You’ve heard of John Callaghan, haven’t you?

To refresh your memory, he’s one of the industry’s top speakers on funeral home marketing.

In his new book, “2009 Strategic Marketing Plan for Funeral Service Professionals” he reveals how funeral homes should market in during tough economic times.

Why am I telling you this?

I’m telling you this because I convinced John to allow me to grill him during a LIVE 120-minute teleseminar on January 30!

It actually went for 2 1/2 hours.

We talked for just over an hour about his book and then we tackled dozens of questions that the attendees submitted.

You can read a partial list of questions below.

86 Pages of Funeral-Specific Marketing Advice

and over 2.5 hours of recordings

(delivered immediately after you purchase below)

$147.00 Now Only $97

Save $50.00

If you follow John’s recommendations, you will save money on advertising, get better results with your marketing, and overall, Attract More Calls!

…Hepp

Partial List of Questions

• Could you discuss the use of tasteful humor in funeral home marketing?
• Telephones, yellow page ads – How do you set yourself apart?
• How do I market my firm against the “low price firm” in the market place?
• What are your thoughts on marketing during tough economic times? Is it actually a time when you can get more bang for your buck, attract a wider audience etc?
• How do we use permission marketing in funeral service, especially with the increasing use of online guest books and internet communications with our customers?
• With a downtown location and smaller parking area, how do you compete with funeral home not downtown and more parking area?
• What is the most effective advertising in a small rural community? Should we sponsoring and attending community events, sponsor information seminars, weekly newspaper ads, local magazines etc?
• Are there new words in the death care language that are more acceptable to the public?
• What kind of ad and or marketing should a funeral home do in response to a cremation society’s direct mailing piece that they continue to do in our community?
• When asked why our funeral home was chosen, my family follow up surveys reflect that I receive 0 calls from advertising. How should I interpret this?
• How do you get the message out to Hospice that there are many more options for a family other than direct cremation?
• What would the best way to market a second location in the next city with two corporate competitors presently operate there?
• How do you determine what are the most effective strategies?
• When conducting market research in my area, what are some good sources for Secondary data or information regarding the opinions and buying preferences of ANY of my target markets?
• I’m in a small market. How do I attract more calls, when it appears, my competitor has more money for unlimited advertising?
• How can I get people out of the mindset that cremation means no viewing?
• I’m losing market share to a new funeral home, How can I combat an upstate with a better location?
• If we have a web site, what are the best strategies to make certain that someone using a search engine, such as Google, will see our listing at the top of the results list? Are there other techniques that can be used in addition to the “keywords” that are embedded into the pages of the site?
• What is the best way to counteract, “I want the cheapest funeral?
• I am an independent operated firm in my town with two other firms who are corporate run, what can I do in ads to beat them as competitors?
• What medium is the best advertising in a conservative area?

If you liked this post, you may like...

• John Callaghan: 2010 Strategic Marketing Plan
• Funeral Industry Stimulus Package by Johnson Consulting
• 5 Reasons to have Careers on your Funeral Home Website
• Part 5 – Q & A: Relationship Marketing for Funeral Homes
• Hepp’s Internet Marketing Tips for Funeral Service

Welcome to the Future of Funeral Service Newsletter!

The October 2008 newsletter is here. Since we are in the Thanksgiving Season (between the Canadian and American Thanksgiving Holidays), I want to show my appreciation and thanks to you! I have a ton of free tutorials and videos for you for this edition.

If you feel that someone else could benefit for this information, please feel free to forward it to them. If you are not a subscriber, get your own copy: Sign Up Today!

Don’t forget to check out the free teleseminar that I am hosting with Mike Kubasak this Thursday (October 23). Mike is going to share the 10 Biggest Mistakes Funeral Directors make when dealing with Price Shoppers.

