Dale-Time

At the recent NFDA convention in Chicago I attended six different seminars.

There were several that had different titles but talked about the same stuff. Mike Turkiewicz from Funernet and Lynn Elliot from Media Demographics both gave good presentations that talked about what’s ahead as far as advertising and the internet. They both talked about the importance of having a presence on social media (Facebook and LinkedIn. And they both talked about making sure your web site is mobile friendly because many people will need to access your information from their cell phone and it’s important to make it easy for them to see the info they need. They also talked about Google ranking and Google place pages. I recently read/listened to a couple books about Google and I am positive that for the next few years Google will be leading people to our doorstep more than any other advertising media. And that promoting reviews of your funeral home and making sure all your info is up to date and interesting for viewers will be very important to getting your message out to the public.

In fact I had a challenge a week ago where someone informed Google that my main branch was closed and no longer operating. Google had taken me off their Places list and when I googled “funeral homes Muskegon, MI” my funeral home wasn’t showing up at all. I did some further investigating and found out what had happened, but not how it happened. I went in and updated my places page and magically my funeral home reappeared, and this time at the top of the list. So now I have been checking it weekly to make sure it hasn’t disappeared again. Mike spoke of a client of his who was pretty sure a competitor had done the same thing to him. There wasn’t any way to prove it concretely but all sorts of signs led to that conclusion.

I listened to a talk by Jim McCann from 1-800-Flowers. He gave a two hour presentation where he told how he got started in his business and how he was growing it. Obviously funerals and flower shops have a symbiotic relationship but I didn’t realize that they also had a website called celebrations.com that covered any kind of event. This site not only sells flowers but gifts and cards and gives planning advice for all kinds of events including funerals and memorial gatherings. While some people may think that this is just an FTD type connection to flower shops, 1-800-flowers is branding local flower shops with their name and training the owners how to better serve their customers on a personal basis in addition to offering more and better products. It was clear me that their methods could easily be transferred to the funeral business. And I’m guessing that Jim McCann is thinking that too. It’s not hard to think that a funeral industry outsider, like him, could look at our business in a different way, with much better marketing experience and figure out how to start a national brand of funeral service that serves the ever changing wishes of the public better than the current funeral industry does. When I suggested this possibility at a roundtable meeting with other funeral directors last week they all scoffed at me. They said that a national chain of funeral homes could never duplicate their service to the special nuances of their communities and local culture. I’m guessing that’s what the local pharmacies and hardware stores said about Rite Aid and Home Depot too.

I also got a chance to listen to Doug Gober give a great talk about where he thought funeral service needed go in the future. Doug has been in the funeral industry for over 25 years with York, Carriage Services and now with Live Oak Bank. Part of his talk revolved around his own mother’s recent funeral service. He told about the folder they created that contained the written story of her life and photos that they passed out to people why they were waiting in the receiving line. They also video taped interviews with several special people and then edited those interviews down to 8 minutes for the church service the following day. It was quite impressive, albeit Doug had special help from experienced video folks who stayed up till the wee hours making all that happen. The lesson here was that it was the stories that the people told of Doug’s Mom that made the service so special. Stories in print, in person and on video. Doug also included this video of a memorial service in Singapore. It was produced by the Singapore Government promoting the importance of family. It’s a great example of stories at a service and how important they are.  Watch it, you’ll be glad you did.

Overall I thought the seminars were good and well organized. It’s always unfortunate that there are only so many hours in the day and that some of the seminars I want to go to are scheduled at the same time so I have to choose.

I’m Dale Clock. Thanks for Listening.