On January 1, 2010, I posted my Funeral Futurist Predictions for 2010. In that article I introduced to you a new kind of competitor for funeral homes, that I dubbed: Online Call Poachers (see the original excerpt at the bottom of the article). In a nutshell, “Online Call Poachers” are websites that put themselves in between someone looking for a funeral home and the funeral home themselves.
Since the time of my first warning, more potential call poachers have come onto the scene. And what boggles my mind is that some of them become darlings of the industry. They get press and endorsements from associations, consultants and online media.
“Hello People!! Don’t you see what they are doing?”
Let me explain their business model…
They create a website that offers helpful information to the general public about death, grief, funerals and funeral homes. The information could be in the form of FAQs, Videos, Price Quotes, Funeral Home Ratings or being a Funeral Home directory. Now, not all of these information / directory sites are bad – it’s the next step that’s important to note…
How do they make their money?
If they are just selling advertising – that’s ok. It could be Banner Ads or Google Adsense and if the site is good, it will make enough money to stick around, and if it sucks it won’t be around (in the eyes of Google) very long. Google doesn’t like directory sites anymore. Over the last couple of years, Google has devalued online directories as they – Google – want to the be the directory and want your funeral home to be one of their directory listings – that is why they gave you Google Places.
However, if the site becomes a CPA (cost per action) site – then the Rangers and Game Wardens should be alerted. You see, CPA is where the big money is – not in selling banner ads. How this works is that the website gets paid when an action is taken, such as filling out a form requesting funeral costs. This is a “textbook strategy” taught by online marketing gurus.
Who pays them? You do or your competitor, or both depending on the model. They will either sell the lead to the highest bidder or have you and your competitors pay to have your prices listed with them.
Then it is up to consumer to choose and if that is the case they will probably choose a funeral home based on price since you are two handshakes away from being able to explain the value of the services you offer.
The bigger problem that I foresee is their exit strategy… because I doubt they are in it for the long haul.
What they have done is studied the demographics and worked the numbers – the backroom conversation goes something like this… Since there are X number of people are going to die in the next 10 to 20 years and if we just get X% of the market we’ll make a ton of dough! NOTE: Venture capitalists don’t invest in startups unless there is the “ton of dough” potential!
So this is what really worries me…
In the short term, these call poachers will drive up the costs of your online advertising whether it is banner ads or pay per click.
And in the long term, since it is more than likely that the “ton of dough” won’t happen (because both you and I know how hard it is to win that call); they are going to pack it in and they will have an online property that they will try to unload at a discounted price but there are only a few potential buyers – maybe funeral corporations or larger suppliers – and the smaller funeral homes helped fund it.
So my critics will now say that this article is self serving, that I would rather have you do business with me instead of them – well, duh! But here’s my angle…
I would rather help you create your own online property where the only handshake is between you and your potential client family – no middleman.
The other difference is that you and me – we’re different – we’re not like them – we’re lifers – we’re in it for the long haul! And if something ever happened to me, you still own that online property that we created.
So my advice to you is just BEWARE – ask yourself how are they making their money now and in the future. The only thing that you have control over is what hangs on your own domain name – make sure that you are in control!
If you are interested in “cutting out the middleman” and building your own online market domination program, send me an email and I will let you know what to do next!
Also, I would love to hear your comments about my Call Poachers article – positive or negative, just leave your comment below…
…Hepp
Original Comments about Online Call Poachers: January 1, 2010
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 their 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.
Jon says
April 13, 2012 at 4:04 pmThank you for this latest article, it was very thought provoking. I have struggled with my own firm trying to figure out how all this modern technology will help me. My biggest question to you is how I can handle competing with these call poachers myself? Do I need to hire someone to build my website and maintain google adwords for me? Or can I do it all myself and prevent the call poachers from selling me leads that should have been mine in the first place.
Regards,
Mr. Griffith
FuneralFuturist says
May 9, 2012 at 5:05 amJon…
Thanks for your comments. You want to be able to create a solid, Virtual Marketing Platform, so that you have all of the basis covered from an online perspective. Then the key is getting in front of your would-be client families with the use of AdWords and Online Video.
I would suggest two things:
– If you want to do it yourself, become a member of my http://www.FuneralFuturistU.com where I go over a number of those areas.
– If you want it done for you, I can definitely help you with that too. If you are interested, email me at robin@funeralfuturist.com or call my toll free number 1-800-810-3595
Keep this in mind: Whatever you can put on your domain name(s) is an asset as you will have control of the content for many years. Anything that is hung off of another domain that’s not yours, and it can be taken away from you at anytime – so it should be considered an expense. I’m not saying rule them all out, but know that any investment could be short term.
Everything that we do, is always build under your domain, so many years from now, you will still own the content.
I hope that helps.
…Hepp
Mike Belsito says
July 18, 2012 at 12:23 pmRobin,
I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to respond to this — as I’ve just come across this now. But I think that eFuneral is one of the companies that you’re referencing above, although since we see things a bit differently, I thought I’d respond with some thoughts:
eFuneral helps funeral homes connect with undecided families. At the same time, we are trying to help families, too — by providing them with information that they can use to make an informed decision. We *are not* trying to step in the way of families who have a genuine connection to a specific funeral home. Those families frankly have no use for our service. But for those families that are “undecided”, they’re using our services to get information so that they can make a more informed decision.
Our business model is simple: We offer free memberships, but only charge a fee if we actually generate revenue for a funeral home. We created the model this way so that funeral directors don’t have to worry about spending a lot of money unless our service actually helps them. So often, we see funeral directors spend thousands of dollars on Yellow Page advertisements or Billboards — but very seldom do they know if those channels actually generate revenue.
