By Paul Lovelace, Executive Vice President & Chief Corporate Development Officer

If you’re like most funeral professionals, you want to find ways to increase your funeral home’s revenue.

But you don’t have many options to do so. Let’s take a look at a few:

1. You can raise your prices, but most funeral homes only want to do this as a last resort.

2. You can sell more to existing families. Again, many funeral homes don’t like this option because they don’t want to seem pushy with their offerings.

3. You can bring in new families through preneed. (You might’ve seen this coming if you saw the title of this article!)

Many funeral home owners like option 3 the best. They’d rather promote their services to more families and increase their market share in their community.

But getting preneed leads (and sales) online can be difficult.

If you have a passive preneed program where you rely solely on walk-ins and call-ins, you won’t see many leads or sales. As a result, you will find it almost impossible to increase your market share and revenue.

One of the best ways to increase sales is through an active preneed program, where a designated person educates your community and gets referrals and leads in the process. But even with an active program, sometimes the leads can dry up if you don’t have a variety of ways to bring them in.

Another way to reach families is by taking your efforts online. According to the World Bank, 97% of Americans use the internet. That means instead of waiting for families to walk in and ask you about preplanning, bring that education to them online!

These 3 strategies below can help get more preneed leads online (and maybe sales!).

1. Use the power of social media 

Many Americans still have no idea they can make arrangements in advance and save their families from the financial and emotional burden that comes with making at-need arrangements. So, the best way to start spreading awareness about preplanning is online.

Why? Based on a recent consumer study we did, 90% of participants use social media. That includes Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and other platforms. By meeting people online where they spend a lot of time, you can get your message in front of more people than traditional marketing methods.

But you need the right strategy to get leads online to help those leads turn into preneed sales.

For our clients, we’ve created helpful content about planning ahead, including checklists and eBooks. We help our funeral home customers promote these resources online through digital advertising. Then, we capture leads by asking for the person’s email address so we can send them their resource and follow up with more information about preplanning. This principle is called the rule of reciprocity, where if you provide something of value (helpful resource), people will provide something of value (their contact information). With this strategy, we’ve helped generate tens of thousands of preneed leads per year for our clients on Facebook, Google, and YouTube.

Remember, with the right social media strategy, you can educate families about the importance of planning ahead, get leads, and maybe even increase sales in the process.

Click here to learn more about our holistic marketing approach. 

2. Make your website work for you

Another way to get leads is by capturing the attention of people who visit your website for any reason, from those reading an obituary to those wanting information about your services.

But many funeral home websites aren’t set up for success. Here’s why:

1. They lack effective calls to action (CTAs).

2. They don’t educate the consumer.

3. They aren’t set up to be user-friendly.

Let’s look at each of these in a bit more depth.

They lack effective calls to action.

According to Semrush, “A call to action is a visual prompt (usually text or a button) to direct a user to take a specific action.”

On websites, these CTAs might say, “Download now,” “Learn more,” or “Talk to our team.”

To have an effective CTA for lead generation, you need to have an enticing offer that the reader can’t resist. The goal of this CTA is to provide something of value (a checklist, an eBook, etc.) in exchange for someone’s contact information.

On your website, promoting something like a preplanning checklist is a great CTA to drive preneed leads for your funeral home. Without CTAs, website visitors won’t know how you can help them.

They don’t educate the consumer.

A lot of funeral home websites have something like a resources section. But the content is minimal and doesn’t answer questions that families have. If you, the expert, aren’t educating families about how you can help them, they’ll turn to other resources online that might paint the funeral profession in a negative light.

If you’re looking for quality content, start by sharing articles from www.FuneralBasics.org. This website, created by Funeral Directors Life, contains hundreds of well-researched articles for nearly every situation. You can also post informative videos and articles to your website to educate families.

They aren’t user-friendly.

If someone visited your website, would they easily be able to find information and resources on preplanning? Frequently asked questions? Your general price list?

If families can’t find helpful information in your navigation, they’ll leave your website.

Overall, if your website has compelling CTAs, educates families, and is easy to navigate, that greatly increases your chance of getting preneed leads.

Learn how to make your website a powerful tool for your funeral home.

3. Try an eCommerce tool

The third way to get more preneed leads (and maybe sales) online is through an online preplanning/eCommerce tool.

As mentioned above, 92% of people use the internet today, and that includes people of all ages. People are already making big purchases online, from cars to vacations. More and more people want to explore their funeral options online. Since 45% of people would preplan and pre-pay for their funerals, it’s even better if they can start the process online.

An online preplanning tool is a way for preneed families to prearrange online through your funeral home, from the comfort and convenience of home. It’s essentially a digital storefront for your funeral home. That means families can:

– Select merchandise and other add-ons.

– Choose service details that align with how they want to be memorialized.

– And more importantly, gain peace of mind for the future.

What to look for in a tool

Many online preplanning tools exist, but they’re not all equal. Some focus solely on disposition preferences and don’t educate families on the value of a funeral. Others provide a way to preplan but offer no way for families to fund their plans, even if a family wanted to.

– Doesn’t solely promote direct cremations

– Educates families on the value of a funeral

– Provides a good, better, and best package recommendation to make for an easier decision-making process

– Allows the option for funding online

– And guides families through the entire process to start online and finish in person, start in person and finish online, or do everything online.

Arrangement Guide can help your funeral home get preneed sales, but another big side benefit is its lead generation capabilities. Anyone who creates an account through your Arrangement Guide tool becomes a lead for your funeral home that you can nurture! For our funeral home clients, we’ve helped generate tens of thousands of leads in a few years.

Plus, when you promote this tool on social media using the strategies above, you can start to see a steady source of qualified preneed leads from your tool. Talk about a win-win!

Your preneed program is important

Your preneed program shouldn’t only be an additional source of revenue. It should help you with your overall growth plan for your funeral home.

Whether you have a passive or active program, there are always ways you can improve your preneed block of business. We can help.

Request a FREE business consultation below!