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Press Release: Funeral Champions Unite To Create Funeral Industry Supersite: FuneralGurus.com

Contact:
Mr. Robin Heppell
Phone: (250) 686-4576
Email: [email protected]

February 4, 2015.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FUNERAL CHAMPIONS UNITE TO CREATE FUNERAL INDUSTRY SUPERSITE, FUNERALGURUS.COM

VICTORIA, BC – Three highly-regarded leaders in the North American funeral industry have today announced the creation of an industry ‘supersite’, FuneralGurus.com. The site is dedicated to the training and mentorship of those within the profession, and the promotion of best-practises, from both funeral service and business perspectives.

The specialists behind the new venture are:

Todd Van Beck, CFSP, who has over 40 years experience in funeral service. He is the Director of Continuing Education at John A. Gupton College in Nashville, and Dean of the College of Funeral Home Management at ICCFA University.

John McQueen, CFSP, a funeral director and owner of Anderson-McQueen Funeral Homes in St Petersburg, FL. He is the President of the Board of Trustees of the Academy of Professional Funeral Service Practice, and is a world leader in Bio-Cremation using alkaline hydrolysis.

Robin Heppell, CFSP, is owner of Funeral Futurist Marketing Consultancy, with over 25 years experience in the funeral profession. Mr. Heppell is a 4th generation funeral director, a Certified Celebrant, and a Certified Google Adwords Partner.

Meeting Funeral Professionals Needs

“FuneralGurus.com is an online membership site that has been created to meet the needs of those within the funeral industry who wish to grow their traditional people-focused businesses using twenty-first century technology to guide them” explained Mr. Heppell.

“Our goal has been to create one destination where funeral home owners and staff are able to quickly and easily access training, obtain the very latest resources, and have their questions answered by industry leaders” he continued.

“Through FuneralGurus.com we are providing all of this, in one central location, at a fraction of the cost they would otherwise be paying for the training element alone.”

Funeral Gurus Dashboard
Click Image Above To Watch Video

Shared Knowledge

Members of FuneralGurus.com will be able to draw upon an immense digital library of funeral industry resources, and tap into the decades of industry knowledge of not just McQueen, Van Beck, and Heppell – they will also benefit from the combined knowledge that other members bring to the group.

“A Funeral Gurus membership provides members with the tools they need to embrace and overcome the challenges we face in funeral service today. As an example, by using our ready-to-use content they are able to plan staff meetings and conduct training sessions without leaving their premises – a huge saving in time and expense” said Mr. McQueen.

“When planning our service offering, we took a holistic approach to running a funeral home. To this end, we have included training and guidance for administrative staff, and ongoing, online, mentorship to sales staff – all with a focus on ethical practices.”

“One of our training modules includes providing an insight into the psyche of price shoppers, and shares proven strategies to help convert them from prospects to clients, including some sophisticated digital strategies.”

A free webinar, and details on becoming a charter member of Funeral Gurus, at an introductory discounted rate, can be found at: http://www.funeralgurus.com/

Funeral Forum Discussion Board

Press Release: The Ultimate Do-It-Yourself Funeral Home Marketing Strategy

What Your Funeral Home Competitor Hopes You’ll Never Discover:
The Ultimate Do-It-Yourself Funeral Home Marketing Strategy

Local funeral homes just got their wakeup call: Funeral Futurist Robin Heppell launches his best training program to date: The go-to reference and resource for marketing and advertising for Funeral Homes – the Funeral Marketing Blueprint – Home Study Edition. http://www.FuneralMarketingBlueprint.com

Victoria, BC – Robin Heppell knows funeral home owners and managers have a choice in which programs they invest in for their firm’s growth. With funeral homes investing hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars every year in professional development, the Funeral Marketing Blueprint program has been developed to give members a complete road map for their marketing initiatives.  It is based on over 25 years experience, over $70,000 of education, the development of over 200 funeral websites, and the creation of a multimillion dollar preneed program.

