Rachel Myers, director of Internet marketing for The Forethought Group. Rachel presented results of a major study on the attitudes of consumers ages 45-70 regarding online funeral planning.
Marilyn Gubbiotti LicensedFD@aol.com is a funeral director in Pennsylvania and writes this convention review
The convention also held general session seminars. One of the events that we attended was given by Rachel Myers , "How to add "clicks" to your mortar .
Rachel described that 84% of people like a web site with actual prices and 61% liked a site with average prices and that 5% of people like a planning site with no price info. So why do consumers want price info? It was explained that 27% of the population says it helps them plan better : 16% says it makes it easier to plan : 12% says it to prepare them for payment and :6% just want No surprises.
Consumers do not like anyone to pressure them and they like the comfort of their own home . Even when planning arrangements with an out of town funeral home it makes it easier to just go to the web site of the funeral home.
Highlighted was 6 steps to successful web presence.
1.) Start with a sound strategy.
2.) Invest in quality web site.Leave an impression with your families.Make it a legible content and easy to navigate.
3.) Integrate online and offline marketing, and do use your URL on everything including newspaper obits.
4.) Measure your results and see if it was worth the investment.
5.) Dedicate resources to keeping the site fresh. Use a marketing assistant.
6.) Have someone monitor the emails.
In a nutshell, we need to handle the consumer differentlyÉ.it is time to reach out to our families and the internet is the way to do it.
So should you have a web site for your businessÉÉTo quote someone,"If you build it they will come".