For whom doth the bell toll?
John Donne’s famous poem, a meditation he wrote in 1624, ponders the importance of human life and the loss humankind suffers with every individual’s passing. His goal, it seems, was to broaden our perspectives of death and its relevance.
While only a loose comparison ought to be made, there are important parallels for the funeral profession when considering the current practice of live streaming. Like death, streaming is ubiquitous, but not generally well understood. It can be a very personal and sensitive topic, which may re-open old wounds for some or induce paralyzing anxiety in others. And in spite of its inevitability as we step into the future, continued misconceptions of what makes for “a good stream” are actually hurting the funeral business. The aim of today’s post is to broaden your perspectives on live streaming and perhaps forever alter your views on its relevance and inherent value.
Donne’s reflection on the tolling bell, necessarily raises an analogous business question: For whom do you stream?
For the family? Their online guests? Your bottom line?
If you tend to view live streaming as merely a service to provide when families request it, you’ll understand why the majority of funeral homes today stream just one in four ceremonies. How can you (and they) get more than a nominal service fee out of live streaming? The degrees of coordination, technical gymnastics and time required to deliver a meaningful online guest experience can certainly cast doubt on the overall business value of live streaming—especially if your funeral home hesitates to charge for the service.
It tolls for thee.
Think differently about the relevance of live streaming to the future of your business. Today, you can unlock previously hidden value by live streaming regularly on a simple, customizable funeral experience platform that connects you directly with new customers. In fact, the key lies in your new ability to use the data that online guests share with your funeral home when they register for a live stream.
We know that an average of 40 additional guests will register to attend each funeral live stream—over and above the number of in-person guests attending. In fact, their registrations enable over 60 guests per funeral to interact with your brand before, during and after the live stream. If you stream 30 of 100 funeral events in 2023, without any additional outreach campaigns or special events, you will engage directly with 1,800 future customers this year. If five percent of them purchase $5,000 in funeral services from you in the next five years, you will add 90 new customers to your current projections and $450,000 in sales—by live streaming simply and differently—for a roughly the cost of one of those 90 new purchases.
This untapped value offers exceptional returns on investment and can enable you to grow your business selling to more and more customers each year, even in the face of falling per-customer revenues. Discover how to unlock the value trapped by your current live streaming method or earlier perspectives on offering live streaming to every family you serve.
Live streaming sells more funerals.
Live streaming reaches further for you, making it easier to demonstrate your value, raise brand awareness, and build customer confidence in your company. And by following up directly with guests to share valuable information, you’re keeping your business top-of-mind and building long-lasting customer relationships. You’re not selling live streaming. You’re live streaming to build trust and sell more funeral services.
Start using an experience-based streaming platform that’s geared to helping you realize business goals and grow your market share, while you meet another family’s needs at the same time. You owe it to yourself and your business to stream simpler and smarter. Foveo’s trusted platform can create hundreds of opportunities every month to connect directly with target audiences—people you couldn’t reach before, with direct ties to your community, who have just experienced a loss, and for whom you effortlessly provided a meaningful online experience.
To take advantage of simplified guest engagement and experience marketing that goes beyond passive websites and streaming for unknown audiences. Tell us about your own live streaming experiences. We can show you how easy it is to live stream with DirectorView™ and unlock the hidden value in funeral live streaming.
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