How to Advertise a Funeral Home
Are you looking for funeral home advertisement ideas?
When creating an advertisement for your funeral home, it's important that it stands out from the rest. People encounter an endless array of marketing and multimedia ads on a daily basis, so understanding how to use advanced strategies can be very beneficial to you.
In this article, we break down our top marketing strategies and offer advertising ideas and methods for your funeral home. This post will help you identify the strengths and weaknesses of your existing ads and help you make the necessary changes to create an effective advertisement.
Without further ado, let's get into it!
Find a Key Focus
Advertising campaigns need a key focus. Before you put down any thoughts, find a central idea.
1. Set Precise Goals
Setting precise goals is fundamental. Otherwise, you'll put in advertising dollars without being properly equipped to measure the outcomes. In most cases, your campaign's goal is will be used as the call-to-action (CTA) for the particular ad or the entire campaign.
2. Understand your Audience
Results-driven advertising requires knowledge about your audience. You should conduct research and interviews to understand your target groups. For instance, you can learn about their goals, demographics, and unmet needs. Then, with that information, you can create buyer personas that'll help you reach your target audience.
3. Determine the Format & Specs
Once you know your goals and audience, the next step is figuring out the ad-related details. Ideally, you want to ensure all your ad elements, such as your images and copy, work together in harmony.
These are some of the questions you can use for guidance:
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What assets can prove useful for this ad? Do you already have them? Must you create them? Or do you have to find them elsewhere?
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What emotion do you want this ad to communicate?
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What is the relationship between copy and image in the ad?
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How can images help illustrate or emphasize the ideas in the copy?
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What is the look and feel of the ad? What are the more abstract notions behind the text and visuals? How are these ideas expressed?
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What is the key information that must be in the ad?
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How much text and how many images should be included in the ad? Do some sketching. Create a wireframe that shows the placement and prominence of the headline, sub-headline, company logo, focal image, or any other element.
How to Write Great Ad Copy
Copy is marketing jargon for the text in your ad. This is an irreplaceable part of any piece of advertising.
These are our top recommendations for writing your funeral home ad copy:
1. Create a Narrative
Any successful advertisement tells a story. Sharing a genuine human experience in an advertisement creates a moving and influential piece. Storytelling is an age-old approach that can help you turn your funeral home ad campaign into a major success.
You may find it worthwhile to ask for testimonials from families who were positively surprised by your services. Then, you can take these stories and creatively use them in your ad campaigns.
2. Keep Things Simple
Simple copy works best. The copy should be is clear, bold and directly communicate your key message. Focus on what you offer to your customers.
3. Deliver a Stellar Headline
The headline is the part of the copy that should immediately grab your reader's attention. It should drive home the main selling point and help sell your services and get you more leads.
Here are some tips for crafting a great headline:
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When you see ads that capture your attention, take note of their headlines and add them all to one document.
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Take headlines from your company's top-performing ads and add them to that same document.
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When you're trying to come up with a headline, focus it on a single key point.
4. Opt for a Conversational Approach
Your clients are facing one of the hardest moments in their lives. That's exactly why the tone of your ads should be conversational. It's not the right moment to sound corporate. Make it known that you and your company are there for them.
A friendly, conversational approach to your writing will create trust, and that trust may help you land more clients and revenue.
Now that you know how to write a great ad copy, let's determine how to pick the correct visuals.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Choosing Images
A solid advertisement includes the use of images. That said, you want to select visuals that support your message. After all, the wrong use of images can backfire.
Avoid these common pitfalls:
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Outdated images: Refrain from using images that are clearly outdated.
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Irrelevant stock images: Stock images can be useful, but you want to choose relevant photos. When possible, opt for original professional photography instead.
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Pictures of yourself or your staff: The images in your ad should portray situations that your clients can picture themselves in. Having photos of your staff isn't going to help with marketing.
Once your goals, audience, copy and images are established, you should also decide where you're going to advertise your business.
5 Funeral Home Advertising Ideas
1. Radio and TV Ads
While radio and TV ads do work, they are not the best investment. The chances of someone remembering your radio and tv ad three years down the road are slim. That said, broadcast advertising works well if you're trying to let people know about a specific event in your funeral home.
2. Print Advertising and Billboards
The print advertising revenues are declining as more modern solutions become available. For that reason, you are much better off spending your dollars somewhere that generates actual revenue.
3. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Online Ads
With PPC online ads, you'll only pay when someone expresses their interest in your ad by clicking on it. For instance, the ads next to Google results are highly relevant. So, when using this method, the people seeing your ads will likely be searching for funeral home services.
4. Website
The top marketing tool for funeral homes is a website. You own that space and can take the necessary steps to make it an advertising powerhouse. Plus, a growing number of people expect funeral homes to have a solid online presence.
5. SEO Marketing
Once you have your website up and running, it's important to use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) marketing techniques. A successful SEO strategy involves the creation of useful and relevant content that organically drives potential leads from search engines onto your site.
In a Nutshell: Funeral Home Advertising
When you are creating a new ad or campaign for your funeral home, focus on three important components: design, copy, and images. If these intertwined parts of your ad complement each other and form a unified approach, you will have a successful and impactful ad.
While there are many ways you can advertise your funeral home, the most effective ways of doing so are through digital marketing, such as PPC advertising, website development, and SEO marketing.
For further inquiries, contact us today.