Market Research

July 24, 2022

Should You Be the Amazon of Deathcare?

E-commerce Is What Families Are Expecting Serve future customers. Is that not what all businesses set out to do? Substitute “customers” with “families” and replace “stores” with “funeral homes” and the quote below from the CEO of Walmart could have easily come from Tom Ryan (SCI), Mel Payne (Carriage), Brad Green (Park Lawn), or any other CEO for companies in the funeral, cemetery, and cremation profession. Or replace “customers” with “patients” and “stores” with “hospitals” and this quote can easily apply to hospitals/healthcare as well (and make no mistake about it folks, hospitals are businesses, with the majority of them being for profit). However, the part of the quote that I would like to focus on is “e-commerce” (before tying it all back to the rest of the quote and what it all means to you). So, what is e-commerce? […]
May 31, 2022

Meet the Needs of the Consumer to Ensure Business Success

2022 Funeral and Cemetery Consumer Behavior Study Insights Summary DOWNLOAD NOW In what was undeniably the most transformative time in generations, The Foresight Companies conducted annual consumer studies to connect data behind the speculative trends about how COVID-19 will impact the funeral and cemetery profession, both in the short-term and the long-term. With these new trends becoming permanent, how do we embrace and implement these changes that are vital to your future business success. We encourage you to download our Insights Summary on the results of our 2022 Funeral & Cemetery Consumer Behavior Study. It highlights the evolving consumer attitudes towards the funeral and cemetery market and the ways operators need to adapt. The future of funeral service is here, and we must pivot our business model to answer the needs and demands of the consumer.
May 30, 2022

Bereavement Support vs Practical Task Support

While researching technology trends in the funeral and cemetery profession I came across a company that provides an application to support bereaved families,  Empathy.  Their goal is to help a family with every loss related task associated with handling the loss of a loved one.  This support is provided online or via a downloadable app. What caught my eye while perusing their website is a report, they released in March 2022 exploring the impact of bereavement in America beyond the financial cost of disposition and any memorialization.  The report is based on a survey of over 2,000 families who took part in winding down their loved one’s affairs in the last five years. In summary, this study details the expense of a death for American families not just in monetary terms, but also in time, in emotional and physical health, […]
December 9, 2021

Foresight Focus Whitepaper: The Renewed Focus on Pre-Need

The Renewed Focus on Pre-Need: Giving Consumers What They Want DOWNLOAD NOW While Covid-19 has had massive effects on how consumer perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors have changed at an accelerated pace all across the board, consumer demand for pre-planning is an area that has taken front and center for the funeral and cemetery professional. While the last two years have been taxing across the globe, hitting the psyche of consumers everywhere and in almost every industry, the pandemic has taken a particular toll on funeral and cemetery last responders who have borne the brunt of helping families affected by the virus. Because there is a heightened awareness over one’s own mortality given Covid deaths, there has been a marked change in the attitudes of consumers regarding the value and importance of having pre-arrangements in place. As we discussed in the […]
November 22, 2021

Chapter Eleven: Protecting Your Investment

Estimating case count during/after a pandemic. Creating and implementing a strategic plan starts with estimating your revenue. While calculating revenue involves a simple formula, estimating it during a pandemic is very difficult. More on that later in the article. So, as I said, revenue involves a simple formula, R = C x $, in which revenue equals calls multiplied by $ or average dollars/call. For example, if you expect to serve 100 families annually and your average dollars/call is $6,000, then your revenue will be $600,000. Now, during normal, non-pandemic times, you would need to make two basic assumptions to calculate your revenue: Normal Assumption 1: Upon how many calls should I build my budget? Most people use a three-year average, while others look for trends up or down and make a pro forma estimate based on those trends. I […]
Call Now Button