Couldn’t make it to all the sessions you wanted to at the 2019 ICCFA Convention? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered with our recaps!

Below are a few of the informative sessions and speakers we attended at the ICCFA Convention. Click here to read part one of our recap!

Your Comprehensive Preneed Program: Insurance, Trust, or a Little of Both?

This session presented by Elizabeth Kmiec and Ashlee Theising discussed the importance of offering your client families alternative funeral payment options like life insurance assignments. By offering this service, you can help your funeral home stay successful and competitive and gain additional income. It also gives your families a sense of peace and control while also expanding your customer base and reducing at-need financing issues.

But before planning your program, you should research your funeral home’s target audience. What is the average household income in your community? On average, how much money do people have in their savings? Get to know your community and their financial situations. After you’ve done your research, you can start planning your program in more detail.

It may be easier if you partner with a company so your staff can focus on serving your client families. For example, here at Frazer, we offer Tribute Insurance Assignments through our all-in-one payment platform Tribute Pay to help your funeral home process life insurance assignments more quickly and efficiently to save you valuable time.

Marketing Workshop 101: The Definitive Guide to Best Practices in the Modern World

Presenter Neil Sherrin talked about the basics of marketing for those who may be new to it. With people turning to the internet to find answers, businesses need to adapt. Instead of relying fully on your salespeople for information, they want to find information online and do their own research before contacting or visiting you in person. So your funeral home needs to have an effective online presence.

To put it simply, to attract potential client families, your funeral home should have an established social media presence as well as a blog on your funeral home’s website. Having the blog on your website helps your funeral home’s search engine optimization by keeping website traffic on your funeral home’s website. You also can share your blog posts to your funeral home’s social media pages to attract even more potential client families.

Your posts should have a call to action, such as having them fill out a form to sign up for your newsletter or download an information guide. Then, the goal is to convert these potential client families into leads for your funeral home through various digital marketing strategies such as email marketing and close them as customers.

Be the Extra Support Your Families Need and Get More Media Attention, Too!

This session presented by Allison Gilbert focused on event ideas for your funeral home. Your funeral home can host remembrance events and other events at your funeral home to help families honor their loved ones while also helping your staff get to know your community and earn their trust.

One idea that Gilbert shared was for a “Memory Bash” party with food, drinks, and activities for remembering a loved one. Simple craft projects like decorating memorial frames and making photo magnets are easy to make, inexpensive, and still meaningful. Some other meaningful, yet inexpensive activities are writing memories of a loved one on a poster wall and putting up photos of loved ones around the event area.

Everyone also can bring their loved one’s favorite food. It doesn’t have to be a super complicated dish. For example, if a family’s loved one had a sweet tooth, they can bring some mini candy bars to share. You also can provide sparkling juice to give a toast to everyone’s loved ones. Everyone can go around the room and say their loved one’s name.

If your funeral home is hosting a remembrance event, you should let your local media know about it. This is a great way to promote your event and get the word out about your funeral home to your community.

Keynote Speaker: Drew Dudley

Keynote speaker Drew Dudley shared what it truly means to be a leader. It’s not about being the best at something or being in charge. It’s about kindness, the little things in life, and behaving like how you want to be treated. He said you should define the terms that you want to define you. For example, you can’t just say you’re nice and not know how to define it without using the word.

For both your professional and personal life, you should set goals for your daily character. Focus on the positive impact you want to leave on others. But you also need to be kind to yourself and remember that why you matter is internal, not external. Practicing self-care and treating others with kindness is what being a leader is all about.

Did you attend any of these sessions at the ICCFA Convention? Let us know your thoughts by commenting below!