It All Boils Down to Customer Service

Marketing is a tricky beast. It’s a critical element to any business yet most small and medium sized companies don’t have actual marketing departments. Budgets are limited to the cost of advertising without any room to pay outside marketing firms. The advent of technology has added a new twist to marketing trends and companies are scrambling to find someone on staff to maintain websites, blogs, and social media platforms.

For some, they just throw their hands up in the air and admit defeat. They refuse to embrace new marketing strategies because they don’t have the time or resources. They continue to market their companies just as they have for however many years.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing when the companies instead focus their efforts on providing excellent customer service. It’s one thing to implement marketing strategies but when you get customers through the door, do you create a truly memorable experience? Does your firm ever take extraordinary measures to set yourself apart from the competition? Do you provide a service to your customers that they will then share with their family, friends and beyond?

Have You Googled Yourself Lately? Your Reputation is on the Line

Once upon a time, just for fun, all of us would search our own names in Google just to see how we ranked. The act of ego-surfing was done on the sly so we didn’t come across as  caring whether we could find anything about ourselves in the first few pages of the rankings.

Today, not taking the time to Google ourselves and our companies is simply irresponsible. Controlling what searchers find and claiming your business name on the major search engines is part of an effective online reputation management (ORM) plan and makes perfect business sense.

So where should you begin? The first step is actually knowing how your firm looks online when families are searching for you. This is the initial stage of your ORM Plan. Yes, this takes more than a few minutes and can be quite extensive but the following steps can help get you started to assess your current online reputation and determine what needs to be done to improve your online presence.

Be Smart about Social Media

Ashley Montroy, FrontRunner Professional’s Marketing and Social Media Manager spoke with Lauren Moore for her article Be Smart about Social Media. The article is published in the March 2014 issue of American Funeral Director Magazine.

The Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project, which has been studying  online adults’ social networking site use since 2005, found that last year, 73 percent of adults that are online are using social networking sites. Like it or not, your customers – and your employees – are using social media, probably on a daily basis. It’s crucial, then, that you consider implementing a social media policy for your funeral home.

7 Deadly Mistakes Funeral Homes Make On Social Media

If your funeral home is on Facebook, it’s crucial to make sure you aren’t making any mistakes that could hurt your firm’s social presence. You might not even be aware that what you are doing is wrong. If you’re unsure of what you should or shouldn’t be doing on social media then take a look at these 7 Deadly Mistakes Funeral Homes Make On Social Media.

2 Common Social Media Stumbling Blocks and How to Overcome Them

Recently, I made a presentation to members of a few associations in the upstate New York area. I spoke with members about changing times in funeral service and expectations from today’s consumers, and some of the things I heard from attendees were not new to my ears. I actually hear many of these stumbling blocks when it comes to funeral homes using social media as I  speak to the 20+ groups each year. So, I figured it was time to address them in a blog post.

A Conversation about Seniors and Social Media

OK. I’ve got a confession to make. Even though I’m only 59, and nowhere near retirement (like many Americans, for me that possibility is very remote), I’m a member of AARP, the American Association of Retired Persons.

Maybe they wore me down with regular direct mail promotions, or maybe I fell for the idea of receiving big discounts on products and services; either way, I’m a member. Not a proud member, necessarily, but a member nonetheless.(And chances are I’ll stay one until the bitter end; hopefully taking advantage of big travel discounts for all those international jaunts on my Bucket List.)

Making Sense of Social Media for a Funeral Home

What’s the real value of marketing with social media and the
Web for funeral homes? Some funeral directors still believe that social media is a fad and some do not even have a website for their funeral homes. There are almost a billion people searching online. Without a website and social media presence, your funeral home is losing business every day.

The true value of social media and the web is its efficiency. It is the most advanced form of communication that we’ve ever seen.It’s marketing in the moment. You can use your funeral home website and social networks to reach out to your families and get immediate feedback; so that real relationships can form. Your website can provide valuable resources for families seeking death care information on pre-need or at- need services.