Engage Future Customers

A Wall Street Journal article reports that cemeteries across America are holding band concerts, barbeques, and sky-diving exhibitions. The main objective, say the funeral directors interviewed for the article, is to position cemeteries and mortuaries as pleasant places that are able to be of service in the future. “Meet us before you need us.”
     Whether or not your line of retailing is in the funeral industry, here are some consumer psychology tips inspired by what these cemeteries are doing:

• Always be building interest in your business among future customers. The nature of a cemetery is to stay in business for a long time. The people attending the special events might choose to buy burial plots or make cremation arrangements for use years from now. And even the young people attending these special events have parents and grandparents, some of whom might need funeral arrangements in the nearer future. What is the length of time of your retail business’s planning horizon, and what steps will you take to cultivate prospects for all points out to that horizon?
• Hold a continuing series of special events for prospective customers. The cemeteries featured in the WSJ article don’t conduct just one event. For years, Hollywood Forever in Los Angeles has held movie nights in which the film is projected onto the mausoleum walls. Even a single special event gives you the opportunity to educate your target markets about the value you can offer them. But an ongoing series of events increases sales by maintaining in your current and potential customers the habit of regularly coming to your site. How will you allocate your special events budget so that you’ll produce a continuing series of events rather than spend it all on a few events?
• Leave prospects with the right impressions of your business. The challenge for the cemeteries in producing special events is balancing fun and respect, excitement and dignity. Management of Fairmount Cemetery in Denver applies that to acceptable movie titles: “Arsenic and Old Lace” would be okay, they’ve decided. “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” would not. What criteria will you use in selecting the special events?

     A comment posted to the WSJ article does give some guidance for the cemeteries: “Anything but clowns. The cemetery doesn't need to be any creepier than it already is.”

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

Click below for more:
Stage Special Events to Build Sales
Hold Monthly Clinics
Cultivate Kids as Future Customers
Project Your Store’s Personality