Social media marketing for funeral homes: A practical guide

We know that marketing your funeral home business on social media is important.

We also know that there’s a lot of information out there about social media marketing. This guide will cut through the noise and only give you the information you need to know as a funeral home owner or staff member. We will show you what to post, when to post, and where to post it.

My background:
I’ve been involved in social media marketing since 2011 working across non-profit, real estate, higher education, and now deathcare. While I have managed and been a part of teams with multi-million dollar budgets, I have also been in situations with $0 marketing budgets. I wrote this guide to help you no matter what type of investment you are able to make in your funeral home’s social media marketing.

Before we get into the nitty gritty of what platforms to use and what content to post, we first need to figure out something important…

As the owner of a fictional funeral home, Beacon Funeral Home, here are what my goals would be for my social media plan:

• Increase awareness and consideration
  We need to get the name of Beacon Funeral Home in front of potential clients. This does not mean selling, it means showing up in their social media newsfeed in a way that is comforting, helpful, and sometimes even entertaining.
• Increase sales
  At the end of the day, the funeral home is a business. By increasing awareness and consideration, you are placing your funeral home on the list of potential funeral homes customers will choose.
• Reassure current clients
  Reassurance marketing or post-purchase reassurance is a way of making your customers feel confident that they made the right choice. It also increases brand loyalty and encourages repeat business.

  The funeral home business is unique in this regard. Your “clients” are essentially the family of the deceased. It’s important that they feel they’ve made the right choice. Doing so opens the door for future arrangements and pre-arrangements being made at your funeral home.

Now that we have some basic goals for our social media marketing, we need to know…

Beacon Funeral Home’s target market can be broken down into two different groups: at-need clients and pre-need clients.

Now that we know who we’re speaking to, let’s discuss where we can find them.

We’re not going to mince words here: just focus on Facebook.

Source: Pew Research

As you can see, besides YouTube, Facebook is the top social media platform for those aged 30-49, 50-64, and 65+. As stated earlier, we’re interested in targeting each of these groups. Click the link to Pew Research to see the data broken down by gender, race and ethnicity, income, education, community, and political affiliation.

If your time is limited, other platforms will only be a distraction and waste of time.

While Instagram is a visual platform, it’s dominated by a younger demographic, so it’s not ideal for reaching our target age groups. However, there’s one situation where you may consider having an Instagram account as well: if your funeral home employs a therapy dog. More on that below.

• Every post should include at least a photo, videos are even better.
• NEVER post a simple text update. Text updates have been effectively dead for a long time (no pun intended).
• Don’t post flyers. Flyers are designed to be read in person as full pages. It will be impossible to read flyers easily on Facebook without zooming and scrolling around the image – which most won’t do anyway.
  Do this instead: put the highlights of what you want to promote as text and attach an image related to what the flyer was promoting.
• Use external links (links that direct off Facebook) sparingly. Try to include external links in 5% or less of your posts since they will limit the reach of your posts.

Here’s an easy way to think about what type of content we can post on our funeral home’s Facebook Page:

• 80% of content should educate or entertain
• 20% of content should directly promote your funeral home

So, if we’re posting 3 times per week, 12 times per month:

• 9 posts would educate, inform, or entertain
• 3 posts would directly promote your funeral home

Here are some practical ideas for different pieces of “entertain” content you can use in your funeral home’s social media along with real-world examples. Thank you to all of the funeral homes that were kind enough to let us share their posts!

• Staff highlights
  Profile a staff member on your funeral home’s Facebook Page. It could be as simple as their photo, why they enjoy working at your funeral home, and their favorite hobby. You could also post a “Happy birthday” message for each employee.

  These posts help personify your brand. Instead of “Beacon Funeral Home”, you become “Beacon Funeral Home where Sarah, James, and Jamal work”. Building relationships is key to someone considering your funeral home’s services.

  These types of post can perform well as they are often shared by the staff member and then it is shared by their own social media following.

Here’s a great Facebook post from Fundy Funeral Home welcoming their newest team member.

• Historical photos
  Most humans are fascinated by history.If your funeral home has been around for a long time, you likely have historical artifacts and photos. Share your story! (Yes, this could technically be considered promotional as well).

This is a great example from Malcolm, Deavitt & Binhammer Funeral Home. They included a photo of their founder’s original diploma from 1897 (!) that was being donated to a local museum and gave some history of the funeral home. Bonus points for adding a photo that included staff from the funeral home!