John McQueen of Anderson-McQueen Funeral Home in St. Petersburg, FL, said, “After taking the program, I know that I made the right choice by investing in Rob and the Funeral Marketing Blueprint program. Any funeral professional out there that wants to be successful for years to come in their market should make sure that they take the Funeral Marketing Blueprint program.”

Robin Heppell, the creator of the Funeral Marketing Blueprint proclaimed, “What makes this program a really unique learning experience is that it is a complete plan with a consistent message that can be implemented. It can be applied at a very high level to an entire marketing plan or down to creating a simple ad for a church bulletin or hospice flyer.”

Program members will gain easy, step-by-step knowledge on all of the following:

  • How to incorporate all marketing channels including print, direct mail, websites, search engine optimization, social media, email marketing, mobile marketing, and online reputation management into an easy-to-implement marketing plan
  • How to educate potential client families to choose one firm instead of their competitor
  • How to easily track the effectiveness of the funeral home’s advertising and eliminate the “guessing of what half of the advertising” works
  • How to have the Funeral Home “Top Of Mind” at the very moment that a client family chooses a funeral home
  • How to access what strategies are right for a specific market and how to implement them immediately to get maximum results

Jeremy DeBord, 4th Generation Funeral Director & Owner from Lancaster, PA. stated: “Way too often funeral home owners are unable or unwilling to adapt to the changing environment but spending some time with Heppell really was a breath of fresh air of someone who is in fact a forward thinker.  I enjoyed the “flow” and “order” of the Funeral Marketing Blueprint starting with the marketing “legends” which have pioneered the world of marketing and the strategies and theories that they follow.”

The Funeral Marketing Blueprint reveals insider secrets and proven techniques to making a funeral home’s marketing plan more effective and easier to follow.

This home-study program is delivered with a combination of a hardcover binder – filled with all of the training slides, checklists, worksheets and other resources – together with access to a private, online membership website with all of the training videos, live and recorded question and answer sessions, plus additional how-to tutorial videos and resources to allow funeral homes to put these strategies into action as quickly as possible.

When asked about her thoughts on Heppell’s Marketing program, Anne Geib of Geib Funeral Homes of New Philadelphia & Dover, Ohio said, “Rob’s done an excellent job of not only telling about very technical details but providing overview, how it can fit into your entire marketing plan. We’re learning why you do things, how to measure them, and how it’s going to benefit your company, which I think has been exceptional for me. Not only has he given us very specifics, but he’s allowed your mind to wander and to figure out how it fits into your organization. It’s been incredibly helpful.”

In particular, members will receive:

  • All Funeral Marketing Blueprint Worksheets, Checklists & Resources
  • Funeral Futurist Online Price Comparison System
  • Funeral Futurist Turnkey Online Review Generator System
  • Funeral Futurist Social Media Maximum Effectiveness – Minimum Effort System
  • Online Membership Area to access all multi-media and editable resources
  • 8 Live-Online Q & A webinars
  • 2 Live-Online Marketing Makeover webinars where I will review your current advertising assets

The current enrollment of the Funeral Marketing Blueprint program will be open until December 1, 2014. Complete program details can be found at http://www.FuneralMarketingBlueprint.com/

For a sample of the worksheets, the 2015 Funeral Marketing Calendar can be downloaded for free at: http://www.FuneralMarketingBlueprint.com/calendar/

On Tuesday, November 25, 2015, there was a free Funeral Marketing Q & A Teleconference available to all members of the funeral profession. To get instant access to the replay, go to: http://www.FuneralMarketingBlueprint.com/replay-teleconference/

About Robin Heppell

Robin Heppell, CFSP of FuneralFuturist.com is recognized in the Funeral Profession as a marketing strategist and thought leader for positioning funeral homes to embrace the future and has spoken in front of thousands of funeral professionals on topics of Marketing, Strategy, Competition, Websites, Social Media, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and Google AdWords.

