July 2018

Page A26 JULY 2018 FUNERAL HOME & CEMETERY NEWS S ec t i on A Phone: 877-770-TIES (8437) Fax: 276-466-3474 E-mail: customerservice@tiesforyou.com www.tiesforyou.com STYLISH MATCHING TIES FOR PROFESSIONALS Any Size Group or Organization Funeral Directors Research,Inc. AMRA INSTRUMENT, LLC 623 N. Tower (P.O. Box 359) Centralia, WA 98531 “the shorter the supply line the better off you are” WEB DIRECT GIFT & PRICING TM ® www.amrainstruments.com www.preproomdirect.com FAST FUNDING® – most claims paid in 1 to 2 days with paperwork NO RISK – Non-Recourse Funding to your firm SIMPLE & EASY – many assignments only require 1 signed document Revolutionary Online Assignment Funding Management System ™ - - - - 800.785.0003 www.CJF.com The Leading Provider of Assignment Funding in North America Serving 2500+ funeral home clients $300+ million funded each year 45,000+ assignments processed annually Let us show you why so many of your colleagues trust C&J Financial Now more than ever, you need to adapt to keep up. Are you looking for change that will help your funeral home run smarter not harder? THE FUNERAL PROFESSION IS EVER CHANGING. Choose C&J Financial And Get Paid Today! to receive payment on your insurance claims MONTHS or even WEEKS Stop Waiting Royal Funeral Home Continued from Page A24 Lawrence B. Hundley Royal Staff Photos from Past Eras mize not only the high esteem with which the Fletchers are held by Royal’s owners and employees, but also by members of their community. Royal will continue to celebrate with events throughout the year. Girls Inc . will be recognized at the Royal Tea. ATalk of a Lifetime event will be held in conjunction with the Success- ful Aging Initiative. The Rice Requiem will be sponsored by Royal and a Gospel Extravaganza will be held. Royal is proud to be a contributing sponsor for the City of Huntsville’s Jazz in The Park and 100 backpacks for A Royal Gal. As Royal Funeral Home begins its second century of service, it will continue the tradition of its United States trademarked mot- to, “When only memories remain, let them be beautiful.” Home along with a bronze plate depicting the image of Mr. Ronald and Mr. Richard Fletcher, bearing the inscrip- tion, “Our profound grati- tude and applause to each of you for the 67 years of ser- vice. Your enduring loyalty, unparalleled dedication, ver- itable diligence, undeniable service and abiding love for Royal Funeral Home on the occasion of the 100th Anni- versary is forever etched in history.” These words epito- Continued from Page A18 Crank Up Case Counts with Mobile Marketing messages specifically within that area. A hospital is a perfect location to utilize this tool. These methods take advantage of the fact that mobile devices upload specific location data in real time to show where they are. Such information is invaluable when you’re creating a mobile market- ing campaign. The technology lets you connect specifically with people in need of your services, providing a benefit for everyone. You can also create advertisements on search engines such as Google to target very specific locations. When someone in the target area simply searches for fu- neral services, cremation, burial or simi- lar terms, your ad will be positioned to immediately catch the searcher’s eye. Because mobile marketing ads are most often viewed on a smartphone, you can leverage the device’s most basic technology — it’s a phone, after all — to make contacting you incredibly con- venient. In the same way pay-per-click adver- tising lets an individual go straight to a business’ website with a single click, mobile marketing click-to-call ads let them call your business with a single touch. Mobile marketing is also extremely beneficial because it’s one of the easiest marketing methods to track. When you receive a phone call, a click through or a website visit through mobile market- ing, analytics provide you all the infor- mation on how that contact originated. To make mobile marketing part of your business strategy, it is imperative to be sure your funeral home website is mobile-friendly. Many funeral home websites were de- signed years ago to look okay on desk- top computers, but that doesn’t neces- sarily work on mobile devices, where such sites resolve poorly and don’t work well. A website that’s optimized for mobile devices is clear and easy to navigate on small screens. It takes advantage of mo- bile technology, such as the click-to-call function I mentioned previously. Additionally, Google “punishes” the rankings of websites that are not opti- mized for mobile viewing. Your place- ment in organic search results will suf- fer if your site is not easy to navigate on mobile. Welton  Hong is the founder of Ring Ring Marketing® and a leading expert in creating case generation from online to the phone line. He is the author of Making Your Phone Ring with Internet Marketing for Funeral Homes. For more information, visit www.FuneralHomeProfits.com. Continued from Page A25 What It’s Like Embalming a Child Killed by Gun Violence counts, it seems the shotgun was his weapon of choice. If so — like an assault rifle as well — a shotgun can create a variety of difficulties for an embalmer trying to restore the child. If I’m a parent, and a public viewing with embalming/res- toration is something I want, I’m hoping that my child was one of the ones killed by a handgun (the shooter used a .38 revolver). I’ve buried a number of people who died from both shot- gun wounds and handgun wounds, and there are three gen- eral categories of possibilities for a death by firearm, and some different embalming methods we’d likely have to use for each. One or more of these methods would need to be employed for any child shot in a school shooting: One: SHOT TO THE HEAD: A handgun will have a small entry point and a slightly larger exit point (assuming it exits the body). A person can shoot themselves point blank in the skull and most of the time, the entry point is a little small- er than a penny. That’s usually a simple job for us to fix. Some basic cosmetology and you can hardly tell where the bullet entered. A shotgun is completely different. Depending on how close the shooter is to their target, a shotgun spray can disfigure a person’s body, especially the face. Assuming the family wants to see the body, funeral directors have to be honest with ourselves, “Can we reconstruct the se- vere trauma? Can we make this look somewhat normal?” If the facial features have been ripped off, usually the answer is “no.” If the shot was to the back of the head, the skull is likely fragmented, but as long as the spray didn’t exit through the front of the face, we can piece the skull back together, or re- construct the skull through a variety of options. Two: BODY SHOT: No biggie. A body shot might dam- age the arterial system, but it’s unlikely that it’d do any more damage than an autopsy, which is something embalmers en- counter on a regular basis. In fact, many states require a full Continued on Page B8