Rob’s Marketing Strategies Help Online Cremation Firm Go From 0 to 7 Figures in 5 Years

Rob shares the back story of how he helped Jeff and Steve Murphy start and grow their online cremation business to a very successful exit. Rob explains 3 marketing strategies that were very important in the growth of the Murphys' business. For more information about Funeral Results Marketing, checkout our Funeral Home Website section, Cremation Arrangement section or Digital Marketing Services section on our website or contact Rob at [e-mail] or at 1-800-810-3595. See the complete transcript here: Rob Heppell: Welcome back to the Funeral X Podcast. I am Rob Heppell and I'm joined with my Funeral Results Marketing business partner, Jake Johnson. Hey there, Jake. Jake Johnson: Hey, Rob. Rob Heppell: How's it going? Jake Johnson: Living the dream, as they say, right? Rob Heppell: Yes. Jake Johnson: Every day. Rob Heppell: Good stuff. Jake Johnson: Or fighting the fight. Rob Heppell: Yes. I think you have to do both, to fight the fight, to live the dream, right? Jake Johnson: Well, right, and we all need to know that nightmares are dreams too. You just got to pick your battles. Rob Heppell: Yes, for sure. Hey, today I think what would be neat is to dive into some of the marketing strategies that we've used in Funeral Results Marketing. In particular, how we've used some of those strategies and philosophies in our online cremation offering. I think, to help this example, one of our clients, or actually, unfortunately, former client, but only because he sold his business after it became so successful, is Jeff Murphy from Tennessee. I was speaking with him the other day and I thought, "Hey, you know, do you mind if I share some of the information? We won't go into all the details," but he said, "Oh Yes, Yes. That's fine." I think before we get going though, just so folks listening know some of my approaches to marketing, instead of ... I see this just so often, Jake is, funeral home owner or cremation provider owner will say, "Oh, we should start using Facebook, or we should use this," and they jump to the channel. They don't think of, what's the overall ... If we step back, what's the overall objective? Jake Johnson: I think it's a good point, you know. Yes. I mean, I think about it within our consulting practice. Used to call it the Baskin Robbins concept, where you come back with 31 ideas or flavors of the month. The problem was, it's confusing, it's disruptive and it doesn't accomplish the whole picture. The best thing to do is more strategically plan it out. It falls along the same line with you're talking about. Rob Heppell: Yes. Yes. I like to ask, "Okay, so who do want, to do what? What's it going to benefit you?" It's a little bit of a clunky question, but it has the right part. If someone says, "Well, I want to be on Facebook," I'm like, "Okay. Well, who do you want to interact with and what do you want them to do?" If they say, "Well, how about like our page?" I'm like, "Well, okay. If that's your objective, is to get likes on the page, it may help down the road for a little bit of online reputation and top-of-mind awareness, but there's no value there." On the flip side, I think the ultimate objective for most funeral homes would be to secure another call, to get more first calls. If that's the objective, then okay. So, who are we trying to attract? How are we going to attract them? Then, what do we want them to do? There is a marketer, a guy named Dan Kennedy, kind of a gruff old guy. He's a direct response marketer. They would send out letters and get a response, and they would test. It's part of the scientific side of marketing. He came up with this triangle with arrows going both ways, and he calls it the message to market match. Who's your market and what message are you going to use? What's missing out of that is, just in words only, is what medium or media or channel are you going to use ...