July 25, 2025
Written by Wendy Russell Wiener, Esq., Managing Member, WRW Legal, PLLC While the “Big Beautiful Bill” is having an impact on many businesses, including some funeral homes and cemeteries, there is another major “event” that may be having an even bigger direct impact on deathcare: The Mortician. No television show has had a more significant impact on the business of cremation in recent memory than The Mortician, HBO Max’s most watched documentary in the last five years. In case you haven’t watched, The Mortician tells the 1980s story of David Sconce and the Lamb Funeral Home in Pasadena, California. His list of crimes is long and includes mutilating human remains, criminal activity related to cremations, collecting and selling organs and tissues, even arranging murder for hire against his competitors. The sharpest hook for viewers of the trust sordid tale, however, […]
July 25, 2025
It’s Not a Simple Cremation…Tips on educating client families for better results in the funeral home
Written By Jen Graziano, Attorney, Licensed Funeral Director NY/CT Coxe & Graziano Funeral Home If funeral directors were surveyed and asked how many times they’ve heard a family call say, “I’m just looking for a simple cremation” the numbers would be astounding. These calls seem to come with far more frequency these days. Funeral directors often find themselves in a tug of war, fighting to keep the family yet also fighting to protect their bottom line. To all those who have longed looked with envy upon our industry for its inherent “recession proof” nature, rest assured, we are fighting for our life every day in the battle against a new consumer, a consumer with no regard for the sacred nature of our work. While volume may rise each year for a funeral home, revenue margins per case are noticeably shrinking […]
July 25, 2025
How to Stop Fighting the Algorithm and Start Winning the Modern Funeral Consumer Let me paint a picture. It’s 2007. You’ve got your first smartphone, your ringtone is probably “Low” by Flo Rida, and your marketing strategy? A yellow pages ad, maybe a billboard, and—if you were really ahead of the curve—a website that looked like it was designed by your nephew in high school. Fast forward to today. AI is writing love poems, algorithms decide who sees what before they’ve even thought about needing it, and TikTok influencers are selling everything from shampoo to caskets (seriously). So, let me ask you this: has your marketing plan kept up with the times… or is it still buffering? If your strategy could use a reboot, don’t worry. It’s not too late to Ctrl + Alt + Del your old plan and […]
June 23, 2025
Written By Jennifer Graziano, Coxe & Graziano Funeral Home There are many seismic shifts that have rattled the foundation of funeral service in recent years. The funeral consumer has changed; it’s all about getting the most while paying the least. Couple this with industry challenges; a dire shortage of labor and a steady decline of qualified candidates seeking entry into the field, and the situation grows grimmer. The challenges we face on both the consumer and labor fronts are not readily solvable but there are steps we can take to mitigate the impact. Among them, employing a cooperative and combined approach amongst funeral homes and working together to rebrand the industry by setting new norms and standards. On the consumer front, we can attribute this latitudinal shift behavior to the post-Covid societal trends of the world we live in. Everything […]
June 6, 2025
2025 Funeral and Cemetery Consumer Behavior Study Insights Summary DOWNLOAD NOW Insights in Action: How Consumer Attitudes and Behaviors Shape the Future of Your Business Model For six years, Foresight has been surveying consumer attitudes and behaviors regarding funeral services and the cemetery profession. This research aims to deliver meaningful, fact-based insights that empower our profession to stay ahead of evolving trends. In the last three years, we’ve expanded our research to include funeral and cemetery professionals. This dual-perspective approach reveals an unsettling truth: a profession often out of sync with consumer expectations, and in some cases, actively resisting market changes. Many businesses lack a strategic long-term plan to engage with an increasingly non-traditional and evolving consumer base. We delve into the disconnect between the profession and the consumer, highlighting key findings from our research. You will gain actionable […]




