If you saw yesterday’s video CASE STUDY about controlling the release and promotion of obituaries, you may have been surprised about the number of GOOGLE searches for the deceased’s name.

The reality is that friends and acquaintances of the deceased start GOOGLING the deceased’s name and service information as soon as they hear that the person has died.

The problem is that if Google DOESN’T KNOW that you have uploaded the online obit to your website and if they can’t find it, Google CAN’T direct these people to SEE IT.

For this reason, I have created this video tutorial for you titled, The MOST GOOGLE (SEO) FRIENDLY OBIT EVER!

This s is a pretty bold statement, but I have NEVER SEEN any other funeral homes website designer or developer share the best SEO (Search Engine Optimization) practices for YOUR ONLINE OBITUARIES.

Check out this video…

I must APOLOGIZE to some funeral home owners and managers because they may get FRUSTRATED because they will be limited by their current website and will not be able to apply these strategies easily.

NOTE to my Funeral Futurist Website Clients: You don’t have to worry about all of this technical, html talk because your website does almost all of these strategies AUTOMATICALLY thanks to our Autopilot Google Notification strategy.

If you are interested in SWITCHING to our Funeral Futurist Website System, please click this link and fill out this form to get a FREE Funeral Home Website Audit Request.

…Hepp

PS: My COMPETITORS hate it when I share videos like this, (they all subscribe to my newsletter, follow me on Facebook, or on Twitter) but since these are general SEO Best Practices I feel it is my DUTY to share them with you as these strategies can be applied to any webpage – the question is how easy is it to apply them to your system.

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Does it tick you off that newspapers charge your client families so much for obituary notices?

Would you like to know how to save money for your families while adding to your own bottom line?

On Thursday, March 4th, I presented an online seminar, titled:

How to Charge for Online Obits
(And Have Families Thank You)

Replay Now Available

In this seminar, you will…

• • Find out how to save your clients families up to 25% (or more) off of their newspaper obituary expenses
  • Learn 3 Presentation Strategies for charging for online obits and choose the best one for your firm
  • Find out what to say to families for each of the Presentation Strategies
  • Get word-for-word scripts that you can use during your arrangement conference
  • Receive my Step by Step system for getting more people to your website to leave condolences than the newspaper’s website

By applying these Presentation Strategies and my Online Obituary Promotion System, you will…

• • Save your client families money and they will thank you for it
  • Increase revenues (and adding to your bottom line) by charging for online obits
  • Get more website visitors per funeral by having your client families promote your website
  • Build additional loyalty with your families by providing a higher level of service than your competitors

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My two main predictions can also be taken as warnings. They are strategies being played out on the internet right now and will only become more of a factor in 2010 – not that they will harm your business dramatically in 2010 but they will start to slowly erode it (if you let them).

1. Virtual Funeral Homes. These are not completely virtual businesses but are physical funeral homes that are creating a virtual presence covering a larger geographically area or even “testing the waters” in a larger or new trade area. We have seen Cremation Societies reach beyond their traditional trade area and you will other websites catering to a larger area, but being headquartered in their established bricks and mortar funeral home. Some may see this as a warning while other may see it as an opportunity.

2. Online Call Poachers. You probably haven’t heard of this term, but I couldn’t come up with a better way to name this “new player” into funeral service. These are information and resource websites about funeral service. They provide helpful information to consumers, answering questions, and maybe even providing a directory of funeral homes. These were once thought of as helpful directory sites but as they continue to add more information to their websites, they will become “funeral information juggernauts” that will rank at the top of Google and the other search engines for funeral related terms – even local terms.

Some of these sites may charge for featured listings in there directories, but what will be inevitable is that they will start receiving first calls (as people hit the Internet for information upon learning of the death of their loved one). At that point, they hold in their hand a Call that could get passed on to whoever they want to give it to – in some cases the highest bidder. They will become the online equivalent of the minister or hospice worker who can steer a family to one funeral home over another.

I am not saying that all directories and resource websites will do this but some will. This form of Lead Capture – or what I call in our industry “Call Poachers” – is actually an Internet Marketing Strategy that I have seen be taught and used in other industries where these marketers become conduit for leads and then direct them to the highest bidder. For some funeral homes, they be happy paying the “finders fee” to these companies, while others may want to control the “virtual real estate” in their market by being the go-to source for funeral information in their area.

I hate to have a negative tone while looking into a bright future, but I just want to make you aware of what is happen in the “virtual” world around you.

