Why Online Visibility Now Defines Your Performance
For decades, funeral service was a relationship business built on word-of-mouth marketing, referrals from local religious venues, and having a familiar name on a building on Main & Main. And while that foundation still matters today, it is no longer where the decision-making process begins for most families choosing a funeral home. That process now more than ever begins online.
The 2026 Funeral and Cemetery Consumer Behavior Study (“FCCBS”), conducted by Foresight and Fortitude Research and Marketing, provides us with a wealth of insight into consumer preferences and how funeral professionals can improve the way reach and serve their families based on these ever-evolving preferences.
The FCCBS data quantifies just how many people are starting their decision-making process online – 81%. Yes, 81% of future consumers plan to research funeral and cemetery options online, while only 60% of recent customers did within the past two years. With this percentage going up, the emphasis is clear that improving your online presence is vital to long-term success.
We also saw that among those researching funeral options online, 78% planned to use Google and 69% planned to visit a provider’s own website, both numbers climbing year over year. If your digital presence isn’t ready for that moment, you are losing families before they ever walk through your door.
Let’s break down what the data says about the online-to-in-person consumer journey, offer some practical guidance for improving your visibility within the community, and explain how these findings can help shape your business planning for the year ahead.
The Online Front Door Is Now the First Impression
The FCCBS data makes clear that online research is not a fringe behavior reserved for younger, tech-savvy families. It is now the default starting point for arranging a funeral. Consumers overwhelmingly want three things from a funeral home’s digital presence: transparent pricing, general information about the location, and reassurance from reviews.
Pricing appears to be the single most important factor. For the fourth year in a row, visibility into pricing was rated as the most important online feature by consumers, with 67% saying it matters. Yet most firms still fall short of what consumers actually want. 71% of locations post pricing solely as a PDF of their General Price List, and only 26% offer any kind of interactive tool that lets a family build and compare options.
Meanwhile, when consumers were asked what they wanted to do online but couldn’t, “detailed cost information” was the second most common frustration (22%), trailing only a request for more descriptions, pictures, video, and virtual tours (24%). In other words, families want to see your facility and understand your prices before they ever call.
Reviews carry outsized weight in the research process. Nearly 70% of all future customers considered online reviews important in their search for the right funeral home. However, 53% of consumers say they trust reviews on third-party sites like Google and Yelp more than reviews posted directly on a business’s own website, with only 29% trusting the funeral home’s website reviews more. That means your online reputation lives largely outside your direct control – on platforms you don’t own but must actively manage. The good news is that firms are getting better at this: 80% of locations now prompt customers for reviews, which is up 17% from last year’s consumer polling.
It’s also worth noting that going digital doesn’t mean abandoning your physical presence. 87% of recent customers physically visited the location they ultimately selected, and a third of them visited at least one additional location in person. The average family visited three locations before deciding on a funeral home, adding to the importance of maintaining an equally impressive online & in-person image.
Your website is not replacing the in-person visit, it’s determining whether you make the shortlist of places worth visiting at all.
Where the Profession Is Falling Short
The study identifies a persistent and troubling pattern: professionals in the death care industry consistently overestimate how well they are serving and educating their communities. This “perception gap” shows up across nearly every measured category and represents both a warning and an opportunity. Those who can bridge this gap to harmonize their funeral offerings with what their consumers desire will be the ones that set themselves above the rest becoming the visible standouts in their community.
This perception gap between the profession and consumers is exceptionally wide surrounding education and product awareness. 93% of professionals believe they offered education about pre-planned arrangements, but only 29% of consumers say they actually received it. This 64-point gap between the profession and consumers was the largest measured in the entire study.
Similar frighteningly large gaps exist for education/awareness regarding urn options (54 points), general cremation memorialization (52 points), and keepsake products (51 points). Overall, 59% of professionals believe consumers are well-informed about their products and services, while actual consumer awareness sits at just 29%.
This disconnect is not just a reputational issue, it’s a revenue issue. The study specifically flags cremation memorialization, pre-need arrangements, and online cremation arrangements as areas where the awareness gap is likely causing real, measurable missed revenue. For online cremation arrangements alone, professionals believe consumer awareness sits at 75%, when the real figure is 17%.
