Email Marketing Best Practices for Funeral Professionals: A Guide for Success

Email marketing is a powerful tool that can help funeral professionals effectively connect with existing and prospective client families, build customer relationships and drive business success. In today's digital age, businesses inundate people with messages; by adopting best practices for email marketing, you can ensure your funeral home's strategy cuts through the noise, stands out and resonates with your audience.

As funeral professionals, you prioritize the families you serve, providing them with everything they need to either plan ahead or honor a deceased loved one. Your email marketing strategy should complement the work you do. Whether you're a funeral director, preneed agent, funeral home owner or any other professional within the funeral space, this guide will help you make the most of your email marketing efforts and ultimately bring more value to the families you serve and drive results for your business. Keep reading to discover everything you need to know to adopt an effective email marketing strategy, or jump to the section you need:

• The Benefits of Email Marketing
• What Is Email Marketing Automation?
• Email Marketing Tips for Success
• How to Analyze Your Marketing Emails
• Stay Updated with the Latest Email Marketing Trends

The Benefits of Email Marketing

Did you know email marketing has become one of the most highly used marketing channels since its origin in 1978 and has an impressive ROI of $36 for every $1 spent? Statista projects an estimated 4.73 billion email users in 2026. Currently, 99% of email users check their inbox every single day.

Email marketing has transformed the way businesses reach their customers - it's one of the most convenient and cost-effective ways to communicatevaluable information to current and prospective customers at scale. Funeral professionals can use email marketing to:

• Follow-up with families after a death occurs: You can provide handouts during or after the service with a scannable QR code for family members and friends of the deceased to sign up for free grief support resources. This simple action allows you to continue the conversation with them in the weeks after the funeral and ensure they receive the support they need on their grief journey.
• Build and nurture relationships with prospective and current client families: As you capture individuals' email addresses, you can begin bucketing them into relevant groups to support them on their journey. For example, if someone is interested in learning about preplanning, you can craft an email marketing journey for them about the benefits of preplanning, resources to help them plan ahead and how they can take the next step to preplan and prefund.
• Boost brand awareness: You can easily capture prospective client families' contact information on your website by offering a free newsletter. When they complete the form, you can opt them in to receive your newsletter on a recurring basis - monthly, for instance. Your newsletter can feature anything from general information about your funeral home and staff to testimonials and uplifting stories about your firm's involvement in the community.
• Promote helpful content: In addition to an email newsletter, you can use email marketing to promote your funeral home's content. For example, if you offer downloadable guides or eBooks on your website, you can create follow-up email marketing campaigns to build deeper relationships with these individuals.
• Market merchandise: What better way to follow-up with families after a prearrangement conference than with a personalized marketing email detailing your merchandise offerings. If they expressed interest in urns versus caskets, you could send them an email outlining your various urns and price points and next steps for making a selection.

What's even better about email marketing? You own the connection between your customer and you.All the insights generated from your marketing emails are yours to analyze and draw conclusions from to improve your customer experience.

It's easy to feel overwhelmed with knowing where to begin your email marketing journey, but we're here to help. The rest of this guide will walk you through how to get started with email marketing, best practices to keep in mind and tools at your disposal.

What Is Email Marketing Automation

Email marketing is an incredibly effective marketing tactic; however, it's only when you automate the distribution of your marketing emails that you unlock its full potential.

Email automation, or email marketing automation, is the process of automatically sending emails to multiple recipients, tracking email deliverability and engagement data and customizing the content for each individual, ensuring each recipient receives the right message at the right time.

For best results, you should integrate your email automation efforts with your marketing and sales tools - such Salesforce Marketing Cloud and EnGauge CRM. By integrating with your CRM system and marketing analytics tools, you can automatically personalize your email content based on relevant customer data and track which recipients engage with your emails, perform specific actions and more.

