Homesteaders Blog

How to Reap More Benefits From Your Funeral Home’s Online Reviews

If you’re in the mood to try out a new restaurant, where do you begin your search to find the perfect dinner spot? Chances are, you do a quick online search for “best restaurant near me” and start vetting your options based on a restaurant’s number of online reviews, star rating and customer feedback. As you narrow your search, do you weed out restaurants with zero reviews? How about restaurants with less than three stars? Consumers follow this same process when they begin their search for a “funeral home near me.”

Why Families Prearrange: What Funeral Professionals Need to Know

Not all families have an opportunity to prepare for or understand their loved one’s end-of-life wishes. In situations where death occurs unexpectedly, the process of planning a meaningful service or celebration of life without their loved one’s input can take an emotional and financial toll on the family members they left behind. That is why it is important to ensure families know that making advance funeral plans can help relieve that burden for their loved ones. Learn why you should discuss the importance of making advance funeral plans with families and discover preneed trends and resources to help you have productive conversations.

A Guide to Online Funeral Planning for Funeral Professionals

As the world experiences tremendous changes in technology and consumer buying habits, funeral professionals need solutions that help them adapt to and anticipate these opportunities. One of the major developments in funeral service is a shift to online and digital services – including online funeral planning tools.

Funeral Home Technology Solutions to Grow Your Business

When people think about technology in the funeral industry, they often consider how tools and services can help streamline operations, reduce administrative burdens and allow their businesses to operate more efficiently. Those goals are extremely important – and achievable – with many new and emerging funeral home technology solutions.

The Complete Guide to Implementing A Funeral Home CRM System

Evaluating and implementing a funeral home customer relationship management (CRM) system requires careful upfront planning, time, resources and buy-in from your staff. But the rewards outweigh the risks if your staff fully adopts the system.

How to Evaluate If A Funeral Home CRM System Is Right for Your Firm

Evaluating if your firm needs a customer relationship management (CRM) system begins with analyzing your current funeral home operations to identify areas of improvement and opportunity. In most scenarios where you feel your firm could grow or become more efficient, a funeral home CRM system can help. Discover seven questions to help you evaluate your current operations and identify if you should pursue a funeral home CRM for your firm.

How to Select the Right Funeral Home CRM

Selecting a technology solution is a major step for any business. Introducing a new system requires careful planning and often a steep learning curve, so you want to be sure the option you choose is an ideal long-term fit for your funeralhome. This is especially true for your funeral home's customer relationship management (CRM) system.

3 Common Missed Opportunities to Increase Preneed Sales

You provide exceptional service and support to each family you serve, but do you have what it takes to build the same meaningful connections with everyone in your community, and do you have the time to do so?

Funeral providers that have an active preneed program aim to generate quality leads by casting a wide net in their community. However, this process takes time, and you often need to nurture these individuals over a longer period until they feel ready to prearrange their own funeral. In fact, 29% of respondents to our 2021 policy owner survey reported that it took two years or more from the time they first learned about prearranging until they finalized and made their own arrangements.

Keep reading to discover three common opportunities funeral providers miss when trying to capture more preneed sales.

Build a Successful Funeral Home Social Media Strategy

At Homesteaders, we survey our policy owners every two years and ask how many funeral homes they considered when they made their prearrangements. In our latest survey, 74% of respondents indicated they considered just one funeral home. This response shows why brand-building funeral marketing efforts are so important for a funeral business. If you aren’t the first call a potential preneed client makes, chances are good you will miss out on that business entirely.

High Impact Marketing Ideas for Your Firm

For funeral professionals, there is never enough time in the day to complete every task that needs to be done. Even the best-laid plans are often interrupted. You spend as much time as you can helping families say goodbye to their loved ones, but still also need to find time for administrative work to maintain the building and keep the business running. Marketing is an essential piece of that puzzle as well. These high-impact marketing ideas will help you work smarter, not harder, to ensure your community's families understand all you have to offer.