>>>Register Today <<<

Mike Kubasak and I held a teleseminar in August about Price Shoppers: “Handling Price Shoppers is Easier When You Differentiate Yourself” – over 400 funeral professionals registered! Read More

So why I am telling you this story? Well it seems to be a topic of interest lately – getting good caliber staff – and we seem to turn to our traveling 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? Read More

You see, there are a lot of things happening behind the scenes as Web 2.0 and the funeral industry collide – actually “mesh” together – all of it beneficial to the funeral profession! But to make sure that I play my part in the most efficient manner, I need some help. Read More

As a follow up to two of my presentations at the New York State Funeral Directors Convention, I am hosting a web seminar today. This online seminar will be a step by step demonstration that will show you how to create a Video using a commercial software program. This process will be applicable to creating Video Tributes for your families or also to create an infomercial for your firm.

Then once the video is created, we will go through the steps to upload the video to YouTube. I will also field any questions that you have during the presentation… Read More

I know that I have preaching this for some time, but besides the mere act of putting obituaries on your website, doing this will drive very targeted traffic – and they are the exact people who will want to by flowers, memorial jewelry and other remembrance items. Watch the video and you will see what I mean. Read More

If you liked this post, you may like...

• Newsletter – April 2008
• 2 Minute Survey: What do You Want Me to Teach You?
• Part 3 – Written Word: Relationship Marketing for Funeral Homes

Winning or losing price shoppers can found a profound effect on your firm – the more you win, the more profitable you will be AND at the same time, you are weakening the competition!

Mike Kubasak and I held a teleseminar in August about Price Shoppers: “Handling Price Shoppers is Easier When You Differentiate Yourself” – over 400 funeral professionals registered!

At the end of the call we said that we would address this issue again. So Mike suggested that we tackle some of the mistakes that he has observed over the years. So this Thursday, we are going to have another telesemar…

10 Biggest Mistakes Funeral Directors Make on the

Phone when Dealing with Price Shoppers Teleseminar

Date: Thursday, October 23, 2008

Time: 2 PM Eastern / 11 AM Pacific

Register for the Teleseminar Now!

Also, if you cannot make it on Thursday, make sure that you register anyway so that I can can get a link to you for the replay. From some of the feedback we received from the summer teleseminar, we heard that many firms used the recordings for staff meetings and training – Great Idea!

Register now at: Price Shopper Biggest Mistakes Teleseminar <=== Don’t miss this!

I hope that you can join us on the call on Thursday! I’m sure that this will be an entertaining session as well.

…Hepp

If you liked this post, you may like...

• Do You Have A Business Mindset for Funeral Service?
• Secret Tip for Dealing with Price Shoppers
• Free Business Strategy Lesson for Funeral Managers
• Be A Funeral Market Strategist (and leave your competition in the dust)

This is the follow-up presentation to my live presentation at the Selected Independent Convention in Washington, DC. I have decided to break up this presentation into 5 parts as the recording of the web seminar was almost 2 hours long.  I would strongly suggest that you watch them in order.  Please provide your feedback and also – PLEASE – if you do apply any of these strategies, please let me know – I love it when people take action!

Please give me your feedback below…

If you liked this post, you may like...

• Part 2 – Social Networks: Relationship Marketing for Funeral Homes
• Part 3 – Written Word: Relationship Marketing for Funeral Homes
• Video: Facebook Ads – Tips & Resources
• Are You Happy with Your Email System?
• Best Practices for Funeral Directors to use Facebook

This is the 1st section of the presentation where we talk about Social Networks like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn.  This video is XX minutes long.  See the text below the video for links to the “Letter to Families” mentioned in the video as well as a link to all of my Social Networks.

Resources:

• Letter To Bereaved Families
• Hep’s Social Network Links

Please give me your feedback below…

If you liked this post, you may like...

• ICCFA 2010 “Technology Track” Announcement
• Recap of Funeral Social Media Week
• 3 X 5 Free Social Media Resources for Funeral Homes & Cemeteries
• Video: Facebook Ads – Tips & Resources
• Create Your Own Wire Service

In this section we key on the written word, whether it is by email, blog post, RSS, auto responder or email newsletter. Email is still the # 1 use of the Internet – watch this 20:40 minute video to see how you can apply these relationship building strategies.