For a brief overview of the Funeral Marketing Blueprint and the 7 Ms of Funeral Home Marketing, go to http://www.FuneralMarketingBlueprint.com/poster to download the Blueprint Overview.

For media inquiries, please visit http://www.FuneralFuturist.com/connect/ for immediate download of the Funeral Futurist infographic.

Want Preneed Leads? Stalk Your Website Visitors

In the 10 plus years that I sold and then later managed a multi-million dollar preneed program the most consistent lead source we had was direct mail.

Even though referral leads were better quality leads, they depended on the sales rep to go through the process of cultivating the referrals. Even with low direct mail responses – we had to rely on bulk mail as our regulations prevented us from using addressed mail – they were still ROI positive so we continued the mailings. The problem though was that this was a shotgun approach as we didn’t know exactly who was going to receive the mail piece.

As the world – and more importantly our individual markets – move online, preneed marketers have to change their way of thinking. We can’t “direct market” people online without first getting their email address – and people just don’t freely give up their email. We can make sure that our websites are SEO’d (Search Engine Optimized) so that we will rank at or near the top of Google for terms like “funeral planning in San Diego CA” but this only gets in front of the people looking for preneed information.

What about the people who didn’t have a care in the world until they opened their mail and through our wordsmithing, compelled them to take action so that their death wouldn’t be a burden on their families?

Well we could create banner ads and try to get them to appear on seniors focused websites or on the online obituary page of the local newspaper’s website. The problem with this strategy is that there are so many ads and, if they don’t recognize the ad, they will just ignore it.

So how do you get in front of an audience that is more likely thinking about making their own arrangements?

Let’s go back about five years for a possible insight into this. At that time I interviewed Pam Kleese from Homesteaders Life Company for the Funeral Gurus podcast. They had just completed a study where they surveyed over 1,000 of their policyholders and the one finding that I thought that was the most interesting was that 49% said that they had attended a funeral or memorial service in the prior 6 months and an additional 16% the prior 7 to 12 months – so almost two-thirds (65%).

If we surmise that attending a funeral of a family member or friend is a trigger to consider pre-arrangement – like a “mortality gut-check” – we don’t need to look very far to find this audience – in our visitation rooms and chapels. Now this isn’t new and funeral homes should have materials available for people who are in our facilities but we don’t want to be seen as too “in your face” or pushy.

So how should we overcome this issue of having a hot target audience right in front of us without being seen as too aggressive with our marketing to them?

Enter your funeral home website which should be getting on average 250 visitors for every call that you serve (500 visitors per call is the goal that we set for our website clients). If you have 20 calls in a month you should have at least 5,000 visitors to your website that month. If we then apply the theory of attending a funeral triggers the mortality gut-check, then we should be marketing preneed to these website visitors. The problem is that we will face the same issue as we did before of how can we achieve this in a tactful manner. Putting banner ads about preplanning on your online obituaries may not be very appropriate. Is there another way of harnessing this perfect traffic source?

Let me introduce you to REMARKETING. This service is offered by Google and others, but it is best to start with Google and this is how they define remarketing:

Remarketing is a feature that lets you reach people who have previously visited your site, and show them relevant ads when they visit other sites on the Google Display Network. Source: https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2453998?hl=en

remarketing for funeral homesSo what happens is that when someone visits your website to read an obituary or leave a condolence, there will be a tracking cookie that is placed on their browser. Then as they continue to surf the Internet, any website that subscribes to Google’s AdSense program, there is a good chance your ad will show up to that visitor. These ads should be tasteful but with a compelling message and call to action so that they can get more information about preplanning their services. Then over time these cookies expire and the visitor won’t see the ads again until they revisit your site again and the process starts all over.

Since these ads will follow the visitors around the Internet for a while, skeptical people may feel that they are being followed or even stalked. If your campaign is set up properly you can set the frequency of the ads to be lower if you don’t want your ad to show too many times to the same person.