We know that achieving the goal of helping both funeral homes *and* families is a daunting one. I’m convinced, however, that this isn’t an “either/or” scenario. Those funeral homes in our network are seeing inquiries that they may have not had access to because some “undecided” families simply don’t have time to call or visit what can be as many as a dozen funeral homes in a few mile radius. We help connect those undecided families with funeral homes in their area that can help them.
By the way, all of this said — we absolutely agree with you that funeral directors should work hard to build their own online presence. eFuneral shouldn’t be the all-encompassing marketing strategy. But given that it’s a simple way to connect with undecided families that are coming to us, we certainly believe it should be one component.
Thanks for the conversation, Robin.
Mike Belsito
Co-Founder, eFuneral
Ellery Bowker says
May 8, 2013 at 6:55 amRobin,
I’m a bit late to this article… I agree with you on building their own presence online but what you failed to expand on is the value of both. As Mike mentioned, it’s not either/or. If Mike, or any other site similar to eFuneral is investing in relevant content that truly helps the consumer, what harm is done? How is delivering a lead to a funeral home a bad thing? Even if that site is not here 5 years from now. How has that firm, or the industry as a whole been damaged? Poachers is a pejorative term. How is this different than a site like lawyers.com who helps consumers find a lawyer to meet their needs. Should that consumer wade through hundreds of sites to find what lawyers.com aggregates for them? Your points about a funeral home owning their content on their own domain is spot on but what you failed to do is tell the funeral homes what it would cost them in terms of dollars and talent to create the content that these sites put out there.
A good online presence is a four pronged approach.
1.) A content rich website,
2.) SEO
3.) PPC Marketing
4.) inclusion on certain directories of value.
Most diretors don’t go past #1 and would be glad to pay that “poaching” fee.
Ellery Bowker
Directors Advantage
Robin Heppell says
May 8, 2014 at 7:55 amMike and Ellery…
One of the big problems I have with companies like eFuneral is that they bid on keywords that are funeral related and actual funeral home names in pay per click networks like AdWords. This drives up the price for the funeral homes who are trying to bid on terms themselves.
The way I see it, Google would prefer to cut out the middle person and direct their client (the searcher of Google) to the best results for actual businesses that can perform the task requested – whether it be lawyers or funeral homes. There is proof of this by how they have demoted many directories recently.
Sure, being listed in well-established directories is a best practice for funeral home SEO – ones like Google + Local, Yelp, etc. The difference between those directories and ones that I would classify as “call poachers” is that the former do not try to dig into the pockets of the funeral home on a per-call basis – holding that first call ransom – or send that lead to the “preferred” funeral home – in this case preferred = those who pay for the premium listing, etc.
Anyway since being involved with funeral homes since 1986, and preneed and funeral home websites since 1996, I don’t see these so-called referral websites as having a much longevity within the business. The best thing that a funeral home can do is own its own marketing channels and not rely on someone else to feed them calls.
I have seen many of these companies come and go within our profession. This is how these companies usually start – with a conversation that goes something like this:
“Let’s enter the funeral industry. There’s going to be all these deaths coming up with the baby boomers and these funeral homes don’t do a great job of marketing themselves. So if we can just put ourselves in between the people searching for a funeral home and the funeral homes themselves and get a cut of the action, we’ll make millions –even if we get just a couple percent of the overall deaths every year.”
My commentary may sound a little harsh but I know firsthand working with funeral homes through North America they really get pissed off when other companies drive up there cost per click especially on their own brand name.
Mike, have you bid on actual names of funeral homes before?
Anyway, with all businesses, the strong will survive in the opportunity seekers will eventually chase the next great opportunity – most likely outside of the funeral industry.
Ellery Bowker says
May 8, 2014 at 10:30 amRobin,
I agree with your assessment of how most of these guys enter the business. There have been thousands of directories created for every industry imaginable, all trying to sell a listing. Google does a fine job of weeding out those that provide little value, although you could say that is a little subjective as Google Local has become the default driver of traffic for most service based businesses; but hey, they own the platform.
Here’s my problem with painting with a such a broad brush and why I think some sites can be helpful. Most funeral homes don’t provide the content, or context that families are looking for. Of course some do and do it very well but look at pricing for example. We surveyed over 8K funeral home websites ( yes, we physically looked at each one) and less than 8% show their pricing. That’s not an assumption, that’s fact. We didn’t survey the entire country but I think 8,000 websites is a fair sampling.
If a family is looking for cost information, why should they be forced to call or visit each firm in town because funeral directors don’t want to show their price online? If a website can aggregate that data with participating firms and a family can see different service offerings at different price points in a convenient place for them, how does that hurt the family?
Lawyers.com lets families filter and turn knobs and dials to find the attorney that will meet their needs. This saves hours or time and consumers love it. How is a site that does that for the funeral home so bad?
Is a funeral just a funeral? Are all funeral homes the same? Of course not. So how is having a site that lets a family see offerings, reviews, etc. to make a preliminary decision about who to call bad?
If your complaint is the driving up prices based on industry keywords, that seems a little petty, we all have competitors. If your complaint is the driving up prices on keywords that are the names of funeral homes, I agree with you 100%. That is unprofessional and anlagous to trademark infringement at a rudimentary level.
Your contention seems to be that these sites are bad for the funeral homes. Can you explain how they are bad for families?
eFuneral.com is dead (RIP) but if a family used their site and was satisfied, where’s the harm? If a firm got a call they might not have otherwise gotten, where is the harm?
Travel agents used to only compete with other travel agents. Now they compete with smart websites that make shopping for travel easier, and less expensive. Like it or not, this is being played out in the funeral business right before our eyes.