Resources:

• Aweber – auto responder and email newsletter program
• Google Reader – saves time, aggregates RSS subscriptions into one place

Please give me your feedback below…

If you liked this post, you may like...

• Part 1 – Intro: Relationship Marketing for Funeral Homes
• 2 Minute Survey: What do You Want Me to Teach You?
• Are You Happy with Your Email System?
• Newsletter – October 2008
• Part 2 – Social Networks: Relationship Marketing for Funeral Homes

In this section we talk about the power of online video and how it can help you get higher (and more) Search Engine Results. This section is 26:21 minutes.

Resources:

• Traffic Geyser – Upload videos to multiple sites
  

Please give me your feedback below…

If you liked this post, you may like...

• Part 5 – Q & A: Relationship Marketing for Funeral Homes
• Does Google Know that You Have Online Obits?
• Part 1 – Intro: Relationship Marketing for Funeral Homes
• Part 2 – Social Networks: Relationship Marketing for Funeral Homes
• Part 3 – Written Word: Relationship Marketing for Funeral Homes

As promised, I was able to pull in a favor – and I know that you will enjoy it and also find it very useful.  Join me and Brent Mainprize, Ph.D., as we walk you through step by step how to perform a strategic analysis on your company.

Topic: Business Analysis Tools for Funeral Home Managers

You can listen to the recording, but you must register by going to:

www.FuneralManagerSecrets.com

We demonstrate how to apply the following business analysis tools to the funeral industry:

1. PEDST Analysis to look at external factors: Political, Economic, Demographic, Social, and Technological
2. Five Forces of Competition analyzes: Power of Buyers, Power of Suppliers, Threat of New Entrants, Threat of Substitutes, and Competitive Rivalry (you vs. the funeral home down the street)
3. SWOT Analysis will look internally at your: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

Then you will have all you need to leap ahead of your competition.

Register now and receive the Strategy Guide in advance so that you and your management team can use this as a brainstorming session or as a benchmark for your ongoing Strategic Plan.

www.FuneralManagerSecrets.com

Unfortunately, the training that we funeral directors receive from mortuary school doesn’t teach us to be funeral strategists. I found myself in the same position, but in our market – high cremation, highly competitive market with discounters and memorial societies – I felt that I needed some business strategy education right away.  So I went back to university and received my business degree in Entrepreneurial Management. The greatest skill that I learned in the entire program was how to use some Strategic Analysis Tools. Instead of you having to go back to university for an MBA, I want to share with you these tools and how they can be applied to your own funeral operations in your own market.

Dr. Mainprize holds a Doctorate in Entrepreneurship, is an internationally renowned professor who lectures to business owners about the strength of their business model and will share with you what strategies you can use to separate you from your competitors.

During this teleseminar you will learn how to apply these 3 KEY ANALYSIS tools to take you from a high overview look at factors that affect our industry and your market and then laser-focus in on your firm and start to differentiate you from your competition.

I hope that you can join Dr. Mainprize and me for the free teleseminar. Register right now . . .

www.FuneralManagerSecrets.com

. . . Hep

PS: Feel free to forward this invitation to your friends and collegues in funeral service

If you liked this post, you may like...

• Mistakes Made with Price Shoppers – I hope you don’t make them – Free Teleseminar

Would you like a place to discuss issues that you are dealing with at your funeral home or cemetery?

Even though there are different places on the Internet where conversations are taking place, I wanted to create a place where members of the funeral industry and the public could come to learn about and share different issues that we face.

This discussion board will be free from ads and spammy posts – I want this to be as pure of a discussion as possible. Please note that blatant sales pitches and linking campaigns will not be tolerated. Posts will be removed that are deem to cross the line. Let’s make this a place for great discussion and even debate so that we can all benefit from each other’s knowledge and ultimately better serve our client families.

www.FuneralFuturist.com/forum

Watch the introductory video so that you can see how to sign up to the forum and start using the discussion board.

To view in Full Screen, click on the button that looks like an “X” to the right of the speaker icon in the control bar above.

