8 Funeral Home Marketing Ideas to Try in 2024

Most of us know the value of doing good business. We pose the question – as a local business, are you investing enough of your time into funeral home marketing?

81% of consumers research online before making a purchase. Yet, it is reported that nearly 50% of small businesses spend less than 2 hours per week on their marketing efforts.

If your eyes lit up at that statistic, ours did too. If you’re looking for strategies, below are 8 funeral home marketing ideas that your team should look to implement or emphasize in 2024.

Build a Beautiful Website

It’s no mistake – the world we live in is becoming more digital every day. In one study, 84% of consumers claimed that businesses that have a website appear more credible.

There are many benefits to incorporating a unique website into your funeral home marketing plan. You’re able to establish a better digital presence, build more trust in your community, clearly communicate your services, and invite more families to get in touch with you.

While creating your funeral home’s website sounds exciting, there are a few other factors that you will want to consider, such as:

• Including a clear call-to-action button (CTA)
• Ensuring that your website is mobile-responsive
• Integrating with your current case management software
• Creating a world-class digital obituary experience

Set Up Online Listings and Generate Reviews

The classic yellow phonebook – everyone remembers it, but very few people still use it. As we’ve discussed above, more families nowadays are searching for local funeral homes through online channels, including free online business listings like:

• Google Business Profile
• Apple Maps and Yelp
• Bing

When you set up these business listings, you allow your customers and families to leave reviews for your business, visit your website, and even contact you directly. The more reviews your business collects, the higher the probability your business has to be discovered online by other families. 

Connect With Families Through Social Media

While many people in your community use Google daily, they also use social media. Facebook, Instagram, and many other social platforms have proven to host an enormous audience. For example, approximately 180 million people use Facebook alone in the United States. You can post different types of content to connect with your community on a deeper level.

Many businesses leverage free-to-use platforms like Canva to help generate content. We recommend that your team create a simple content calendar to help manage your social media.

Partner With Other Local Businesses

Partnering with local businesses can be a valuable strategy for a funeral home to strengthen its community presence and provide additional support to grieving families. Here are some ways a funeral home could collaborate with other local businesses:

• Florists and Floral Shops: Forge partnerships with local florists to provide floral arrangements for funeral services. Offering package deals or discounts for combined funeral and floral services can be mutually beneficial.
• Hospices and Healthcare Providers: Establish connections with hospices and healthcare providers to offer grief support services. Providing information on grief counseling and support groups can be valuable for families dealing with loss. Plus, hospices and healthcare providers can serve as an extra referral touchpoint for more locals to become aware of your services.
  
• Local News and TV Stations: Reach out to your local news or TV station to educate them on your services and story. Encourage them to find time to meet with you, and see if they’d be open to featuring you in the newspaper, on their website, or in a TV segment.

Create a Referral Program

If you’re delivering an exceptional experience to every family you serve, it may be time for your business to establish a referral program. This is an easy way for your team to offer incentives or discounts for any referred business and encourage satisfied families to make more people aware of your funeral home or crematory.

For example, Gather offers a referral program to our funeral home and crematory customers. It is set up more for B2B interactions instead of B2C, but you could create something similar for your business and customers.

Focus on Video Content

Yes, it’s scary to put yourself in front of a camera and create video content, but the statistics show that it’s time for businesses to double down. 78% of marketing professionals claim that videos have helped increase sales for their business.

The best part? The equipment is already at your fingertips if you have a newer phone. You simply need to create a video content calendar, dedicate time to creating the videos, and post the content in places where the community needs to see it.

Bonus: Google Search Ads are expensive, but YouTube Ads have an average cost-per-view of around $0.03. This may be a route for your business to consider too.

Explore Email Marketing

Leverage your funeral or cremation management software to create a report of email addresses or contacts that have opted to receive communications from your business.

Based on reports you create, you can utilize an email marketing tool such as Mailchimp or Constant Contact to build targeted lists for email marketing campaigns to help promote services like pre-need planning, community outreach events, or even multi-functional event spaces at your funeral home.

In fact, we’ve created 5 free pre-need email marketing templates that you can start using today.

Invest in Professional Photography

For only $200 to $300, you can invest in new professional photos of your staff, your facilities, and your equipment. While it may seem like a small thing, this investment can have a mighty impact on your business success.

For example, in the real estate industry, listings that include professional photography sell 32% faster than those that don’t, and 83% of buyers say that pictures are very important in helping them select a house.

The same goes for your funeral home! If you offer quality services but the quality of the photos on your website is poor, you’re going to lose the trust of families and community members that are visiting your website.

Bonus: you can utilize your new professional photos in other marketing materials, such as business cards, social media posts, email marketing graphics, brochures, business listings, and much more.

Boost Elements of Your Funeral Home Marketing With Gather

At Gather, we pride ourselves on being able to help funeral homes with some of these tasks that may seem impossible. Not only do we boost funeral home marketing with our integrated websites and interactive Remember Pages, we also provide the best case management platform in the industry.

When you pair great funeral home marketing with even better case management, you enrich the lives of everyone around you – your team, your families, your community, and yourself.

Our experienced team can help with your marketing, case management, and funeral live streaming all-in-one. Schedule a free demo with Gather today and gain peace of mind knowing your funeral home is set up for continued success.