Traditional banner advertising can be expensive and isn’t the most effective way to advertise online, especially for a local business. But since your remarketing ads only show to people who have already been to your website and are somewhat familiar with your brand, there is a greater likelihood that your ads will be recognized by the visitor. The other important factor here is the cost of remarketing campaign. Once it is set up, you are only paying for the number of times that your ads are clicked on – not the number of times your ads are shown (number of impressions). For example when I was promoting my Funeral Rock Stars live event, I received 20,652 impressions for only $43.60 – that is $0.002 / impression.

I believe that Remarketing is the most effective and cheapest form of paid advertising for Top Of Mind Awareness and Brand building for the people that don’t click your ads. Also, for those that do click your ads, you are able to use a rifle approach to target people who have recently been effected by a death of a family member or friend. Then it is up to the message on your website to convert them from a prospect to a lead – and this is all done automatically once your remarketing campaign is set up.

Bonus Strategy: For any of your other advertising that you pay for that drives people to your website – whether is it TV, Radio, Print, Direct Mail or online, you should have your remarketing code placed on those landing pages. If that prospect doesn’t take action on that first visit, they could be lost forever, but with a remarketing campaign, you can continue to market to them after they leave your website. If it is true that people need to see your message at least seven times, remarketing will cover the latter six, plus many more points of exposure.

To see remarketing in action, you can visit one of my two event websites: www.FuneralBootcamp.com or www.FuneralRockStars.com and then you will see how these ads will appear on other websites that you visit around the Internet. For more information about Remarketing for your funeral home, visit: www.FuneralFuturist.com/Remarketing.

The Ultimate Funeral Marketing Seminar is Back!

Robin Heppell Reveals How Any Funeral Home Can Create An Effective Marketing Plan That Gets Results

What makes the Be a Funeral Marketing Rock Star conference so different from all the other funeral home marketing events in 2014? This event actually walks attendees through the creation of their funeral home marketing plan from A to Z following the Funeral Marketing Blueprint method. This Blueprint will be unveiled at the “Be A Funeral Marketing Rock Star” event in February 18, 19 & 20, 2014 at the Planet Hollywood Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. http://www.FuneralRockStars.com/live

Las Vegas, Nevada, December 12, 2013

Funeral Marketing & Strategy Consultant, Robin Heppell knows funeral home owners and managers have a choice in which seminars and events to attend. With attendees investing hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars every year in professional development, the Funeral Marketing Blueprint program has been developed to give attendees a complete road map for their marketing initiatives. It is based on over 25 years experience, over $50,000 of education, the development of over 100 funeral websites, and the creation of a multimillion dollar preneed program. http://www.FuneralRockStars.com/blueprint/

Robin Heppell, the creator of the Funeral Marketing Blueprint proclaimed, “What makes the Be A Funeral Marketing Rock Star a really unique learning experience is that it is a complete plan with a consistent message that can be implemented and not just random ideas from a variety of individual presenters.”

This program is designed specifically for Funeral Home Owners and Managers. When asked about her thoughts on Robin Heppell’s Marketing conference, Anne Geib of Geib Funeral Homes of New Philadelphia & Dover, Ohio said, “It’s excellent. Rob’s done an excellent job of not only telling about very technical details but providing overview, how it can fit into your entire marketing plan. We’re learning why you do things, how to measure them, and how it’s going to benefit your company, which I think has been exceptional for me. Not only has he given us very specifics, but he’s allowed your mind to wander and to figure out how it fits into your organization. It’s been incredibly helpful.”

Another attendee, Rob Perry of Yahn & Son Funeral Home and Crematory of Auburn, WA shared that Heppell’s previous conference was almost overload. He stated, “It packs I’d say a few days worth of information into a couple days and it’s almost overload. A lot of it’s going to have to be reviewed and gone over again because there was a lot of information in a short amount of time.” Perry added that the event was very well worth his time.