What are your thoughts? Please share your comments below…

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You may have received an email from Mike Kubasak today his Price Shopper program. In the holiday spirit, I thought that I should share with you a SECRET TIP that you can use the next time you get a Price Shopper that will INSTANTLY build RAPPORT and CREDIBILITY with the caller – even if they want to *Think About It* – because the more COMFORTABLE they feel with you the more likely they will choose your funeral home over your competitor.

This STRATEGY can be done at the beginning or the end of the call – make sure you read both scenarios…

At the Beginning of the Phone Call as you introduce yourself…

“Hello, my name is Robin. I understand you want information about funeral costs. I will be happy to provide that information for you.  Do you have a pen and some paper handy? Ok, first just jot down this number: 250-686-4576.  It is my cell phone number and I wanted you to have it just in case we get cut off or if you need to contact me later for more information you can reach me directly, once again it’s 250-686-4576.”

At the End of the Phone Call if they are not making a decision right now…

Robin says: “I understand that you are just gathering information right now and I just want to let you know that if you have any other questions, you may call me at anytime. Here is my cell phone number – 250-686-4576 – if questions come up when you are discussing things with the rest of the family. Once again it’s 250-686-4576.”

So the SECRET TIP is giving the caller your CELL PHONE NUMBER.

What does giving your cell phone number accomplish?

It helps BUILD RAPPORT and TRUST (Mike has a complete section on rapport building in his Price Shopper Secrets program).

You see, you can’t just say “TRUST ME” you have to “EARN TRUST” and by offering to give the caller your cell phone number – something that most people only give to their closest friends – you are DEMONSTRATING TRUST!

Now you might be thinking, I really don’t feel comfortable giving my cell phone to a stranger? But I am guessing that over the last couple of years there has been an occasion or two where you have given your cell number to a client family and maybe you give it to them on a regular basis.  So why not treat the price caller like a client family – isn’t that the GOAL anyway – to have them as a CLIENT FAMILY?

Let me know your successes with the Price Shopper Cell Phone Tip.  It’s free to try and if it doesn’t work then stop offering it but you will be amazed how the tone of the conservation will change after applying this Trust Building Strategy.

If you want more Price Shopper Secrets take Mike up on his CRAZY OFFER below. I helped Mike put the course together and it is packed with tips and strategies that you can share with your entire staff and also use for FUTURE TRAINING and STAFF MEETINGS.

Plus, he has a 100% Results-Based GUARANTEE- so if you don’t win more pricing calls, you don’t pay!

You can order it here: http://www.priceshoppersecrets.com/cell/

I wish you all the best for 2010 – especially more calls!

…Hepp

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After the webinar the FuneralOne’s Joe Joachim held at the beginning of September, I was bombarded with requests about my opinion of the their new funeral website platform. Now usually I would answer those requests in private, but Joe (or his team) started to promote the webinar on my Facebook Fan Page. So since they started the dialog on my turf and coupled with all of the requests for my opinion, I felt that this would be the best way to handle it.

Note: I have a lot of respect for Joe and they have always introduced new solutions on the technology side, but in this instance, I think they have taken the tech too far.  Also, this video isn’t an analysis of the operations of the Schoedinger family, just the website that was created for them by FuneralOne.

If you want more information about funeral home website design, visit www.FuneralWebsiteSecrets.com and learn what the 7 Costly Mistakes Other Funeral Home Owners Make When Hiring a Web Development Firm.

Please comment or rate this video here: Funeral Home Web Site Design Review

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In my time of the world of preneed, I have observed two types of sales reps:

• Pit Bulls
• Golden Retrievers

Pit Bulls are reps who work more leads (to the bone) and get more sales. These are usually professional sales people that have come into the funeral industry from other sales positions.

Golden Retrievers though are more nurturing and from what I have witnessed, have a higher average funeral value.  I think it is because these people have a deeper belief in funeral service – but they usually don’t “close” as many sales. Usually “Funeral Director to Preneed” converts are Golden Retrievers.

Instead of just dividing up your leads – “one for you and one for you” – you can start to segment the lead sources. Those leads that are from direct mail or from a direct response inquiry – where we have had to change their way of thinking – you can sic the ‘Pit Bull’ on them.

The people who have already made the decision that prearranging is a good idea will most likely be a phone inquiry or a walk in. These leads just need to be nurtured,  not sold, so they should be directed to the Golden Retriever.

I have noticed that the walk-ins and the inquiries were more people in that near need situation where they are in that category of twenty four to six months to live. Maybe they have just got the word from the doctor. You want to look after them and nurture them along the way. They don’t need to be sold on the idea of having a funeral pre-arranged because they know it is going to happen in short term. These people need that ‘Golden Retriever’ to take care of them.

Reflect on your preneed business. Check your stats. Do your preneeds that come from direct mail have a longer “shelf-life” than inquiries or walk-ins?

