Email marketing has proven effective at reaching businesses’ target audiences. In 2019, there were 293.6 billion emails sent and received, per statista. And, email has an average return on investment of $38 for each $1 spent, per emailmonday. So, if your funeral home hasn’t tried it or could be doing more with it, now is the time.

That’s why we want to share some email marketing tips with funeral directors. Below are a few of the main email types and some tips for each of them.

Email Newsletter

Here at Frazer, we send an email newsletter. Alongside our other marketing specialists, I work hard to cultivate content that’s both educational and interesting. We know funeral directors are busy people, so we provide you with the information you need all in one convenient place.

The goal of an email newsletter is to educate, not sell. In other words, the educational content in your newsletter should do the selling for you. By educating your families about funerals and grief, they’ll more likely want to work with your funeral home for their funeral needs.

When creating your newsletter content, have a main call-to-action (CTA). In other words, it’s the main action that you want subscribers to complete, such as downloading a preplanning checklist or your grief guide. For the rest of your content, your funeral home’s blog is a great resource. Some other ideas are current news articles, upcoming events, and educational videos.

For the newsletter design, make sure it’s visually appealing to subscribers and easy to read. Include some images to spice it up a bit, but make sure it matches your funeral home’s brand. Before you send it, have multiple people proofread it, and don’t forget to track your results! (This goes for any type of email that your funeral home sends.)

One-Off Emails

One-off emails, also known as email blasts, are a great way for your funeral home to promote any contests, new products or services, and upcoming events. For example, you can promote your annual holiday remembrance event and a chance to win a free ornament.

When writing the content, keep the main reason for the email in mind. If it’s your holiday remembrance program, include information like the date, time, location, and agenda. Your CTA can be to RSVP to the event.

To spice up the email design, add some imagery of your funeral home’s holiday remembrance ornaments. Also, make sure you’re sending it to the right target audience. For your holiday remembrance program, you’ll want to send it to families you’ve served during the past year.

Autoresponder Emails

An autoresponder email is automatically sent out when someone completes a certain action. They’re a great way to nurture potential client families garnered during the lead generation process, which we have an entire free eBook about.

A few autoresponder email examples are when someone downloads free content like a grief guide or fills out a preplanning form on your website. For the email content, if they downloaded something, thank them and suggest some other resources. If they filled out a preplanning form, follow up with them about the importance of preplanning. Also, let them know that someone will reach out to them shortly.

Depending on what email marketing platform you’re using, you may be able to customize the design. For example, you can personalize the email greeting with their name. And, since autoresponder emails are automatic, you don’t have to worry about manually sending them.

Drip Campaigns

Drip campaigns are a series of automated emails that are sent over time to further nurture leads. They’re intended to lead a potential client family further down the marketing funnel.

One way to approach this is if an email recipient interacts with the first email, then they’ll receive the next one in the drip campaign series. Or, you can set them up to send automatically at certain times, no matter how someone interacts with the content. The first option may get you more qualified leads, while the second option makes sure you’re reaching everyone on your email list.

For the content, make sure it all centers around the same topic. For example, if it’s about preplanning, the first email can talk about the importance of preplanning and include some blog post links. The second one can ask users to download your preplanning guide. Then, the last email can include your preplanning form link. Whatever the topic, make sure the email flow makes sense.

Like autoresponders, drip email campaigns are sent automatically. However, make sure to update the content at least once a year to make sure it’s still relevant. You also may want to make changes to the email content depending on what results you see.

Want to learn more about email marketing for your funeral home? Download our free email marketing eBook!