Does your funeral home want to amp up your marketing efforts but you don’t know where to start? There are many different types of marketing your funeral home can use, so we’re here to cover the basics.

Ultimately, a good marketing strategy has a mix of digital and print marketing. However, don’t feel like you have to try everything at once. Test out what works best for your business.

Below are the main types of marketing and how your funeral home can benefit from them.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is great for establishing yourselves as thought leaders in your community. Most families don’t know a lot about funeral planning — especially those who haven’t experienced many deaths of loved ones. So, your funeral home’s staff can use your knowledge to help educate families about funerals and grief. In turn, they’ll likely have your funeral home in mind when the time comes in the future.

For example, here at Frazer, we post to our blog several times a week. The topics range from marketing and social media tips to funeral profession news and trends. We use our knowledge of marketing and the funeral profession to help educate other funeral professionals and make their lives easier.

A few types of marketing content are blog posts, how-to guides, and infographics. You can even repurpose the content from one marketing material into another! And by having the blog directly on your funeral home’s website, you’re keeping website traffic — your potential client families — on your website. Also, you can gain more potential client families by having users enter their contact information to download useful information, like your how-to guides and infographics.

Social Media Marketing

Once you have all this great content, make sure to share it on your funeral home’s social media pages. For more potential client families to see your content, you should boost your posts and create an ad strategy. To help you start, we have a free eBook about social media ads and promotions for your funeral home.

You also should take advantage of social media automation platforms. With a platform like Buffer or Later, you can schedule your social media posts ahead of time. This way, you can work on them when you have the time and don’t have to worry about posting them manually.

In addition to sharing your blog posts and other content, a few other social media post ideas are grief resources, funeral planning tips, and holiday-related posts. Although, your topics may depend on your marketing goal with social media, whether it’s getting more brand awareness or capturing new leads.

Email Marketing

There are many types of marketing emails businesses can send out. One major one that your funeral home can benefit from is an email newsletter. For these, you can include your blog posts, grief tips, funeral resources, and other educational content.

Aftercare emails are another beneficial use of email marketing for funeral homes. It’s a great way to follow up with the family long after the funeral. You also can inform them of any grief support groups and other grief resources you offer.

Like with social media, you can schedule these emails ahead of time by using an email automation platform. Check out this list of easy-to-use email automation platforms for some options.

Direct Mail Marketing

Despite what some believe, direct mail marketing is not dead. There’s still a time and place for it. In fact, sometimes it’s even more effective than digital marketing.

When planning a direct mail marketing campaign, start by deciding the purpose of it. Is it to encourage more funeral preplanning? Or, is it to raise awareness around an upcoming event? Create a narrow, refined message depending on the campaign’s purpose. Then, you’ll need to write and design your mailer piece.

For your mailing list, you can use an in-house mailing list to reach families you’ve served in the past. Or, you can use a third-party mailing list to reach new families. Once you’re done, don’t forget to track your results to see how the campaign did! You can do this by using a personalized phone number, personalized URL, or another unique offer.