it, I grew up in the industry. The marketing tools and strategies out there today, the digital strategy, it is custom-made for the funeral home industry. What is the one thing in the digital strategy & social tactics that make one successful? Information and Education. That is all any business in the digital space is doing – educating their consumers about their service or product. Funeral homes are in a perfect position to do this.

Information is what funeral homes have to offer; over and above their memorialization merchandise. The number one job of a funeral director to educate the family about the value of a funeral and what they can expect while they are beginning their grief journey. They are a community resource – they have ready made content that can easily be repurposed to include all the elements necessary for the social space.

Today it is imperative that you have a digital strategy that includes social networks. Think outside the box in how you use those tools because it goes beyond the like, the follow or the click. Don’t get hung up on the wrong metrics. Engagement is important, just think about where you want the engagement results to be – on Facebook, Twitter or with your funeral home & your staff?

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Funeral Home Social Media is a service of Webizing LLC where we specialize in funeral home digital strategy & social management. We help your funeral home find the right metrics and we tie your online efforts to your bottom line business results. Sometimes your social stats can be misleading – allow us to help you sort it out.  Contact: Webizing LLC at (585) 348-8630 or via email at: info@webizing.com.  Visit us at www.webizing.com.

Secrets Revealed …

…. Soon!

Now that I have your attention! We know we’ve been remiss in keeping this blog going – we have some pretty good reasons. We are growing! We have many new things coming up – if you follow us on Twitter @FuneralSocial, you know of one of our new programs. We are working on others – but you have to wait to see what they are – more info coming your way.

Since we have our hands in so many other things while we are going through our Growing Pains – which is a GREAT thing – painful nonetheless, we are looking for some Funeral Industry Bloggers to help us keep this blog updated & growing. Are you interested? Know someone who likes to write & can contribute? Let us know: email us at info@funeralsocialmedia.com

Until then – keep watching for our secrets to be revealed …

3 Things You Need To Up Your Game

Everyone wants to be Number 1 on Google. That’s what everyone is chasing these days. You would think Google was giving away a prize for the Number 1 spot. You must realize that just because you are in the Number 1 position, it doesn’t mean people will click on your site. I know, it’s a shocking truth. You could be Number 1 and STILL not get the traffic – who knew??

There’s a better way. Another way to up your marketing game, get traffic, more importantly, get qualified traffic to your site, and still get some sleep without having nightmares about Google not ranking your site Number 1. Don’t worry, here’s what you have to do:

1) Become an Anthropologist. No, I don’t mean go back to school to get yet another degree. Anthropology is too important to be left to the anthropologists anyway. Truly. What does an anthropologist do? They watch & learn about people. Watch & learn in your community about people. Watch people at your funeral home while they attend visitations – where do they congregate the most? Maybe you should put more literature in that room? Maybe you should consider upgrading that room to make it more comfortable or user friendly, if you are renovating? Listen to them – what questions are your families asking – this tells you what type of content they are looking for – great info for Blog Postings, Facebook Posts, or Tweets. Be an Anthropologist.

2) Cross Pollinate. That’s another term for “look outside your industry.” Top firms always get ideas from everywhere, and usually the best ones come from someplace other than their industry – stop looking to other funeral firms or funeral corporations for all the answers. Maybe your local General Contractor has ideas that work for him that you could do. Did you know that a pediatric hospital in London, UK redesigned their whole ER Dept based on a Ferrari Pit Crew?!?? Yep. They reduced tech errors by 42% and information errors decreased by 49% (WSJ, 4/06).

3) Reverse Mentor. Here’s another new term – it means, “listen to the younger generation.” They have a lot to tell you – and you may be shocked at what they have to say & how they can grow your business. Information comes from all people and all walks. Listen to your funeral interns, your secretary, your teenagers; even the younger members of a family you are serving. They can all be Mentors to you. Mentoring can be a two way street.

If you do these 3 things, you will up your game, be the funeral firm of choice in your area & get some sleep. If you accomplish these things, and you implement them – integrated with your web site & social media/communications – you could rule the world – and it won’t matter what Google thinks of you; besides, if you do these right, you will be Number 1 on Google AND get the traffic.

About Webizing LLC & Funeral Social Media:

Webizing LLC is a Marketing & Social Media Firm specializing in Funeral Home Marketing. Tamara MacDuff has over 20 years of funeral industry, marketing & small business experience. She can be reached at (585) 398-8169 or via email at info@webizing.com.