By Joey Haas
Transcription: Interview with Mark Jenkins from Preferred Cremation
Megan:
Welcome and thanks for joining us at Funeral Innovations: Trends, Tips and Tech. In these videos, we chat with industry leaders discussing marketing trends, technology innovations, and just talk about how digital marketing helps you better serve your families. I’m Megan and I’m a client success manager here at Funeral Innovations.
Heather:
And I’m Heather. I’m the director of marketing at Funeral Innovations.
Megan:
So today we’re really pleased to be talking with Mark Jenkins from Preferred Cremation in San Diego, California. We’re going to learn some things from Mark and how his from is helping families during the pandemic. So Mark, just tell us a little bit about yourself and your
Mark:
Hello and I appreciate the opportunity to speak. I am the owner of Preferred Cremation over here in the city of San Diego. And during this pandemic we’ve discovered new ways to reach out to our families and they appear to be most appreciative and very cooperating to participate. And the ways that we’re doing that, we’re streaming services as many firms are. But we’ve added little things to the streaming that really the larger audience that’s viewing from their home. So it appreciates, we’ve incorporated the printed video. Often the the programs that we make here are eight pages. So we give the families the bills or viewing afar opportunity to view that. We’ve even implemented a system if the family member can’t be here that we’ll mail them the brochure. Something else that we’ve incorporated is that we find that families oftentimes are opting not to have a service and they’re saying we’re going to celebrate at a later date. When this COVID crisis is calmed down. Well, we’ve created some little small videos. We’ve often made videos, you know, where there’s 50, 60, a hundred pictures and commemorating a loved one. But we’ve made several where we’ve actually filmed an introduction where the family kind of those know that we’re not having a celebration at this time, but we loved our aunty so much that if you could just share some of our fondest memories with us, we would appreciate that. And you can comment and within an announce a date at a later time and that’s proved, it’s immensely popular. And we’ve done several of those.
Heather:
And Mark, can I ask, are those, so do people record themselves with what they’ve said and then you put them together?
Mark:
We actually write a script for the family if they’re nervous and we bring them in and we film them. And we did, we uploaded such a video yesterday and it’s just very well received what we’ve, we did not anticipate the number of people who would watch these videos. And we’ve estimated since this covert crisis and the, the, the streaming and the public service announcements. And I’ll talk about that a little bit also that we’ve implemented probably in the last two months. We’ve, we’ve had upwards to a hundred thousand visitors to our Facebook page.
Heather:
So tell us a little bit more about the streaming service and like how you got started with Facebook live and what results you saw right away. I know you mentioned you’d have a lot more traffic but just talk us through what that looked like.
Mark:
Well, we’ve often provided videos over the years is something we, we think we do at a high level here. So we were like most funeral directors forced to look at different options and we made some initial investments or some tripods and some I-phones and we have a remote control camera and we are, we’re capturing the whole funeral and as such a neat thing because they have a perpetuity now. They, we will present it the live stream to the family after the services on a, on a stick of course. And so they have that. And we’re finding out that they’ve gone back and watching it over and over and it just, sharing it with families. It’s very nice to be able to focus in on the speakers and different camera angles to go back and catch the musicians. And with the family’s permission, we’re even doing a virtual parting view of the loved one and the casket.
Megan:
Great. Mark. So you, you know, you’ve already touched on a lot of those benefits of having it online. You know, being able to rewatch that recording, having more people being able to view that service if they weren’t, obviously you weren’t having a a service or you know, limiting the number of people. Can you kind of just touch on any more benefits that you see of having these services streamed online?
Mark:
Yes. again, the people that come to the site, people are calling specifically wanting to know can we stream? And so many people are looking. So we, one of the benefits is that we’re able to reach a larger segment of our community. And what we’ve created is a series of public service announcements. So when you’re watching the live stream, we can go to the service announcement and we’ve titled them as a theme, like such as a prayer for a prayer and a song for our community, what we’ll have a public service announcement regarding the COVID and we, we offer up a song of inspiration at the end of that. And then we’ve been posting those tidbits. So they’re quite resourceful.
Megan:
Yeah. So, so you mentioned, you know, Mark that you had, you obviously have a pretty good set up already with the videos, the cameras, people, you know, you’ve been doing this before COVID. Can you just kind of talk about is this the live streaming something that you will continue to do as restrictions lift or how might it look different or why would you continue to do that streaming water? Some of those options look like for you as you continue to look into the rest of the year and you know, moving forward.
Mark:
Well, yeah, I think, you know, there’s a new term that we’re all using and this is called the new normal and I think that that is really going to affect our industry there. There is a new normal, I may give an example. We were called with the odd state case and they dearly wanted to come to be with their loved one. They were unable to and they were, they wanted to rank for cremation. So what we were able to do with their permission, we put together a small virtual service for them that was about 10 minutes service and they were allowed to have a viewing live stream and all the founding members law logged in. So I think this is going to be the new normal people are going to be rethinking how their their love walks there. So there’s a lot of power in the streaming video. So we are learning as we go.
Heather:
And you said you were doing video before the pandemic. Were you live streaming before the pandemic too?
