Social Media and your Funeral Home… Where does it fit in your Marketing Mix?

Social media has not only arrived, it’s been here for quite some time and has been adopted by all age groups and all income brackets.

An assumption we will start with is that you have allocated a percentage of your annual revenues towards promotion or marketing your services to your local community. What percentage of sales to allocate is a matter of another article. A variety of business factors including how new a business you are, what the state of your local environment is and what are your competitors are doing… all influence what this percent should be.

Some reasons social media needs to be seriously considered are:

Increased time spent online. Individuals are flocking to the World Wide Web. Many studies show that people spend as much time on their computers and mobile devices as they do watching television. If you want to promote your services, isn’t it best to promote where people actually are?

The price to promote using social media is relatively inexpensive compared to traditional medias: such as print media, television and radio.

Social media platforms have a longer lifespan. A print advertisement may only last a week while a social media feed can be viewed indefinitely. Fans of social media pages regularly like posts which appeared on a feed months and even years prior!

While social media is an important component of today’s marketing mix, it is not a stand-alone fix. To ignore other media is short sighted. However given that businesses are moving away from the past iconic requisites of marketing their services (witness the changes in usage of the yellow pages). Maybe apportioning a percentage of these budgets to social media is the optimal solution.

Make sure to integrate social media with other media. Show a link to your social media page in print advertising. Ask trade show attendees to like you on Facebook or Twitter. Embed links between your website and social media to provide different tones to your message.

Today’s consumer expects you to have a minimum level of social media savvy. Don’t disappoint them.

About the Author:

Avatar photo

Seasoned professional from the profession with 14 years experience working with families making arrangements. Business degree (MBA) with a concentration in marketing. Outdoor enthusiast.