So Why Is This Distinction Important?

The other thing to be aware of is that more people are going to the Internet for information.  You have probably seen over the last year that you are getting more inquiries about pre-arrangements over the Internet – right?

Those people are not coming in because they received some “message” (via direct mail persuasion) to enter or change their mind about the importance of pre-arranging a funeral. I believe that they are in that near-need area.

I call these leads Virtual Walk-Ins. Either they have decided that they want to pre-arrange because they are planners and they want to get this looked after OR they have gotten the word from the doctor and they need to get this done.

As those inquiries come in through your website, who are you doing to give them to?

Are you going to give them to the Pit Bull so that you make sure that that sale is made or are you going to give them to the Golden Retriever who will look after that person when they need to be looked after the most (and hopefully have a higher funeral value)?

Who will be looking after your virtual walk-ins?

…Hepp

What are your thoughts? Do you think that leads via the Internet will need to be handled differently than a direct mail lead?  Please share your comments below.

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In Victoria, BC for a ten years period from 1996 to 2006, I was the manager and sales person of a large pre-need program.

There are some benefits and some disadvantages from being in a retirement area such as Victoria. There is a high cremation as I have mentioned before and part of the reason Victoria does is because they are always getting new, transient people coming here to retire. They don’t have that plot history here so cremation seems to be more of an option. Although Victoria has higher cremation rates and lower averages, it does have an influx of new people.

I had to work hard on pre-need. A pre-need rep had to make 200 to 300 pre-arrangements per year but those contracts were below national averages due to a very high cremation rate.

The reason why I resigned from that position was that part of my role was to provide advice to the ownership on what is happening in the future. If I was to provide proper advice it would be directly counter intuitive to how I was compensated.

What was happening?

There was a bit of a flaw that I could see happening in this equation in pre-need:

Funeral service + Casket + Disbursements = Pre-need Contract

As I have mentioned previously, merchandise is declining and receptions and catering are increasing. The problem is that when you are making pre-arrangements with that 75 year old widow that thinks she is going to live to 100 and thinks she is going to outlive all her friends. She says,

“There is not going to be anyone there to have a service anyway!” It is a tough enough challenge to just convince here and suggest that she have a service for her family let alone set aside $1000 or $2000 for a reception.

That is a real problem and it is probably not affecting your market, not yet anyway. By keeping with that old equation of service plus merchandise plus disbursements equals the total of the contract, you may be shooting yourselves in the foot because you are not allowing for that increase in receptions and in the catering revenues.

It might be time to look at other funding opportunities and almost taking your pre-need to a final expense approach, and going from the insurance approach and to saying the overall “End-Of-Life” costs are in $10,000 to $15,000 range, not just focusing on the $6,500 funeral value.  The final expense lump sum can include a lot of things and have flexibility in assigning where those dollars go.

What is also going to come out of that is that you are probably also going to let go of the guarantee. This is especially in the rates that you are getting from our trust companies or insurance providers. Letting go of the guarantee may not be so much of a bad thing.   In my ten years of experience, what really got people to prearrange was not the locking in of the prices. That might have been secondary. More importantly it was the peace of mind knowing that they had everything looked after for their families.

Pre-need is changing and to survive we are going to have to adjust that pre-need equation.

Watch what happens out here so that you aren’t blind-sided when it happens to you.

My Challenge to Pre-need Companies: Provide a new funding vehicle that isn’t based on the old “Equation” plus, of course it also has to have good growth, good commissions, and most importantly – secure.

Pre-need as we know it may not be dead yet, but it looks like it could be terminal.

Pre-need definitely lived life in the fast lane and it was one wild ride!

Hepp with Debbie and Dave McCall in Tuscon, AZ for the Monumental Life Annual Sales Awards

Do you think that pre-need is going in this direction? I would love to hear your thoughts – please leave a comment below…

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Click on the play button to listen to the sad news of the passing of the Newspaper Obituary

Funeral Futurist, Robin Heppell reports the sad news of the passing of the Newspaper Obituary…

Newspaper Obituary: 1831 – 2010

In the early years the Newspaper Obituary served its community well, disseminating the biographical and funeral service information about its community residents who died.  Over the years, Newspaper Obituary became more profitable, sometimes 3 to 5 times more profitable than its cousins, Garage Sales and Used Cars.  Eventually it was promoted to the front page of the classifieds and ended up with the honor of its own line item in the Index on the front page of the newspaper.

Many citizens started their day with Newspaper Obituary, fondly referring to it as Obits.

In the last 20 years, Newspaper Obituary became greedy, holding grieving families at ransom. This was the beginning of the end for Newspaper Obituary.  It lost the respect of its customers even though they were forced to still use Newspaper Obituary’s services.

