SAIF Golden Charter

Marketing makes a difference

Funeral directors are using the latest online techniques to reach out to customers

Since the pandemic, many funeral directors have reassessed the marketing focus of their businesses and seen the increasing potential of social media to make connections with their communities and raise brand awareness. Many are withdrawing from traditional press advertising and moving online but, as our four funeral directors explain in this feature, there are sensitivities in the type of content and frequency of posting on social media.

Facebook is the favoured platform in not only sharing obituaries with the local community but also explaining about the recent changes in CMA and FCA regulations and how it affects funeral directors. Many are also embracing direct cremation and using social media to explain the difference between this relatively new concept and a traditional funeral service.

Covid has helped open the discussion around death and funerals and many funeral directors are now posting videos – either professionally commissioned or self-made – to explain aspects of the funeral service and to also provide a human face behind the brand – an important feature of their marketing so that potential customers feel they know who they are speaking to when they make their initial call.

While traditional press advertising is on the wane, funeral notices in local newspapers are still seen as an important medium for brand awareness, as they can carry website and contact details, but that means it’s essential that funeral directors have a well-designed website which is kept up to date and responsive.

While there has been a trend to move marketing online, there are still traditional activities such as sponsorship and leafleting that are helping to promote businesses, as well as the less traditional playing their part, such as local radio advertising and innovative funeral tours, which are also helping to bring in new business. Read how our four funeral directors, some of whom have been featured on recent Golden Charter Partnership Podcasts, approach marketing in their communities.

Stuart Love

Love’s Independent Funeral Directors Ltd

Although Stuart Love is a new entrant to the funeral business in Stafford, he has made a splash in the local newspapers by converting a 17th-century grade II thatched cottage in the High Street into a modern and spacious funeral home. Primrose Cottage, a former fruit and veg shop which has been closed since 2018, was brought back to life in 2021, and Stuart used Facebook to show the progress of the renovation to gain awareness for his funeral business when it opened in February this year.

Stuart is a former West Midlands Police Community Support Officer and celebrity chauffeur who had worked in the funeral business for a number of years before deciding to set up on his own two and a half years ago.

He said: “Social media is huge for our business but the marketing has to be done in a way that is not too promotional and it is important to be respectful. I learned a lot running social media accounts in my last funeral job so I was keen to tell the story of the renovation of the cottage and develop a following where people could understand our approach and our services when we opened – it’s like taking them on a journey with us.

“However, you have to be clever about when and how frequently you post on social media as it’s not the industry where you want to be posting every day. We always try and do it once or twice a week, at target times such as Sunday mornings or Sunday evenings, when people are more likely to be relaxing and looking at their social media feeds.”

Now that the funeral home is completed, Stuart has been keen to show off his new premises. In addition to providing a virtual 3D tour of the funeral home on his new website, he has also sent letters to local organisations inviting them for a tour of the facilities and to learn more about the funeral process. He explained: “We do a lot of community work, engaging with local hospices and charities to get the name and our brand out there, and one thing that has worked really well are the tours of Primrose Cottage.”

George Roberts

G. Roberts Independent Family Funeral Directors

G. Roberts Independent Family Funeral Directors was formed in 1986, when the new business moved into Scarborough premises from 1906, which were originally purpose-built to be a used as a funeral home. Although the firm is steeped in tradition, its marketing strategy is far from conventional for a funeral director as it encompasses radio advertising, video and social media analytics.

George Roberts joined the firm nine years ago, after leaving school, and now heads up his father’s and auntie’s business today. He said: “We used to advertise in the local newspaper on a monthly basis but withdrew from this in 2019 to explore the coverage that local radio would give the business – a strategy that has proved right for us.

“We withdrew from press advertising as we felt the funeral notices in the local papers themselves gave us a high enough profile, particularly as we referred people to our website for more information about donations, etc.”

The firm was first contacted about radio advertising when a new local station, Coast & Country Radio, was preparing to launch and George believed that the radio’s 40-mile catchment area would give a better coverage than the local weekly newspapers.

He explained: “We felt that radio advertising would suit our business better than press advertising. It’s a wider audience and you have better scope to reach more people, particularly in their cars, homes and even in workplaces. So we worked with the radio station to develop two campaigns: one for at-need funerals and the other for pre-paid funerals. We were aware that we needed to be delicate in getting our message across so the adverts are very simple, telling people who we are, what we do and how to get in contact with us. The at-need advertising was really about raising brand awareness but the pre-paid campaign brings in new business for us, and has been quite successful.”

The 30-second adverts play several times throughout the day, with one week featuring the at-need campaign and then the next week the pre-need adverts. The adverts are refreshed every six months with new content. “We like to update the adverts a couple of times a year to keep them fresh.”

George has tried using Twitter and Instagram for promotion but has settled on Facebook as the best social media platform for his business. He said: “It’s all about market audience and who you want to be targeting, and we have found that Facebook was pretty much the best for us to use. We post many obituaries from our Direct Funerals site, which is popular on our Facebook and we get numerous likes and shares.”

George brought in an external marketing company to review his online presence and to enhance the content of his website and Facebook page with new imagery and videos. He said: “Ironically, we had conducted a funeral for the owners of the marketing company and so it worked well for us as they understood our business and what we wanted to get across.