If you don’t have anything historical to share about your funeral home, try and find some historical photos of your community.

• Therapy dog
  As a rule, posts that include photos of animals tend to outperform your average Facebook post. It makes sense. Dog and cat photos and videos amass millions of views on every social media platform.

   

  If your funeral home employs a therapy dog, consider including them in regular social media updates. Some funeral homes will even create separate social media profiles for the dog! If you decide to go this route, we recommend creating an Instagram profile for them. Instagram is a more visually-driven platform and is more prone to discoverability through the use of hashtags.

• Local businesses
  Unlike some businesses, your funeral home inherently shares something in common with your community – where you live!

  Share posts about your favorite place to relax, grab a coffee, eat. Tag them in the post* so the business gets some promotion too. Using your social clout to help others is a good look. Who knows, you may even get some free coffee!

*Tagging other pages can be accomplished by typing the “@” symbol and typing the name of the business. If they have a Facebook Page, it will appear and you can select it. Once tagged, a link to their Facebook Page is created. Now, your followers can click the link and visit the business’s Facebook Page.

• Holidays
  Simple posts wishing a Happy Easter or Happy 4th of July. Keep in mind that holidays can be difficult for those that have lost someone so make sure that the post honors that as well.

• Photos of town/city
  Simply appreciating the beauty of where you live can be great content. If you don’t have any great photos, search for some on Instagram. If you find a photo you like, ask for the user’s permission to share it if you give them credit in your post. 99% of the time they say yes!

• Photos of funeral home
  If the grounds of your funeral home are looking especially beautiful during a sunset or sunrise, snap a photo and share it!

• Community involvement
  If your funeral home has donated to or partnered with a local charity, don’t keep it to yourself!

• Inspiring quotes/messages
  One of your responsibilities as a funeral home is to assist those that are grieving. You can do this on social media too. Use graphic design software like Canva (more on Canva below) to create a graphic with some text.

  There are many templates you can use to get you started.Keep the tone on the inspiring/uplifting side and less on the sadder parts of loss. Some of your funeral home’s community on Facebook is certainly grieving. The vast majority are not. Finding a balance here is key.

York Funeral Home shared a thoughtful poem that anyone who has lost someone can relate to.

As for the quote itself, if you’re struggling to find one, you can Google something like “inspiring quotes about grief”. You can also use ChatGPT to ask for some suggestions. Here’s a prompt you can use:

“Can you provide some comforting and uplifting quotes or messages suitable for a funeral home setting? The tone should be peaceful and encouraging, without being too sad or heavy, offering support and a sense of hope.”

ChatGPT isn’t always right so make sure you check the sources if you’re going to use a quote.

Posting educational content is an effective way to inform your followers about funeral services. This isn’t the place to promote your funeral home directly; it’s an opportunity to provide valuable information. Think about topics that families might find surprising or confusing when planning a funeral or pre-arranging one.

Here are some examples:

• Pre-arranging
  Many families are unaware that they can pre-arrange funeral services and the benefits this offers, such as easing the emotional and financial burden on loved ones.
• Importance of a memorial service
  While skipping a memorial service may save money, studies show that having a designated event to mark someone’s passing significantly helps in the grieving process.
• Green burial options
  Environmentally-friendly burial methods are available, and if your funeral home offers them, explain the different options.
• Cremation and services
  A common misconception is that cremation eliminates the possibility of a memorial service. In reality, many funeral homes offer rented caskets for a traditional service prior to cremation. Some even have viewing rooms adjacent to the crematory for families to witness the process, similar to watching a burial.
• The role of grief counseling
  Many people don’t realize that funeral homes often provide or connect families with grief counseling services. Share information about how these services can support families through their grief journey, and highlight any partnerships your funeral home may have with local counselors or support groups.

Horan & McConaty Funeral Service shares helpful grief resources from HeartLight Center.

• Funeral financing options
  Funerals can be expensive, and many families are unaware of the different financing options available. Educate your audience on payment plans, life insurance policies, or assistance programs that may help ease the financial burden.

This is where we can promote Beacon Funeral Home’s services.