Practical Steps to Close the Gap and Improve Community Perception
Given these findings, funeral home owners and managers should treat their online presence and community education efforts as core operational priorities, not afterthoughts. A few specific, actionable steps stand out from the data:
- Rebuild your pricing page around transparency, not just compliance
A PDF of your General Price List satisfies the letter of FTC disclosure requirements, but it does nothing to meet what consumers actually want: an easy, dynamic way to see and compare costs. Consider a dedicated pricing page or interactive pricing tool. This single change addresses the top-ranked “online expectation” for four years running.
- Invest in visual content
Photos, video walkthroughs, and virtual tours were the most common types of content consumers wished they could find online but couldn’t. Interestingly, the data also showed that newer modern facilities were less important to actual consumers than professionals assumed. Professionals overestimated the importance of a modernized environment by 20 points and overestimated the importance of modern audio & visual systems by 30 points. Consumers care most about the basics: cleanliness (90%), appearance/décor (84%), parking (83%), and private viewing rooms (80%). Your visual content strategy should showcase these fundamentals clearly, rather than over-investing in technology upgrades consumers don’t prioritize as highly.
- Build a systematic review-generation process
Given that consumers trust third-party review sites nearly twice as much as on-site testimonials, firms should make asking for reviews a standard or even automated part of after-service follow-up. Simple low-cost tactics like embedding a customer review reminder in a post-service survey or utilizing an automated aftercare service to request reviews are some of the most effective ways to collect reviews.
- Treat education as an active & verified process, not an assumption
Given the enormous gap between what professionals believe they’ve communicated and what families report actually receiving, firms should build in a verification step. This could be as simple as a supplementary handout describing the service options available, or a checklist to be reviewed with the family before they leave. The goal is to close the gap between “we offered it” and “they understood it.”
- Invest in community outreach engagement
When professionals were asked what their organizations should do more of in order to improve their visibility within the community and grow their pre-need business, “Community outreach and events” (30%) was by far the top answer. This even outpaced direct email, mail, and social media advertising (15%). The study is careful to distinguish this from general “community partnerships,” suggesting that direct, hands-on engagement (hospice outreach, seminars, informational sessions) outperform passive sponsorship relationships.
- Consider Professional Association involvement as a business strategy, not just professional development
While indirectly related to a firm’s visibility within its market, funeral homes that are actively involved with associations like NFDA, ICCFA, or state associations report meaningfully higher rates of pre-need program engagement, better pricing transparency practices, and notably higher employee engagement and job satisfaction. Improved awareness of consumer trends and educational gaps through association involvement & education provides directors with an opportunity to engage in more meaningful conversations with a family in the arrangement room.
Turning These Insights into a Business Plan
None of the data in the FCCBS study is useful unless it becomes part of a concrete operating plan. These findings should be translated into the following strategic priorities:
- Marketing budget: Shift spending toward website development (pricing tools, photography, video) and systematic review generation rather than solely traditional print advertising. Given that 69% of future customers plan to visit your website directly and 78% will search on Google, your digital footprint deserves corresponding proportionate investment.
- Sales and pre-need strategy: If you don’t already have a dedicated pre-need sales staff, the data strongly recommends it. Funeral homes with dedicated salespeople report an 89% program effectiveness rate versus 61% for those without. Community outreach & educational seminars are the highest-leverage activities to fund.
- Staff training: Prioritize leadership, business operations, and technology training. These are the most-requested training areas among professionals themselves, and they directly support the operational changes (pricing transparency, review systems, and education verification) outlined above.
- Performance measurement: Add consumer-facing metrics to your internal scorecards. Track consumer reviews and the usage of interactive online pricing tools to better understand what features and services your consumers resonate with compared to their pain points.
- Association engagement: Budget for active (not passive) participation in at least one relevant association, given its measurable correlation with stronger pre-need performance and higher staff retention and satisfaction.
The consumers in your market are already forming an opinion of your firm before they ever call, whether that be through your website, your reviews, or what they hear about your role in the community. The data is clear that most funeral homes still have real room to close the gap between how well they think they’re serving families and how families actually experience that service. Firms that treat online visibility and community education as strategic priorities, and not just marketing afterthoughts, will be the ones that convert digital first impressions into lasting trust and satisfied families.