I also want to make sure that you know that I am not saying that this is the only place to have a discussion about funeral service, so here is a list of my favorites where I keep up to date on other conversations:

• FuneralWatch – is a list serve by Kates-Boylston (American Funeral Director)
• Funeral Words – blog by funeral director, BT Hathaway (Mass. & Rhode Island)
• Final Embrace – blog by Tim Totten of Quilted Cot Covers
• Artco Blog – blog by Matthew Sargent and the team at Artco Caskets
• Kubasak Line – newsletter by Mike Kubasak

Sign up today for the Funeral Futurist Forum -http://www.FuneralFuturist.com/forum – it’s free!

Other Funeral Related Posts

• How to get Higher Rankings in Google Maps (Google Places)
• Are You a Born-Again Undertaker – Continuing Education for British Columbia Sept. 2007
• Funeral Marketing with YouTube
• 10 Golden Rules gets 10 out of 10
• Are You a Born-Again Undertaker – IFDA June 2007

I received some great comments and questions about my “Competition” article – thank you! First, many of the issues funeral home owners and managers are unique to your specific market and situation so I cannot offer a blanket answer that everyone could benefit from. The issue was followed by the questions, “How do I fix this?” or “What should I do?”

As I always do in situations to solve problems, I reflected on the process that I have used many times in my home market that is very competitive plus is on the forefront of changing trends. In this type of market – and any market – you need to have a process to deal with issues and make decisions easily and with confidence.

By the nature of how we join funeral service, either as a calling to serve, or following in family footsteps, we rarely get taught how to think strategically. Strategy isn’t taught in mortuary colleges and the issues we face today – like increasing cremation rates, price discounters, memorial societies, and the Internet – were not big issues to the generations before us. Especially in our market where no-one had experience in dealing with these issues before – I decided that I had to go back to university and learn how professionals solve problems in other industries and then apply those methods to funeral service.

Although formal education was a great experience, what has really stuck with me was what I learned as a member of the “Case Competition” team. In a nutshell, a team of four would be given 3 hours to read and analyze a business case study and present our recommendations. Since you were “on stage” at the end of the 3 hours, I really learned to hone my strategic thinking with “tools” that made up my Business Strategy Toolkit.

At this point I could just tell you hire me to tackle your issues in a one-on-one scenario – and of course for those who wish that personal consultation I will make myself available – I also want to teach all of you “How to Fish” instead of selling you fish.

Whatever causes you the most pain – tough competition, price shoppers, losing calls, cremation families, memorial societies, expensive marketing – these tools can give can give you an competitive advantage for just a small investment of your time. So here we go – these are some of the tools that I use on a daily basis to solve clients’ problems. The three that I recommend to get started with are the Environmental Scan, Porter’s Five Forces, and the SWOT Analysis.

The Environmental Scan (sometimes referred to as PEST Analysis) looks at external factors: Political, Economic, Social, and Technological. Then Porter’s Five Forces of Competition analyzes: Power of Buyers, Power of Suppliers, Threat of New Entrants, Threat of Substitutes, and Competitive Rivalry. Then having a solid strategic framework of your market, you then look internally with a SWOT Analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Then you will have all you need to leap ahead of your competition.

Don’t worry if this seems too overwhelming, I will put together a demonstration next week using funeral industry examples. Also, I will try to pull in a favor and get another expert on the line with me and we will go through step by step through the process as it relates to us.

If you would like to have your company profiled for the example – at absolutely no charge to you, please click the link below and provide me with some basic information. Then I will be in touch to get some additional information. Be assured that your identity will be kept confidential.

Apply for the analysis of your market and company, click here and fill out the form:

http://www.funeralfuturist.com/application-for-strategic-analysis/

Thank you for your time and look for my newsletter next week for the details of the “Funeral Industry and Competitive Analysis” free training session.

If you liked this post, you may like...

• Secret Tip for Dealing with Price Shoppers
• Steal Online Price Shoppers from Your Competitors
• How To Spy On Your Funeral Competitors
• Mistakes Made with Price Shoppers – I hope you don’t make them – Free Teleseminar
• Do You Have A Business Mindset for Funeral Service?