August 2022

Page A6 August 2022 FUNERAL HOME & CEMETERY NEWS Se c t i on A www.vischerfuneralsupplies.com Call 651-450-7727 to request a wholesale catalog, Our Extra-Large Cremains Bags (13”x 15”) are perfectly sized for the Standard Plastic Human Service Urn. or visit UrnBags.com to order some bags. Just $2.90 each*. * Bags sold in multiples of 10 Choose from Black, Blue, or Burgundy J t $3.10 each* Choose fr m Black, Blue, rgundy, Green or Gray By Welton Hong Growth marketing is a type of marketing that’s becoming more prevalent across all types of industries. Born of growth hacking, which refers to measures startups and software companies take to grow quickly, growth marketing focuses on driving success through better customer relationships, increased loyalty, and loops that inherently grow your business. It might sound like a trendy marketing buzzword, but growth marketing includes a set of solid tools that deathcare firms can use to create future success. In some ways, growth marketing works like other marketing tactics, although the focus is specifically on growth—such as getting more clientele or increasing the value of the services existing clientele choose. For most businesses, growth marketing efforts sit between other marketing arenas. For example, your funeral services firm might engage in brand marketing, which builds awareness about your firm and its products. Blog posts, radio ads, and billboards are common examples of brand marketing. You might also engage in product marketing. These are efforts that help you position existing or new goods and services to clientele or prospective clientele so they understand the benefits and can make an educated purchasing decision. A downloadable guide to preplanning or a checklist for memorial services that explains all the products someone might want are examples of product marketing. Growth marketing sits between brand marketing and product marketing, helping to drive more conversions and increase the value of those conversions. On the surface, growth marketing appears to be a process that aligns better with startups and product companies, such as Slack or Netflix. But some of the tools of growth marketing can help deathcare firms drive more success, especially in competitive or challenging markets. One of the main tools of growth marketing is the growth loop. This occurs when you take the outputs of your marketing process and convert them to inputs that drive more outputs. (Granted, that’s a lot of marketing speak that’s meaningless on its own, so let’s explore an example.) You might have used or heard of Slack, a team messaging and communication app. Slack’s growth runs primarily on a growth loop that works like this: • The Slack marketing team triggers an input. Someone does a Google search online for team communication tools, for example, and finds Slack’s website. They sign up, becoming an output of Slack’s marketing process. • The customer engages in trigger activity too. That person invites their team and business partners to join them on Slack. At this point, the person is now creating input into Slack’s growth loop. • That activity creates more outputs. Some of the people who sign up to collaborate with this person eventually create their own paid Slack accounts and invite other people to collaborate on different efforts. • The cycle continues, resulting in constant growth. Growth loops for most deathcare businesses look a bit different, but you can foster them to help drive organic growth for your firm. Here are some examples: • Google reviews. When a satisfied family leaves a positive review on Google or another website, that encourages other people to choose you for their preplanning or at-need services. That’s technically a growth loop, and it doesn’t cost you anything more than a little time asking for reviews. The Basics of Growth Marketing for Deathcare (Part 1) Powerhouse Marketing with Welton • Preplanning referrals. You might create a process that lets preplanning clientele refer others, perhaps gaining a small discount or free upgrade on their own service by doing so. Referral programs are tried-and-true examples of growth loops. • Follow-up cycles. Sometimes, the growth loop is less about bringing in new clientele and more about maximizing the value of the clientele you already have. For example, you may set up an annual check-in with early preplanners, knowing that their income and wishes might change as they grow careers or experience life changes. Such check-ins can lead to additional purchases that increase the value of each preplanning contract. Next month in this space, I’ll delve deeper into how growth marketing works, other core principles of this tactic, and how funeral homes, cemeteries, and cremation services firms can employ it for greater success. 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 InternetMarketingforFuneralHomes. Formore information, visit www.FuneralHomeProfits.com. F U N E R A L H O M E & C E M E T E R Y N E W S w w w . N o m i s P u b l i c a t i o n s . c o m Monthly Columnsonline at Goodbye. The weekly one-hour internet radio show was made into podcasts, long before the popularity of today’s programs. Evergreen episodes are being reissued as two-part podcasts titled The Doyenne of Death®. The new versions accommodate today’s shorter attention spans and time availability. New interviews will be recorded as well. Subscribe and listen to The Doyenne of Death® wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to an introductory audio with Gail Rubin describing The Doyenne of Death podcasts here: https://the-doyenne-of-death.sounder.fm/. New episodes will be released every Thursday. Gail Rubin is also the author of Kicking the Bucket List: 100 Downsizing and Organizing Things to Do Before You Die and Hail and Farewell: Cremation Ceremonies, Templates and Tips. Her Before I Die Festival in a Box® manual and tools for holding your own local festival is slated for release in Fall 2022. A free end-oflife planning form and 50-point Executor’s Checklist is available online at www.AGoodGoodbye.com. The Doyenne of Death® Podcast Explores Mortality Issues and Funeral Traditions ALBUQUERQUE,NM— How can we start planning for our 100% mortality rate? Death educator Gail Rubin, Certified Thanatologist, starts those conversations with a weekly podcast titled The Doyenne of Death®. The series tackles end-of-life issues with a light touch on a dark subject. A Doyenne is a woman considered senior in a group who knows a lot about a particular subject. Rubin is an award-winning author, speaker, and pioneer of outside-the-box activities to help people discuss death and funeral planning. She started in 2010 with the publication of her first death education book, A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die. Rubin’s motto is “Talking about sex won’t make you pregnant, talking about funerals won’t make you dead.” A pioneer of the Death Cafe movement and Before I Die Festivals in the United States, she uses humor and film clips in her presentations. She offers practical insights into the party no one wants to plan. By discussing end-of-life issues before there’s a death, families can reduce stress, minimize conflict, save money, and have a meaningful, memorable “good goodbye.” Episodes cover green burial, cremation, religious funeral traditions, grief impacts, Near Death Experiences, and other topics. In 2013, Gail Rubin hosted a live online broadcast, A Good Digital Directory Available Download instantly at Save on Shipping! www.NomisPublications.com

RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy Nzg4MQ==