Funeral professionals can use email automation for a variety of scenarios. For example, you can trigger an email to send when:

• Someone fills out a form on your funeral home's website (e.g., downloaded a free resource, requested grief support materials, completed your general contact form, etc.)
• A preneed agent makes an update in your CRM system (e.g., attended an event, preneed policy purchased, no preneed policy purchased, etc.)
• A funeral service concludes (e.g., if you collected the email addresses of family members and friends, you could offer these individuals grief support resources and thoughtful messages for a given time period)

Email Marketing Tips for Success

As you begin adding email marketing to your funeral home's strategy - or optimizing your existing strategy - here are a few best practices to keep in mind to get the most value out of your efforts:

Build a Quality Email List

When it comes to email marketing, focus on quality over quantity. Your email list should consist of people who have opted in to receiving your emails. For example, email lists could include people who have:

• Purchased merchandise from you
• Subscribed to a newsletter or blog on your website
• Signed up for an event
• Requested additional information about your funeral home
• Provided you with their contact information over the phone or in person

Building and maintaining your email list is one of the most important activities you can focus on because it can help you reach more people and fight list decay.

Use Email Segmentation

As you grow your email list, you will also want to determine the best ways to segment your email list into smaller audiences. Segmentation is one of the most effective strategies for delivering a more personalized, relevant email experience. You can segment, or categorize, your email subscribers into distinct groups based on specific criteria such as:

• Demographic: Categorizing subscribers based on demographic attributes such as age, gender, location or occupation.
• Behavioral: Categorizing subscribers based on their interactions with previous emails, website visits or purchase history.
• Geographic: Organizing subscribers based on their geographic location or time zone.
• Engagement Level: Categorizing subscribers based on their level of engagement, such as frequent openers or inactive users.
• Purchase History: Dividing subscribers based on their past purchase behavior or merchandise preferences.
• Email Preference: Considering subscriber preferences regarding the frequency and type of emails they wish to receive.

Without segmenting your email list into smaller lists, you risk sending irrelevant messages to some individuals, which can lead to lower engagement levels and unsubscribe rates.

Write Helpful and Engaging Email Content

Any time you write a marketing email, focus on producing quality content - from the subject line to the call-to-action (CTA) button. Where the subject line convinces recipients to open your emails, your email body is what gets readers to engage with your content and take action. Here are a few tips to help you write helpful and engaging email content:

• Keep your content relevant and concise.
• Write enticing content that convinces email openers to click the CTA button.
• Avoid multiple CTA buttons to prevent confusion.
• Use eye-catching visuals to grab readers' attention.
• Demonstrate what readers will miss if they don't act now.
• Add dynamic content like video or embedded polls and surveys to increase engagement.

Subject Line and Preview Text

While every component of an email is essential, you should pay special attention when crafting your subject line and the accompanying preview text. Your email's subject line is the first impression and often determines whether the recipient will open your email or not.

Here are a few tips for writing effective email subject lines:

• Keep your subject lines short and clear to ensure they're fully visible on all devices.
• Use words that evoke a sense of urgency.
• Incorporate personalization elements, such as the recipient's name or past interactions.
• Pose questions that make recipients curious about the email's content.
• Clearly communicate the benefits or value proposition in the subject line.
• Refrain from using words or phrases commonly associated with spam.
• Consider using emojis sparingly to add visual interest and convey emotion.

Find more ideas for crafting the perfect subject line at SubjectLine.com.

Design Intuitive and Mobile-Friendly Marketing Emails

When designing a marketing email, always keep your target audience in mind and utilize the tips above for writing helpful and engaging content. The design elements of your marketing email should complement the content and make it easy for users to take action. For example, you could enhance your marketing emails by including any of the following:

• High-quality images
• Image carousels
• Infographics
• GIFs
• Embedded videos
• Quizzes
• Polls
• Surveys

Your marketing emails should also be mobile-responsive, meaning the information correctly displays when viewed on desktop, tablet or mobile devices to create a cohesive user experience. Email marketing tools like Mailchimp and HubSpot will automatically help you build responsive emails, helping take some of the work off you or your staff members' plates.

