The funeral home industry is in a unique position when it comes to marketing.

Planning for our death is a service that everyone eventually needs while also being one many would like to avoid. Some people interested in planning their funeral or memorial service may be relatively young but still wanting to pre-plan their services. Others are family members dealing with an unexpected event, scrambling as they deal with funeral details, family arrangements, and grief.

Funerals and memorial services have become far more varied products, with more desire for personalized services that often fall well outside the traditional. And it’s this need for personalization that has become one of the strongest areas to market funeral services today.

A personalized funeral services are more a reflection of the life and personality of the loved ones than a traditional, religious ceremony.

The digital world we live in allows for much more personalized content in our lifestyles. Social media lets people publish, in many respects, the story of their lives. We expect more personalization from our online experiences, shopping, entertainment, tools, and spirituality. No wonder people want to see this more in funeral services.

Likewise, there are increasing trends towards secular services. There are many families who seek the power of a spiritually focused service but do not have a religious affiliation – and do not desire a religiously focused service. They want a memorial that fits their loved one’s life and is comfortable as well as touching for those in attendance.

All of this points to a strong marketing and branding opportunity for today’s funeral homes. The opportunity to differentiate your funeral home as one that specializes in unique, personalized services that help people celebrate life is an open market. It’s the type of offering that lends itself to many of today’s more useful marketing strategies, such as social media.

You can imagine how personalized the services of coming generations will be, as their Facebook friends, selfies, online writing and videos are used as a collage of their lives. Funeral homes can tap into this trend and seek to expand their services beyond churches to accommodate people considering selecting a memorial outside of religious traditions.

Funeral are somber occasions framed by our grief, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t many ways to properly remember our loved ones in a spirit they would have appreciated.

Personalized funeral services tap into this need, and open a considerable marketing opportunity for an intrepid funeral home.

Since our inception, Osiris Software has been helping funeral homes, cemetery and crematory businesses prosper through innovative solutions and world class customer service.