Conference attendees will gain easy, step-by-step knowledge on all of the following:

  • How to incorporate all marketing channels including print, direct mail, websites, search engine optimization, social media, email marketing, mobile marketing, and online reputation management into an easy-to-implement marketing plan
  • How to educate their potential client families to choose your firm instead of your competitor
  • How to easily track the effectiveness of their advertising and eliminate the “guessing of what half of your advertising” works
  • How to have their Funeral Home “Top Of Mind” at the very moment that a client family chooses a funeral home
  • How to access what strategies are right for their market and how to implement them immediately to get maximum results

Heppell added, “Attendees will love the Rock Star format, especially being at the perfect venue, at the Planet Hollywood Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. Besides having complimentary hot breakfast, lunch and snacks, each day will end with Hepp’s Hot Seat Happy Hour where drinks will be served during an uncensored, anything goes, Question and Answer period. This is a “can’t miss” event for those who prescribe to the “work hard – play hard” mindset. The conference at the Planet Hollywood will be one of a kind.

Also, attendees will have the chance to witness and become part of some significant enhancements to the Funeral Marketing Blueprint since February 2013. The 2014 conference will also feature the following:

  • Showcasing more real-world marketing examples from funeral homes
  • 2 workshop segments: Crafting Your Message and Creating Your Marketing Assets
  • Marketing Makeover session where you can submit your current advertising assets and have them dissected, analyzed and improved
  • More time to share with other funeral colleagues to find out what is working in other markets and how it can be applied to your marketing

About Robin Heppell, CFSP
The Funeral Marketing Blueprint reveals insider secrets and proven techniques to making a funeral home’s marketing plan more effective and easier to follow. Robin Heppell, CFSP of FuneralFuturist.com is recognized in the Funeral Profession as a marketing strategist and thought leader for positioning funeral homes to embrace the future and has spoken in front of thousands of funeral professionals on topics of Marketing, Strategy, Competition, Websites, Social Media, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and Google AdWords.

For a brief overview of the Funeral Marketing Blueprint and the 7 Ms of Funeral Home Marketing, go to http://www.FuneralRockStars.com/blueprint/ to download the Blueprint Overview.

For media inquiries, please visit http://www.FuneralFuturist.com/connect/ for immediate download of the Funeral Futurist infographic.

Video thumbnail for wistia video The Ultimate Funeral Marketing Seminar is Back!-Funeral Futurist

See Hepp Live Fall 2013 | The Season for Competitive Advantage

Fall 2013 - Hepp's Live Events

I wanted you to mark your calendars now because this fall is going to be the Season of Competitive Advantage for your firm!

I have 3 live presentations – September, October and November – where I am going to share with you my best and latest strategies that will give you and your funeral home a competitive advantage.

September: Funeral Bootcamp Series in Cleveland, Ohio
I will be presenting my Supercharging Your Website and Web Presence Workshop – more details here.

October: NFDA Convention in Austin, Texas
I will be presenting a two hour workshop: Winning More Calls with Google – more details here.
Note: Attendees who attend this session will receive a free copy of the Scientific Advertising (Funeral Home Edition) Audiobook – you have to be present to get a copy.

November: Funeral Rock Stars Series in Las Vegas, Nevada (of course)
I will be presenting my Funeral Competitive Strategies Masterclass – more details here.

I will have more information out to you in the next month or two, but I just wanted to give you a heads up so that you could mark your calendar now.

Shoot me an email – just hit REPLY if you have any questions.

Note to Funeral Boardroom Members – our private session will be held the day after the Funeral Competitive Strategies Masterclass.

…Hepp

PS: If you are interested in attending both the Rock Stars and Bootcamp Events, use this link to save a combined $1,000 off of your registrations!
Funeral Bootcamp & Funeral Rock Stars Combo Registration: US attendees click here – Canadian attendees click here
(there are only 20 tickets for the combo price – first come first serve)

PPS: I offer a 100% guarantee so I am taking all of the risk. Haven’t been to one of my live events yet? Check out what attendees had to say from the last Funeral Rock Stars event:

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPbMgjBsaUQ

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For the latest in funeral strategy and marketing with Robin Heppell, visit Funeral Boardroom Learn More

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