• Testimonials
  You should have a bank of testimonials at your disposal for both your at-need and pre-need clients.
• New or unique service offerings
  Does your funeral home offer horse-drawn carriages? Bar service? Food trucks? Live streaming? Talk about services that make your funeral home unique compared to your competitors.
• Pre-arranging
  Make a pitch for pre-arranging and its benefits and include a link to your booking page as well as a phone number to call.
• Virtual tours
  Offer virtual tours of your facilities or invite followers to schedule an in-person visit to see the different options available for services, memorials, and receptions.
• Upcoming events
  If your funeral home hosts informational sessions, workshops on grief counseling, or pre-arrangement seminars, promote them with details on how to register.
• “Why choose us”
  Highlight the advantages of choosing your funeral home over competitors—whether it’s your attentive staff, flexible service options, or the warm, inviting atmosphere of your facilities.

Our suggestion:

• Post 3-5 times per week
• The best times seem to be between 9 AM and 12 PM, Monday to Friday

Source: Sprout Social

HOWEVER, feel free to experiment with different times and see what works best for you. Remember, your target audience includes those aged 40-75. Middle-aged people may not be able to engage with your content until noon while retirees tend to have more flexibility with when they use social media.

What is really important to focus on is QUALITY over QUANTITY.

If you can only publish one quality piece of content per week, then start there and slowly build more posts into your schedule when you can.

• Scheduling software
  We encourage you to schedule all of your social media posts.Facebook offers a free post planner in its Meta Business Suite. You can also schedule posts for Instagram there as both platforms are owned by the same company (Meta).You can also review analytics for your posts to see how they’re performing for your funeral home’s Facebook Page.There are many third-party applications that can help you accomplish this as well. Some popular options that are affordable but still have the features you will need:
• Loomly
• Later
• Buffer

The biggest advantage to using a third-party option is that you can schedule your social media posts for a wide variety of channels in one place. However, it may be worth it even for one channel if you simply appreciate the user interface better and/or it helps you work faster.

• Graphic design – Canva
  You will need some basic graphic design software for creating some of your posts. We recommend Canva. Its free tier is likely sufficient for most funeral homes and their paid plans are extremely affordable.

• Artificial intelligence
  Like it or not, AI can help streamline your funeral home’s marketing efforts. Here are a few ways:

   

  • Ask ChatGPT to write the text portion of your social media posts. Note: these may be too wordy so always edit them to make sure they are succinct and in your voice.
  • Use ChatGPT to find inspiring quotes.
  • Post your social media post into ChatGPT to check for proper grammar, spelling, and tone.

Source: TrafficSoda

Organic reach refers to the amount of people you reach with your post who are following your page.

Paid reach is the number of people you reach with your post after “boosting” it with money.

Organic reach has only continued to decrease over the years. A quick Google search will show this has been an issue since 2012. One reason for this is that there are more and more posts and only so many timelines for your post to be inserted into.

What hurts your organic reach

Facebook will distribute your post to less people if:

• Your previous content has been performing poorly (little to no engagement)
• Your post contains a link to another website. Facebook wants to keep its users on its platform.
• Posting too often. For example, if you post twice in a span of 3 hours, your newest post will likely “cannibalize” whatever organic reach your first post was going to get.

How to improve organic reach

• Focus on higher quality content
• Posts with links should account for 5% or less of your total posts
• Producing video content. Facebook still prioritizes video. This doesn’t mean you need a high quality production. Using a cell phone is just fine and can even perform better as it looks less like an ad.

Consider paid reach

A small investment of $5 per post can help push your post to those who follow your page and also help you reach people who don’t.

We will cover how to boost posts on your funeral home’s Facebook Page in a future post.

Remember to always start with your goals for social media – what are you actually trying to achieve? Your goals will inform who you want to target. Your target demographic will inform your tactics and so on.

Initially focus on posting only on Facebook. You can experiment with other social media platforms, but they will likely only distract you from reaching your goals.

We recommend 80% of your funeral home’s content is centered around entertainment or educational and the remaining 20% can be directly promoting your funeral home.

Post 3-5 times per week, Monday to Friday. However, test other times to see what works best for you.

You can use social media scheduling tools if you want, but scheduling posts in Meta Business Suite is free. Using the free plan on Canva can be used for your graphic design needs. ChatGPT (also free) can be used to check grammar, spelling, and tone. It can also be used to write drafts for social media posts and find different quotes to share.

Finally, organic (non-paid) reach on Facebook will be challenging. Focus on high quality content and consider boosting a post a couple of times per month to boost your reach.

We hope you found this social media marketing guide for funeral homes helpful!