October 2021

Page A10 OCTOBER 2021 FUNERAL HOME & CEMETERY NEWS Se c t i on A A Small Town Success Story By Jason Troyer, PhD Facebook Made Easy • Within a month, Jeff received two questions from local families about his services and preplanning. • Within two months, Jeff received his first death call through Facebook messenger. By the end of the third month, Jeff noticed: • His funeral home’s Facebook page had 937 followers. • On average, his posts were being seen by 378 people. • His Facebook page had 12 reviews, with an average of 4.9 stars. • In the previous month, 1,800 different people had seen at least one of his posts and his content had been viewed approximately 4,300 times. • He had not paid a penny to Facebook. These results far exceeded his expectations. He knew he wasn’t reaching this many people through the week- ly newspaper or through any other marketing chan- nels. In three short months, Jeff had discovered the benefits of Facebook had far outweighed his fears. * This example is based on a combination of several different funeral home owners, but is absolutely real- istic for small and medium-sized towns. load the app so that he would be notified if a local family used Facebook Messenger to ask a question. It took about 4 minutes to download the app. Step 3: Invite Friends Jeff used the “invite friends” feature to notify his Facebook friends about the new page for his funeral home. Further- more, Jeff added his wife as a co-administrator of the new Facebook page. This allowed her to also invite all 1,100 of her friends to “like” the page. This step took less than 10 minutes. Step 4: Post Obituaries & Tributes Jeff began posting his obituaries to his Facebook page. He discovered that his website provider made this a very easy process. As he was posting the obituary to his web- site, he could also easily share it to Facebook. Step 5: Post Regular Content Jeff took my advice and began regularly posting content that focused on his families and his community. This included posting about his hometown festival, congratulating the girls high school basketball team on making it to the state tour- nament, and sharing grief support and inspirational content. This step took more dedication, but he worked to schedule content ahead of time when he had a few minutes to spare. The results were immediate and dramatic. • Within 10 days he went from zero to 600 followers. • Local families immediately began to post supportive comments to the obituaries and began sharing the content throughout the community. • Jeff noticed that he had fewer calls regarding about when and where a service would be held. It seemed as though people were more likely to check the Facebook page and read the details. • After two weeks, Jeff posted a gentle request for re- views. He immediately received seven 5-star reviews from local families he had served. “My kids think I should have a Facebook page for my funeral home. But I’m not so sure.” I met Jeff* at a state funeral directors convention. He was skeptical that Facebook could be helpful to his business. After all, his best friend owned an auto parts store, and he had a bad experience with a negative review. Jeff assumed that having a Facebook page wasn’t worth the trouble. But there were two reasons why Jeff was considering starting a Facebook page. First, his wife would sometimes show him her personal Facebook page. It seemed like half of their town’s population was reacting and commenting on her posts. The second reason was Jeff’s friend, Kevin. Kevin owned a funeral home in a town that was across the state and was in a town about the same size as Jeff’s town. Kevin had a Facebook page for his funeral home and had over 1,500 “followers” even though there were only about 5,000 adults in Kevin’s service area. Kevin didn’t seem to have any trouble and Jeff wondered if he was missing out on a great way to connect with his local community. So, Jeff agreed to take my advice and try a Facebook page for a few months. He did a great job of following my 5 recommended steps: Step 1: Create a Facebook Page Using an eye-catching header picture and his logo for a profile picture, Jeff created a new Facebook page for his funeral home. It took a little help to get the dimen- sions of the pictures just right, but within 30 minutes Jeff had created an attractive Facebook page that in- cluded his phone number and website. Step 2: Add the Facebook App to His Phone Immediately, Jeff downloaded the Facebook App on his phone. It wasn’t that Jeff needed to spend a lot of time on Facebook. In fact, Jeff spent less than 5 min- utes per day looking at Facebook. I told Jeff to down- Dr. Troyer’s free library of Facebook tutorial videos can be found at www.JasonTroyer.com. Dr. Jason Troyer is a grief expert, author, former psychology profes- sor, and therapist. He helps funeral homes and cemeteries connect with their communities through Facebook content and grief support materials. He frequently provides community presentations, profes- sional workshops, and trainings across the country. In addition to providing his Facebook content service and pre- sentations, he also works at Smith Funeral & Cremation Service & Grandview Cemetery in Maryville, TN. Dr. Troyer can be reached at DrJasonTroyer@gmail.com. You can view all of his video tutorials and learn more at www.JasonTroyer.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 Columns online at NEW ORLEANS, LA– Kiri Harvey of Charbonnet Family Services is shown taking delivery of their new Mercedes Sprinter 1st Call Van, converted and sold by John Muster of Muster Coaches. Charbonnet family services Muster Coaches 1-800-274-3619 Calhoun, KY ZACHARY, LA– John Miller of Miller & Daughter Mortuary is shown taking delivery of their new Cadillac Hearse, built by Federal Coach and sold by John Muster of Muster Coaches. Miller & Daughter Mortuary XL industries inc. Call: 406-449-4100 • Visit: www.XLIndustries.com Available Through Quality Suppliers Made in USA It’s time to upgrade your Display Stands! Providing the Best-Designed Tools for Your Services Since 1926. Dozens of products that give you years of service and store compactly when not in use. Lightweight and easy to take to gravesides or churches. Portable Folding Display Table Basic Gold Stands Nesting Stands Wall Channel with Shelf SCI Increases Quarterly Cash Dividend Park Lawn Announces Strong Q2 Performance, Two New Acquisitions, August Dividend TORONTO,ONTARIO— Park Lawn Corporation (TSX: PLC) announced its results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2021. Through both its growth and inte- gration initiatives, PLC continues to improve quarter-over- quarter resulting in an impressive Q2 2021 performance. J. Bradley Green , Chief Executive Officer of PLC, stat- ed: “After a strong second quarter, we have solidified an impressive first half to 2021. Moving forward, we contin- ue to expect financial growth over 2020.” PLC Executes on its Acquisition Growth Initiatives PLC signed a purchase agreement to deepen its presence in the greater Nashville, Tennessee market and closed on a transaction that significantly expanded its existing pres- ence in Mississippi. The Tennessee businesses are the premier businesses in their respective communities and consist of two on-site fu- neral home/cemetery properties and further compliment PLC’s footprint in the greater Nashville market. The Mis- sissippi businesses consist of one on-site funeral home/ cemetery property and ten funeral homes, which both complement PLC’s existing operations in Jackson, as well as represent new expansion into the Gulf Coast market. PLC Announces August 2021 Dividend PLC also announced that the monthly dividend of $0.038 per share will be payable on September 15, 2021 to shareholders of record as at August 31, 2021. Mr. Green concluded by stating: “I want to take this op- portunity to once again thank our team for their hard work and dedication in serving and providing our client families with a meaningful and respectful way to honor their loved ones. We appreciate each of you and the sacrifices you have made and continue to make throughout this journey.” PLC and its subsidiaries own and operate businesses in- cluding cemeteries, crematoria, funeral homes, chapels, planning offices and a transfer service. PLC operates in three Canadian provinces and fifteen U.S. states. HOUSTON,TX— Service Corporation International (NYSE: SCI) announced that its Board of Directors has ap- proved an increase in its quarterly cash dividend to twen- ty-three cents per share of common stock. This quar- terly cash dividend repre- sents a 9.5% increase from the previously declared quarterly dividend of twen- ty-one cents per share of common stock per quarter. The quarterly cash dividend is payable on September 30, 2021 to shareholders of re- cord at the close of business on September 15, 2021. For more information about Service Corpora- tion International, vis- it www.sci- corp.com. 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