“In addition to reviewing our website and social media, and looking at all the analytics to help us to target audiences, they also helped with new visual assets. They took 150 photos of our team in action so we would have a plentiful supply of stock images to use, and helped us develop two videos to explain about aspects of the funeral process.

“The video for at-need funerals used drone footage and explained a bit about us, our history and approach, and what happens when organising a funeral. I think that’s been quite useful to help people see visually what happens when you get to a crematorium or chapel.”

George said that the main focus was getting the tone of the message right: “Since Covid, we have to be more delicate in our messaging, to focus on the simple facts and get the right balance with our visuals and music to ensure that we not offend anyone, particularly on social media where it’s easy for people to post negative comments. In addition to our radio advertising, we do a lot of social media campaigns now on a fortnightly basis, which we’ve been able to target areas and audiences of age ranges.”

George also likes to use website and social media statistics to assess the performance of his marketing campaigns. He said: “Looking at the statistics helps us review our marketing. For example, we can see that from the 5,000-plus people that looked at our post we could have 1,200 people interact with it, like it, share it, or whatever. So we know the ins and outs and it works well because we can then see if we’re doing something right or something wrong.”

Callum Ross

Tom Ross & Sons Funeral Directors

Callum Ross is the third generation of his family to run Tom Ross & Sons Funeral Directors in Forres, near Inverness in Scotland, and an office in nearby Nairn. Working in such a small rural community, he knows most of the families in the town from previous funeral arrangements over the years but this does not make him complacent when it comes to marketing. When he took over the family business, he was keen on using Facebook for a lot of his promotional activities but is still aware that there is a proportion of the local community that still want to get their news from the local paper.

He said: “I’ve just renewed our press advertising for another year but I did initially hesitate before continuing as I feel that the focus of marketing should be on Facebook as it is such a powerful tool to connect with people. However, in this area we still have people that are not online so you have to still use those traditional methods such as newspapers but over time, I believe, that will eventually fade away.”

Callum said he used to spend a lot of money on getting listings on Yell.com, but Google has superseded this and he now focuses on pay per click and the sponsored listings and is therefore high on the Google search list.

He said: “I’m a bit obsessed with Google listings and always checking on where our website comes up because it is so important for our brand awareness with local people.”

In addition to keeping his Facebook page up to date with new content, Callum has also made his own videos to post on the platform, talking about different topics to do with the funeral profession.

He said: “Through our videos we’ve shown clients around our chapel, we’ve talked about what to expect when arranging a funeral, spoken about Golden Charter funeral plans and we’ve discussed what happens with a direct cremation as well. For me, the whole point of creating these videos was to break down barriers and allow clients to see us on a human level, as welcoming and approachable.

“I’ve not done too much of that type of content, because you don’t want to be constantly bombarding people with new videos; it’s about finding that balance, especially because of the nature of the job that we do.”

To get a bigger audience on Facebook, Callum pays for sponsor listings on Facebook, particularly for the videos, to help with brand awareness, and also sponsors local events in his community, such as the local football teams, particularly the junior team.

He said: “For us it’s all about getting your name out there, and another important bit of promotion we do is sponsoring local events. I think that it’s important because if you want locals to support your business, you have to support your community and get something back.”

While Callum is a great believer in social media to help support his business, he is wary of using too many platforms, as he explained: “The trouble with having lots of different social media is that it’s another platform to provide content for and where people can send you direct messages. It’s something you have to monitor and I think that’s a challenge in itself because people expect instant responses from all of these mediums.

“For example, we had a live streaming of a funeral and I’ve had people messaging me on Facebook about getting details to log in just minutes before the service. For a small business that presents a challenge because of limited resources to reply to questions.”

However, Callum’s social media is expecting to heat up soon as he is about to open a second funeral home with a chapel of rest in Nairn, where he has an office trading as David M Ellen Funeral Directors.

SAIF Digital

Building your online presence

The last few years have seen a fundamental shift in the funeral profession with regulation, new market entrants and a move towards a wider choice of funeral styles and services. Amid all this activity there has been a notable switch towards digital marketing. To support independent funeral directors navigate their way through an ever changing online space, SAIF launched SAIF Digital.

Declan Maguire, of SAIF Digital and the SAIF Executive Committee, said: “Over the years we have seen an increasing number of people who go online to look for a funeral director.

“We looked at the changes and challenges Covid brought to the profession and one of the key areas we needed to address was supporting our members in their digital marketing, and specifically how to drive growth in their business.”

SAIF Digital launched as a pilot programme in September 2021, reviewing 20 members and the challenges they faced with the increased demand in marketing support.

The support it offers goes through many different aspects of digital marketing, including websites, search engine optimisation, social media and pay per click.

“One of the main ways funeral directors benefit from digital engagement is search engine optimisation”, explained Declan. “If you’re not coming up on a Google or Bing search, you’re not going to get the phone call. You have to be present.

“The next stage is looking at the website, how it works and the function of it. The website must be mobile friendly as a significant proportion of people search for funeral directors on their mobile devices and tablets. Following on from that, you need to engage with social media. I like to think of it as almost a retention tool as you connect with people who have already engaged with you.

“And last, but not least, is pay per click. This gets you to the very top advert of every search online. More often than not, people will see these first so they are worth investing in.”

Whether you already have a web designer, social media manager or marketing agency or not, SAIF Digital is geared to support members of all shapes and sizes.

Find out more information by visiting SAIF Digital online and completing the enrolment form.