The funeral home director tailors the preneed program for the individual and works to ensure all the finances and personal details are in order.
A preneed program is a must for any death care business, however, many people don’t even know that they can plan and pay for their funerals ahead of time with the purchase of Preneed Funeral Program. Preneed planning helps individuals and families decide every element they want included in their funeral service, which includes everything from the casket to flowers to transportation for the family. The funeral home director tailors the preneed program for the individual and works to ensure all the finances and personal details are in order.
For funeral directors, it’s all about creating awareness of the availability of a Preneed Funeral Program and allowing people to pursue it if they are so inclined. Here are a few ways to build out your preneed planning program.
Make Preneed Part of The Culture
Many funeral directors focus on what’s needed in the current moment: grieving families who need to plan the funeral of a recently passed loved one. It’s a service cycle that is reactive instead of proactive. Ask yourself, what if you shifted the primary emphasis of your funeral home marketing to the preneed aspect? Produce marketing that aims to increase the number of funerals planned, regardless of when they will occur. Every new preneed funeral you plan is an opportunity to learn more about what people want and need from a successful funeral home. Plus, the more people you interact with the better your skills for emotional support will become. Even just creating some content around what preneed is and distributing it throughout your web presence and social media can be helpful. Think of it as a new kind of service that people didn’t even know was an option.
Get the Word Out
Make preneed a part of your main service package and build marketing campaigns to increase exposure. Create a dedicated landing page on your funeral home website, create education-based content and share this information on social media. Write blog posts, send out tweets, create short video ads about the program and share – it’s all about raising awareness. You can even host workshops or seminars in your local community to educate people about your preneed program and discuss how to plan and fund funerals in advance. Reach out to other partners and vendors to join you as a co-host for these types of event.
Hire a Dedicated Preneed Manager
While it is common for the funeral home director to wear the many different hats necessary to make the funeral business work, sometimes hiring at least one extra person can make all the difference when it comes to implementing a successful preneed program. A dedicated Preneed Planner would pay for themselves in the long run with the amount of secured business you can generate over a much shorter time span. Most Preneed Planners work off commission too – meaning they are paid based on how much they sell. This type of payment structure eliminates the burden of paying an employee for work that does not result in sales.
If you are the sole business operator, and a choice must be made between an appointment with a family whose grandmother has just died and someone who is inquiring about a preneed plan, you’re probably going to take the one with the greater sense of urgency and need. Having a dedicated Preneed Planner lets you allocate a large portion of future preneed planning arrangements to someone else so you can be readily accessible to grieving families in need.
When it comes down to it, it’s all about raising awareness of a Preneed Funeral Program to clients, offering service material and customer support about the preneed program and allowing clients to choose it if it’s right for them.
Since our inception, Osiris Software has been helping funeral homes, cemetery and crematory businesses prosper through innovative solutions and world class customer service.