Newspaper Obituary’s long-time friend, the Funeral Director, its number one referrer of business, became disenchanted with Newspaper Obituary as the Funeral Director was often the barer of the bad news to the grieving families of Newspaper Obituary’s ever increasing rates.

Ironically, it was the this one-time friend, the Funeral Director who dealt Newspaper Obituary its fatal blow as the Funeral Director has a new friend – its name is Google, and together they can disseminate the same information faster and at virtually no cost to the family.

Good riddance Newspaper Obituary.  No service by request. Donations may be made to your local newspaper’s survival fund.

Please share your thoughts below.  Also, feel free to add this link to Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Digg, etc, by clicking on the little icons below.  Thanks.

…Hepp

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One of things that I have learned about how Google works is that it loves new content on websites. Many companies struggle to come up with new content – but not us – not funeral homes!

Why? Because we have online obituaries (in Google’s eyes that’s new content).

Great – we don’t have to worry about adding new content as Google will find the online obits – right?

Nope!  As I study funeral home websites, many of them – actually most of them don’t get their obits “indexed” by Google.

Why? Some sites have the obits hosted on another domain (the sites from the casket companies do this), and others are buried deep within a database and can’t be found by Google (usually template-based sites). And for the funeral home web sites that have obits that do get indexed – it takes days or weeks – a long time after the funeral.

Why is this important? Well, if they are not getting being found by Google then people who use Google can’t find them.  Furthermore, the more pages in your website – the more “Authority” Google thinks you have! So if your website was created with Google in mind (61% of Internet users use Google for searching for information) then you should be adding one new page to Google for every obit (call).  150 calls should equal 100 – 150 new pages per year!  But when I check funeral home websites, most of them have 30 to 200 pages indexed by Google and some of these firms are 500 to 1,000 call firms.

In the video below I share with you a case study that I just conducted, plus I show you how to check to see how many pages you have “indexed” by Google and I give you some tips on how to improve your chances.  Please let me know your thoughts.

More more details about being more “Google-Friendly” visit, www.FuneralFuturistWebsites.com for a Free Report.

Please give me your feedback below…

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Recently, I created a “Help Wanted Ad” for some a support position to help me with the growth of my business and posted it to my website.  In stead of the old way of posting ads with newspapers and then sifting through a stack of job-seeking-tire-kickers, I wanted to elevate the relationship level to one of someone who was familiar with my work (via my website) or at least to get a referral – friend of a friend.  So why I am telling you this story?  Well it seems to be a topic of interest lately – getting good calibre staff – and we seem to turn to our travelling sales reps and ask them if they know of anyone looking.  As funeral directors, we forget that we have a large volume of “eyeballs” checking out obituaries on our websites and leaving condolences.  Why not have a “Careers” or “Job Opportunities” section on your website?

Here is a list of the reasons why you should have a Careers section on your website:

• It’s free! Well, depending on how your site is set up you may have to pay your web developer to create this section, or if you use a Content Management system like WordPress – it’s completely Free.
• Gives visitors an insight into your company.  Even if someone isn’t looking for a job – maybe they are trying to decide what funeral home to choose and if you communicate in your Help Ads that you need a certain type of person that will go above and beyond for your client families, they may see that is a deciding factor – “Attracting Families through Help Wanted Ads”
• The job seeker will get a better understanding of your operations since they are already at your website (although if someone comes in to an interview without researching you on your website, maybe you should keep looking).
• The Referral – maybe someone has been to your website to leave a condolence and they see your Careers tab and they know of someone who may be perfect for funeral service and they are already familiar with your company via the website (this referral will never happen if you only used help wanted ads).
• Good Economic Community Member – in economic times like this, it is good to show that you are investing back into the community – Job Creation (even if it is a replacement situation for you, you don’t have to tell everyone that)

I am sure that there are other benefits to posting job opportunities on your funeral home website. Can you think of any other reasons?  Please leave a comment below.

Here are some steps that you should remember:

• Let the firm’s caring, empathic personality come out in your ad, and describe what it is like to be apart of your team (others are reading it too)
• After the position has been filled, leave it up as a sample and still offer to accept resumes
• Embed or link to the Lynch’s “The Undertaking” documentary video clips from YouTube or PBS – these hold the entire profession in a more positive light
• Create a “Footer” link to your Careers section for each page – visitors’ curiosity will make them check out what’s available
• Secret tactic: use Social Network sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and even Twitter to direct people to your new job posting

I hope that this has been helpful – again please add your thoughts by leaving a comment below – thanks.

…Hepp

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