Every year, we funeral marketers are always on the lookout for trends that will shape how we market our business online. 2015 is no different. This year, we can look forward to more of the same strategies as last year. But there are also things that we need to pay attention to more than we did before, and new things that we can take advantage of to improve our marketing.

What follows are some online marketing trends funeral homes should take advantage of this year.

Use the top social networks to promote content

There’s no doubt that content marketing should be part of your online funeral marketing strategy. You can blog a few times every week, create infographics, or produce videos. Content marketing stays right up there as one of the most important strategies of online marketing not just to promote your business, but also to position you as among the experts in the funeral industry.

One of the best ways to promote your expertise via content is to distribute them on some of today’s top social networks. For articles and infographics, you can promote them on LinkedIn, the top social media platform for content. For video, distribute them on YouTube, where more than two billion people are online to consume video content.

There are other social networks you should take advantage of. These include StumbleUpon, Flickr, and Facebook. They help to effectively get the word out about your funeral services.

Take advantage of the power of personalization

Clients are much more engaged when marketing channels offer personalized experiences. Personalizing your marketing channels enhances the web experience of your intended audience and it makes them more in touch with your messages.

One of the ways you can personalize your funeral marketing efforts is to add personalization fields to your email marketing correspondences. Doing so can dramatically increase open and click through rates.

You should also take a step back to determine if your funeral home website offers enough relevant options that should address each of your client families’ unique needs. When web visitors don’t see anything useful and relevant in your web pages, your bounce rate could get hurt. But by offering enough personalized content, you can see dramatic results in page visits and conversion.

Make your funeral website more social media-friendly

As we’ve stated in the past, it has been mentioned that the Internet is defaulting to social. More and more consumers now rely on recommendations from social connections for products and services. We are also seeing this trend in the funeral industry.

Make your website social media ready by adding social sharing buttons to your blog posts and to service and products page. You should also place these share buttons into your email messages to increase exposure and improve click through rates by up to 150%.

Stay on top of new and better technologies

The past two years have seen the increase and indispensability of mobile Internet. This year, a new battle is being waged on a new ground – wearable tech. With the launch of new wearable devices that allow consumers to browse the Internet, there’s no telling when consumers will start searching and paying for products and services using these devices.

Pay attention to how you should adapt to these coming changes. In the coming months or weeks, we could see how we can prepare our websites for wearable technology. Technological changes may not happen rapidly, but they will happen, and it’s best to lay the groundwork now to make your funeral home ready for these changes.

We can only imagine for now how things will change in online marketing in the coming weeks. But we’re here to help you get ready for the future of online funeral marketing. Let’s talk today about how we can help you improve your funeral home marketing campaigns. Call us at (800) 810-3595.