Digital marketing for death care professionals
Facebook is no longer enough.
While there’s a lot of clickbait out there about the latest and greatest Facebook marketing hacks, we at Funeral Innovations have result-driven solutions with over 13 years of experience to back it up.
Lately, we’ve been seeing a lot of information promoted as “new” and meant to entice unknowing firms into working with less experienced marketers. For this reason, we decided it would be a good time to give you a refresher on what has been working, as well as clue you in on some tricks that you can introduce to your digital marketing plan using Facebook, your website, and email nurturing. We’ll also remind you what to do with your leads and the benefits of nurturing them.
Boosting vs. advertising on Facebook
What’s the difference between a boosted post and Facebook ad? A big one, actually. When you create a post on your page, only some of your followers will see it. Boost the post and more people beyond your followers will see it. But with a boosted post, the most you get is increased engagement and more followers on that platform. That’s good, but don’t expect big business results from increased followers. It’s just step one.
Facebook ads on the other hand give you the ability to choose a clear CTA to either direct people to your website, a promotion, get them to fill out contact forms, have them directly contact you, or more.
Read more: Organic Posts, Boosting, and Ads — What’s the Difference? And What is Best for Your Death-Care Firm?
Benefits of using Facebook ads
While organic and boosted posts serve their own purposes, Facebook ads take the lead in driving results. If your firm is looking to convert leads into at-need families, invest in Facebook ads. Why? We’ll tell you:
- Choose where your ads show up
- Choose when your ads show on someone’s screen
- Track your conversions and ad objectives
- Have creative control with multiple ad format options
- Choose your audience based on location, interests, age, job title, and much more.
- Targeting options: as stated above, Facebook ads offer you the option to select your audience and CTA; offering you so much more than a boosted post.
Just getting started with Facebook Ads? Check out our blog Guide to Facebook Advertising for Funeral Homes
Nurturing your leads
Here’s where your digital marketing strategy must expand beyond Facebook. The vast majority of people looking at your Facebook content and ads don’t want a hard sell immediately. That’s where email nurturing comes in.
Here’s what happens: Through an ad campaign, you present an offer for families to learn more about a topic by signing up with their email. Once they sign up, they receive personalized messages with information they are interested in. This establishes a relationship between them and your firm. Building a relationship establishes trust and loyalty. When your families know and trust you, they are more open to the options you offer to meet their needs. So when they’re ready, they’ll choose you for their death care needs.
Read more: All about nurturing and how the right email strategy grows relationships …and your firm
Benefits of nurturing leads
You have attracted your leads, now what? Nurturing.
- Build credibility with your contacts
- Position your firm as an expert in the community and earn respect, trust, and loyalty
- Engage atneed families with the information and understanding they need
- Promote services based on their needs
- Convert leads into atneed families
- Strengthen relationships long term
Fortunately for you, you don’t have to spend hours creating and implementing this content. Our Growth Engine software does it all for you. See some examples of personalized nurturing success: How personalized, lifecycle digital marketing can turn clicks into clients
Understanding Facebook Ads
Facebook Ads Manager
The best part about Ads Manager is that it allows you to create and manage customizable ads in which you have the option to:
- Choose your objective – Decide what outcome you want from the ad; whether it’s to have more reach, brand awareness, traffic, lead generation, etc.
- Select your audience – we go in further about core, custom, and lookalike audiences below.
- Decide where to run your ad – Facebook news feed, Instagram feed, Facebook Marketplace, Facebook video feeds, Facebook right column, Instagram explore, and Messenger inbox.
- Set your budget -You can spend as little as a dollar a day to improve your insights. However, choosing the best ad budget depends on your goals. Together we can create and implement an ad budget to aid the success of your ad campaign.
- Pick a format – photo, video, stories, messenger, carousel, slideshow, collection, and playables.
- Submit and begin measuring your results
We’ve highlighted some of your best options as a death care firm here.
Core, Custom, and Lookalike Audiences
Customize your ads right down to selecting exactly who sees it. There are three types of audiences: core audiences, custom audiences, and lookalike audiences. The more you target your ads to the right audience, the better chance you have of achieving your campaign goals.
- Core audiences include age, interests, and location.
- Custom audiences allow you to engage with an audience that has already interacted with your business.
- Lookalike audiences are a great way to increase your reach and find an audience similar to the one already engaging with your content.
Instagram Ads
Just as you’re running Facebook ads, you can simultaneously run them on Instagram as well. In addition, the ads manager will optimize your ad spend budget on whichever platform it is performing best on. Be sure your Instagram and Facebook page are linked then select Instagram in the placements section to have your ads appear on there as well.
Call-to-Action
It’s as simple as letting your families know why they should care and what they should do about it. Lead Generation ads are our favorite. Why? It’s the best way to convert leads into families choosing you for their death care needs. We have more information on how to advertise to generate new leads in our Guide to Facebook Advertising for Funeral Homes.
If this all sounds like too much, we get it. You’re the death care expert. It’s hard to wear all the hats as an entrepreneur. Let’s talk so you can leave your online presence to us and focus on your at-need families with tools like our Growth Engine.
Tips and tricks for Facebook Advertising
Tip #1 Video creates higher conversions
A Hubspot study reported that 54% of consumers want to see more video content from a business they support. Something as simple as a 15-30 second clip can entice a user to click more than an image. Note: most viewers will likely view the ad with the sound off. In this case, make sure your ad’s message comes across effectively without sound.
Interested in switching to more video content? Check out: Getting started with video
Tip #2 The end to the 20% text rule
Depending on your approach, you can now reach the same amount of people with any amount of text displayed on your ad. While it is still recommended to follow the 20% text rule, having more will no longer prevent your post from being seen.
Tip #3 Use Facebook to promote your other channels
There are so many ways to promote your other channels through Facebook. Want to post on more than one platform? You can link your Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr (if you have one) and post directly from one post. Have a blog? Post it to your Facebook and gain more attention on your website. Have a YouTube? Link and share it on your page to increase views. Using Google or Bing ads? Add those platforms to your Facebook.
Tip #4 Synchronize your channels
Synchronizing your social media, Google Ads, website, eAftercare, and text messaging will give you optimal results. Choosing one channel to capitalize on can move more families to your other channels. Not only will you maintain consistent messaging across all channels, but it will help you widen and diversify your reach.
Tip #5 A/B Testing
When running lead ads, you have the option to run multiple of the same ad campaigns. This allows you the opportunity to test out different words, images, and CTA’s to see what works best for your promotion. It’s amazing how the smallest changes can greatly impact your results.
Tip #6 Retargeting
Retargeting on Facebook means you can create an audience based on people who have previously visited your website. You know how you look up something online and then it magically appears as a Facebook or Instagram ad? That’s what this is. Interested in trying it out? Contact us at support@funeralinnovations.com and we’d be happy to show you how it’s done.
Tip #7 Track your competitors
Facebook allows transparency for business pages. Meaning you are able to view what ads your competitor is running. By no means should you copy their ads, but you can certainly use them for insight and inspiration.
In Conclusion
Some companies may try to sell you on these as new ideas for Facebook growth. But these are result proven tactics we have been sharing with you for years. Close more preplan contracts and serve more at-need families by winning them over with an effective Facebook marketing strategy. Contact us today so we can help you execute the perfect strategy for your content based on your goals.
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