How to keep your firm top-of-mind for stronger, long-term relationships with your community

FIRM:  Vilonia Funeral Home
LOCATION:  Vilonia, AR
SIZE:  Small rural funeral home, family owned
TOOLS USED: Newsletters, email nurturing, Facebook ads

CHALLENGE

Vilonia Funeral Home began in a small rural town just five years ago. With only one other big funeral home as their main competition, Mike Matos was running his Facebook ads by himself. This worked well when there were few competitors in the area using Facebook, too. As Facebook became more saturated in the funeral space with lots of people posting or advertising, Mike didn’t have the time to make his Facecbook messaging stand out and lost engagement. 

The challenge was to make sure Vilonia Funeral home was the top-of-mind firm in the area,  and not only make connections with the community, but foster and nurture connections into long-term relationships.

RESULTS

2x
the anticipated preneed sales for this year

100%
growth in casket and vault sales

   Hotter leads
means quality over quantity

More free time
to focus on family care and service

Higher revenue
 because, on average, families are spending more money per case

SOLUTION

Funeral Innovations worked with Vilonia Funeral Home to make a plan that fit their goals. Using Facebook ads to generate contacts for a variety of different email series sign-ups, we nurtured Vilonia’s community with resources and newsletters that kept people engaged with Vilonia over the course of the year. Taking this load off of Mike, freed up his time to focus on other aspects of his business which in turn, helped it grow even more. 

Giving Vilonia Funeral Home the digital marketing assistance it needed not only increased at-need and nearly doubled pre-need sales, but it continues to make Mike’s firm a bigger name in his rural community. Building that trust with families through digital nurturing ensures they return for business again when the need arises. Mike has seen families come back to his firm over the course of this year and even had a family choose his firm for a service after experience with his competitor’s because they saw the value in service and care he was providing to his families. Additionally, the per-case cost increased in the past year as Vilonia reached a broader segment of the community.

PRODUCTS USED

Growth Engine