Three Places to Run Your Funeral Home Online Ads

Most people (about 90 percent) haven’t made up their minds about a service when they start researching it online. And that uncertainly extends to deathcare, which means funeral homes that aren’t showing up to answer questions and provide assurances online aren’t connecting with potential clientele.

Quality website content and SEO helps you show up at the right time, but those aren’t comprehensive solutions. If you’re relying on organic search, clientele is likely falling through the cracks, which means your funeral home is losing out on revenue. Paying for placement in the form of ads boosts your chances at connecting with people or families when they’re primed to find out more about preplanning or make arrangements for immediate deathcare services.

Here are three options every funeral home should consider when placing ads:

1. Google
Google ads—those that appear as paid or sponsored results on the search pages—are a must for these reasons:

• Many people start their search for preplanning information or immediate services in the search engines. Ads help ensure you show up at least once for those users at just the right time.
• Ad clicks can be more powerful than organic clicks. Those who click on ads are 50 percent more likely to convert than those who click on organic listings are.
• Google owns the vast majority of search traffic on desktop and mobile, making ads on its network a best bet for exposure to the largest audience.

2. Social Media
Social media ads are also powerful. On platforms such as Facebook, where organic reach is extremely small, sponsored posts and ads let you connect with people who aren’t already seeing your content. That lets you increase awareness of your firm so people are more likely to think of you when they have a need.

Which social sites you advertise on depends who you’re trying to connect with, but Facebook is a good first bet for many funeral homes. It has an older average user base than platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat and offers a better interface for providing the kind of educational content funeral homes can use to demonstrate authority and trustworthiness to potential clientele.

3. YouTube
YouTube is a great way to reach the next generation of funeral home clientele. It reaches more people age 18 to 49 than cable TV, and it’s second only to Netflix as people’s favorite video-watching platform.

But older adults also use YouTube. More than 65 percent of those ages 36-45 and almost 60 percent of those 56 and older report using YouTube. And by placing short ads that appear before other people’s videos, you can ride the wave of engagement that others have created to get your marketing message in front of more consumers.