Radio Sales Café

Anyone marketing mortuaries on the radio? How- perhaps a news sponsorship? Stock report? any success stories you have? I'm trying to help them dig up more business.

Not a mortuary but the local Funeral home sponsors the funeral announcements here might work for you if you don't already do that depending of coarse on your market size (maybe it doesn't work in a bigger market??), we are a small town local radio here so the funeral announcements are very popular and are ran at primetimes.

Boy, I'd love to see a script of one of these.. I am in sort of a small market- Maui Hawaii- and I'm guessing that the feature's pretty short and sweet? Perhaps just touching on the events of the week? Who and what time sort of thing? Actually, I can understand why that might be helpful- those that knew the deceased may have missed the print piece in the paper?.. Hmmm- thanks, that may just be what I need.

Aloha,
PaulR

The BEST way to sell a funeral home that I have come up with is to sell Funeral Planning. Here is a copy idea that I heard a while back. It is a good start for writing a complete set of ads: Imagine your daughter calls you and tells you she is getting married this Saturday. You have almost no time to arrange for the chapel, get the flowers, arrange for an officient, get everyone together and pull it off. You wouldn't want your daughter to do this to you... so don't do it to her. Pre Plan your final arrangements. Costco Funeral Home.
Remember: Funeral Directores don't really want to sell funerals. They want to sell Pre Planning... basically insurance policies. Get on that and you will have far more success!
Oh and PS: Remember that the average funeral is over $6K and the margins are quite high. Don't be selling them some small "community" package. Sell them a schedule to SELL their services. You will find that the ROI on a schedule of about $35K is to bring them just 3 people a month to ask about pre-planning! These are FOR PROFIT businesses. Treat them that way.

Paul,

I create musical jingles for Funeral homes all over the country. Would you like to hear a few?

Jim Reilly
American Music Concepts
[email protected]

Paul,

We have three morturaries in town and all three are on the Radio running commercials promoting pre-need arrangements, the quality of their facilities, the quality of their service, etc. We do not allow any of them to sponsor the daily Obituaries we broadcast, but we do charge them for each Obit. Any type of sponsorship is a good idea.

Our Funeral Homes will not do 30 second ads. It is one of those things that have been handed down through the generations here ...that it is improper to advertise. However....they do sponsor our Sportscasters Club which is name mentions during the local sports reports and games. They also participate in our Spring Expo and have an ad on our website.

Chris Rolando is correct- pre planning is the key. I had a lot of success selling service industries (and this is a service industry) what we called a "round up" schedule. Please use the attached if you find useful

Wow! I'm sold on Radio Sales Cafe! Thanks guys- these are all great - helpful points - lots to chew on - thanks so much!

Obits are a very important part of this area. We have business sponsors-& do a short announcement of services in the morning and a full obit in the noon hour. We were having transmitter problems a few years ago and we off the air for a small amount of time. We really heard from listeners that they missed hearing about who died recently. ( sounds morbid to me, but whatever...) It is a rural area and guess that its a big part of their life. The funeral home in our area will very rarely buy advertising and if they do sponsor something it is a personal name mention. We have short intro that talks about honoring our areas recently departed- its done in good taste.

Not to sound patronizing but Grace Broadcast Sales produces some great holiday vignettes which I sell to a local "memorial park". They buy the Memorial Day package to promote there own May 31 events. They also buy the Christmas and New Years package. For 2010 the are sponsors of Don Kennedy's Big Band Jump and Sid Marks Sounds of Sinatra.
Here's the copy for the Christmas and new Years run.

Bellevue Copy 2009

At this time of year, our thoughts turn to family. For those no longer with us, it’s nice to know there is Bellevue Memorial Park, a beautiful place to visit where we can celebrate their lives. Through the efforts and foresight of its founding fathers Bellevue has operated under endowment care since its inception in 1892, and is still growing to meet the needs of our families. Family Service Counselors are available daily to answer your questions and assist you through the difficult times of decision-making, or to answer your questions about pre-planning for the future. Whether you are interested in one of the two beautiful mausoleums, family estates, or cremation niches, Bellevue offers all types of interment options, including, of course, traditional ground burials. Pre-planning may be something you’ve been putting off, but it can take the burden off the shoulders of your loved ones, and even allow you to choose exactly the location you would like ahead of time. Today be of good cheer, and remember that you will always find caring help for those you hold dear at your community’s park – Bellevue Memorial in the heart of Ontario, at Mountain and “G” Street. Here’s wishing the best to you and yours from Bellevue Memorial Park.

2 words...RE-Motes.


kidding. In regards to Funeral Homes, Mortuaries, Monument Dealers, an angle that has not been often explored..at least in terms of commercial content, is testimonial style ads. If your client has a grateful client that is willing to share the story of how the Funeral Home helped them in a trying time, that is very powerful.

My first and only funeral home client was in Springfield, IL - back in 1973. They were daily advertisers, though I don't remember what, if anything, they sponsored. However, I still recall the name of the establishment ("Kerlin, Egan and Butler" - though my spelling may be off; credit radio advertising for driving the name deep into long-term memory). I also remember that the brothers who ran the establishment had a rather wry - even cavalier - sense of humor about their business. It surprised me at the time, but I was new in the business and pretty naive about such things. @ Joe Lyons -- thanks for the plug for GBS! :>A few of our client stations have reported good success selling our Christmas, Easter, and Memorial Day vignettes to funeral home sponsors. I can think of one Minnesota station whose local funeral home has been the exclusive sponsor for many years, so there must be something to it. One of my associates at the radio station here has been working with a related category client since the mid-80s, a supplier/engraver of stone monuments and grave markers. Twenty years ago they purchased a jingle that they continue to use right to this day -- every month, all year long. The mere fact that this client has been a steady advertiser for two decades speaks volumes about the effectiveness of their radio advertising. (Jim Williams used to remind us that a renewal is the definitive measure of a campaign's success. More recently, Dan O'Day has been expounding the same principle.) Most of the time the distaff member of this "mom and pop" business voices the message, but occasionally they go back to just the full sing jingle. I've uploaded the :30 and :60 FS versions below, should you care to give 'em a listen. @ Paul ... Gotta ask: was "dig up more business" intentional? ;>}

I'm surprised you're the first to mention that... yeah- he's dieing for more business... I was just trying to plot out a killer idea... nothing drop dead mind you... just something that would just cold stone work...
:-)

Rod,

I find the comments helpful, interesting and some quite funny! It's no laughing matter, but life is too short to be stiff. No pun intended. Great posting , all.

Sherna

p.s been researching from this morning, so ..

Paul,

Real funny! Just told Rod so! Anyways..serious business!