Comply with Email Marketing Regulations

If your funeral home plans to send marketing emails, you must comply with email regulations for a number of reasons:

• Email marketing rules and regulations are laws designed to protect consumers from receiving unwanted, unsolicited emails.
• These regulations are crucial in maintaining a responsible and ethical email marketing ecosystem.
• They help prevent spam and safeguard consumer privacy, ensuring companies collect and use customer data with explicit consent.
• Misleading email marketing practices, such as sending emails with false or misleading subject lines or misrepresenting products, can damage a company's brand reputation and erode customer trust.
• Email regulations aim to prevent such practices, ensuring businesses engage in responsible email marketing that adds value to the recipient.

Different countries and regions have their own email marketing rules and regulations. We'll explore the primary rules and regulations in the United States: the CAN-SPAM Act.

The CAN-SPAM Act, or the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act, sets the rules for commercial email communications in the United States. The Act applies to any email with the primary purpose of commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service and requires businesses to include accurate header information (i.e., sender's name and email address). It also mandates the inclusion of a clear and conspicuous opt-out mechanism, allowing recipients to unsubscribe from future emails.

Here are some best practices to follow when it comes to email regulation:

• Obtain consent: Before sending marketing emails, ensure you have obtained explicit consent from recipients. Use double opt-in mechanisms to verify consent and document these opt-ins for future reference.
• Provide opt-out option: Include a clear and conspicuous mechanism in every email. Honor opt-out requests promptly and remove unsubscribed recipients from your email list within the specified timeframe.
• Include sender identification: Identify your funeral home as the email's sender. Use a recognizable sender name to recipients and include accurate contact information, such as a physical or valid postal address.
• Use descriptive subject lines: Ensure your subject lines accurately reflect the content of your emails. Avoid deceptive or misleading subject lines that may confuse or mislead recipients.
• Manage customer data responsibly: Implement robust data management practices to protect customer data and ensure compliance with privacy regulations. Regularly review and update your data protection policies and procedures.
• Stay informed: Keep track of any changes or updates to email regulations in your target jurisdictions. Stay informed about best practices and industry standards to maintain compliance.

Send Timely Marketing Emails

Once you create your email, you're ready to send it to your selected target audience. If your funeral home uses an email marketing tool, you can either send your email immediately or schedule it for a specific date and time (one of the great features of email automation). Scheduling emails in advance can save you time, allowing you to reach existing and prospective client families with the right message at the right time. With email automation, you can also use email triggers to send emails automatically when an event occurs.

How to Analyze Your Marketing Emails

One of the best ways to enhance your email marketing strategy is to monitor and analyze your performance to make informed decisions.

Email Marketing Metrics You Should Know

Here are several email marketing metrics you should track:

• Delivery rate: The percentage of email recipients who were successfully delivered your email.
• Open rate: The percentage of email recipients who opened a given email out of the people who were delivered your email.
• Click-through rate (CTR): The percentage of email recipients who clicked on one or more links in a given email.
• Conversion rate: The percentage of email recipients who click on a link within an email and complete a desired action, such as filling out a lead generation form or purchasing a product.
• Bounce rate: There are two variations of bounce rate: "hard" and "soft." In general, bounce rate is the percentage of total emails sent that could not be successfully delivered to the recipient's inbox.
• Unsubscribe rate: The percentage of email recipients who unsubscribe from your send list after opening a given email.
• Spam report rate: The percentage of email recipients who marked an email as spam out of the total number of recipients who were successfully delivered your email.
• List growth rate: The percentage at which your email list grows.
• Overall ROI: The overall return on investment of your email campaigns.

Stay Updated with the Latest Email Marketing Trends

As email marketing continues to grow in popularity, it's important to keep up with the latest trends to ensure your email campaigns provide your client families and prospective client families with valuable and informative experiences. Here are a few resources to follow:

• Litmus Blog: Litmus empowers marketers to send great email, every time, to create a world where everyone has meaningful and relevant experiences with their chosen brands.
• ActiveCampaign Blog: ActiveCampaign helps growing businesses make meaningful connections with their customers.
• Campaign Monitor Blog: Campaign Monitor powers media moguls, tech giants, nonprofits - lots of different industries making their numbers through the power of email marketing.

If you have questions or want to discuss email marketing for your business, contact your Homesteaders account executive.