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Grave Matters
Think you’ve got marketing problems?
Then consider the hard times and (seemingly) insurmountable problems the funeral industry has been facing and you’ll certainly feel more . . . alive. Or you’ll realize your industry or niche isn’t as dead as you thought it was, it just needed some reanimation.
Some life breathed into it . . . resurrected, even.
The funeral industry is just the latest in a long time of assumed business traditions that are getting reinvented.
And they’re not happy about it.
Always on the outlook for unique strategies and tactics that work well in other industries that I can adopt to my clients’ needs, I picked up journalist Lisa Takeuchi Cullen’s new book “Remember Me: A Lively Tour of the New American Way of Death” and I’m grimy amused at watching funeral directors forced to become marketers and one of the ways they’re doing so is by creating and attending sold out seminars at funeral conventions (!) such as “Promoting The Value Of Ceremony To Today’s Customer.”
And you thought you had marketing challenges?
Why are funeral directors taking on the principles of direct response marketing? Well, #1 — it works. Last year $1.9 TRILLION dollars was spent on direct marketing. And #2, you can measure your results and prove whether your marketing and advertising is working.
I wrote more about this back here. But don’t go there unless you’re prepared to convert and walk away with dollar signs in your eyes.
See here’s the thing about direct response marketing — it’s measurable and therefore you can prove it works. Which makes the weevils on Madison Avenue shrink at the thought of it. I guarantee you’d see less image marketing and “branding” if they had prove their print and online ads and TV commercials inspired more consumers to buy.
Hah, that would make their huevos shrink!
So, why are the funeral director’s listening to the gospel of direct response marketing? Because of the very thing it’s know for: Simple. Proven. Results.
Increasingly, progressive (i.e., profitable) funeral homes now have storefronts in malls and promise speedy, affordable service. Those are the ones doing extraordinary volume with profit margins as high as 24% and with margins like that, they’re burying their slow-to-adapt competitors.
To what did they attribute such rampaging success? As one funeral director who insisted on anonymity said: “The secret to our success is the unapologetic use of clever sales tactics.”
Wow. Don’t mince words, say what you really mean. You go, Six Feet Under guys!
You can get her book here:
By Walter |
Topics: Client Top Secret, Lessons Learned, Pro Analysis |