Mark:
Well, you know, one of the things that we’ve done, we’ve filmed entire funerals and they’re dating back years and we edited those funerals and repackage them as something to share with the families. So we do have some experience there. And they’re just so as we look at those videos, they’re just wonderful. And we had a lady, the pass away lady, she was 97 years old and she was such a proud member of the church and she had been an affiliate with the church for over 60 years. And the church was closed. They wouldn’t allow anybody in doing this COVID operate. We were able to incorporate some of the beautiful scenery of the church and to her live stream, stained glass and the pews and it just meant so much to her family. So those are other things that were incorporated and what we did, she was buried and we filmed it all and we drove by the church and the church had an alter set out on the stairs of the church. And those are things that besides the actual live stream, we edit those and they can come back a day or two later and see the additional footage that we added to the live stream.
Heather:
That’s terrific. And it becomes really a beautiful tribute that people can come back to again and again.
Mark:
It really is a beautiful tribute. Like I say, we were surprised at the number of people who look that these tributes we have well over 21,000 views and number one with 17,000 views. And, and just the service that we think no one actually views, and they’re in to the thousands.
Megan:
That’s amazing. Yeah. And like you said, Mark, that shows that you know, utilizing this technology obviously that many people would never even, you know, be able to fit obviously inside your a funeral home, right? And so you’re being able to reach more people and then those family members are being able to have that same experience.
Mark:
And I think one of the keys is planning, you know, you’re going to do a live stream. The family is gonna send out the link to all of those. We’re receiving lots of phone traffic knowing how to log in. But one of the real added benefits of it, the real time offers of condolences to the family, the family, or they’re finding great joy and knowing that someone took the time out of their day to sit and watch the funeral of their loved one and the offer, the positive comments is really therapeutic with finding out they have so many acknowledgements to offer and to reply to, I should say. So that, that is a definitely an added benefit.
Heather:
That’s great.
Megan:
Yeah. Mark as you talk about, you know, you guys have been doing whether it’s just recording the videos or the Facebook live stream can you give us any tips, you know, for firms who want to start using the Facebook live, but they’re just not sure where to start. What would they need to do to make sure that these streams would run smoothly for them?
Mark:
Well, you know, we have a learning curve also. And what we found out is that we have been live streaming Facebook and we’ve kind of neglected YouTube. And so now you wanna make sure you connect with both of those platforms. You’re going to get a larger range of viewers. But what I would like to share with my fellow directors, if they don’t know it already, we want to make sure that you’re licensed because a lot of times, you know, we’re, we’re, we’re using copyrighted material or song and we found out that we’re covered. We’re part of the California Funeral Directors Association. And that licensing will be afforded to you if, if you don’t have outright like BMI contract or something of that nature.
Heather:
In terms of equipment, what do you think kind of the minimum requirements would be? Just an iPhone and a tripod?
Mark:
Well, yeah, you can do wonders. The cameras on iPhones are absolutely wonderful and we bought some specialized tripods and we set them up strategically and the and the chapel. But one of the things is, is a camera that we purchased. It’s, it’s actually permanently mounted and it remote controls, so it gets different angles. You could point it to where you want it to go. And what we’ve been doing with our videos is trying to come in from different angles. It just makes it more visually interesting to see. And we are a lot of the techniques that we do. As I mentioned earlier as we were reading the printed material, we would give a little shot over the shoulder of a family member reading material where they could see how beautiful the printed program is as well.
Heather:
Do you have somebody operating that camera during the service then? Like a dedicated person?
Mark:
Actually we have two dedicated people operating because we’re doing different angles and it allows us to go back and really package that video more professionally to add different pictures of things to it. One of the things that’s so great is the video within the video. Again, we’re live streaming, but part of that life training could be a video that we were produced for three or four minutes to honor that life. And so they also get to watch that video. We have an 80 inch monitor and that’s something that says it’s proved effect effective and it’s just beautiful. We just so honored that the families are pleased by it.
Heather:
Yes, that’s terrific.
Megan:
You’re really able to provide those memories and capture them for the family, which is great.
Megan:
Great. Well, Mark, those are all of the questions that we had for you about the Facebook live, the recording. You provided some really, really great insight. I know that will be, I’m helpful to your other directors. As far as you know, they’re looking to do live and how to get that started. Was there anything else you wanted to add that we didn’t ask you?
Mark:
No just that my, my fellow directors know that personalization has always been nice, but it really seems to be the new norm at this time.
Megan:
Awesome. So we do have one more question for you that we like to ask everyone. It’s just a question that we feel like is good to end the discussion here, but what’s the most important thing you’ve learned while serving in the industry? Whether it’s related to just the past few months I’m having to deal with the pandemic or just in general, in your whole experience in the industry. What’s the most important thing that you’ve learned?
Mark:
Patience, I would say patience. This is a trying time is a lot of confusion and I know there’s a lot of anxiety that comes with losing a loved one besides dealing with the pandemic. So I would think additional patience.
Heather:
That is a good one that we should all take to heart. Yeah, thanks so much for joining us. We really appreciate your time. We’ll be posting this video on our blog and YouTube and you’ll be able to access it through our Facebook feed. And for any of those who are watching the recording, if you have topics you’d be interested to see us discuss, let us know in the comments or shoot us an email at info@funeralinnovations.com or if you know somebody you would like to see interviewed, you can let us know in either of those channels as well. So thanks again so much and I hope everybody has a great day.
Mark:
Thank you.