Creating an educational resource informs your community while finding more leads for your funeral home. Your families look to your team as the experts to guide them as they plan a funeral for a loved one or make preplans for themselves.
With educational resources, you can give them this guidance and present your firm as a knowledgeable resource and caring team. At the end of the day, families will likely work with the firm that educated them instead of just selling to them.
In just five simple steps, we’ll cover everything you need to know about creating an educational resource.
Step 1: Determine the Details and Goal of Your Educational Resource.
Before you start writing or designing your resource, you need to determine the details, including the goal, topic, and resource type.
Goal
How do you want to grow your funeral business? If you’re unsure, do this quick exercise. When thinking about how to improve your business operations and families’ funeral experiences, write down your top five priorities. Then, rearrange them in order of importance.
For example, let’s say you want to find more preneed leads for your business. That could be the goal of your resource.
Topic
Your resource topic often aligns with your goal. For our example, the topic of your resource would be funeral preplanning.
Resource Type
Once you know your goal and topic, it will be easier to choose a resource type. You can choose from several kinds and some types may be better suited for certain topics. The type you choose may also depend on the time and resources you can dedicate to creating it.
These are a few resource types that you could start with:
- eBooks
- How-to guides
- Checklists
- Infographics
To go along with our example, let’s say you want to create a preneed checklist.
Step 2: Create the Content.
Before you begin writing your resource, you should complete these three tasks:
- Gather your existing content on the topic.
- Do any additional research.
- Create a rough outline.
For our preplanning checklist example, start by looking at your existing marketing materials for items to include in your checklist, such as your funeral home’s website, handouts, and brochures. Then, do some research to see if you missed anything important.
Once you gather your existing and new information, create a rough outline. For a resource like a checklist, your outline will be minimal compared to a lengthier resource like an eBook. You will want to include a title, a brief introduction, your checklist items, and a call-to-action.
After you write your first draft, at least one of your team members should proofread it and give feedback. You may also want an outside perspective from a family member or friend who isn’t in the industry.
Step 3: Design Your Educational Resource.
After writing and editing your resource, it’s time to design it. Your content alone, no matter how well written, can’t do the job on its own if it’s lacking in design.
For something like a checklist, you don’t need to go too overboard with the design. Just keep it as simple as possible. You should also keep these tips in mind:
- Choose a font type and size that’s easy to read.
- Make sure there’s not too little or too much space between paragraphs.
- Include your funeral home’s logo and contact information.
If you’re limited on time and design resources, you could even design your checklist in Microsoft Word. There’s a checkbox option under the bulleted list library that makes it easy to create your checklist. When you’re done, convert your Word document into a PDF to give it a more polished feel. Just click on File, choose Export, and select Create PDF.
Step 4: Publish It.
It’s time to share your resource with your community. To start, publish it on your funeral home’s website. Updating your website with fresh content benefits your funeral business and the families you serve, such as through:
- Boosting your search engine optimization by regularly updating your website content.
- Bringing more traffic to your funeral home’s website.
- Giving families 24/7 access to your educational resource.
For a preplanning checklist, you could link to it on your webpage that talks about preplanning. You could also add it to your Resources webpage.
Rather than just linking directly to the PDF, you want to add a form for people to download it. This lets you get people’s email addresses for sharing additional resources in exchange for your free educational content.
Step 5: Promote It.
Once you publish it on your website, you can’t stop there. Most people won’t just stumble upon it on their own. You need to share it on other online platforms to get the word out.
These are a few places to start:
- Promote it on your funeral home’s social media pages. For example, you could boost your Facebook post, so it’s seen by more people. Even just $5 a day on your post can make a difference. You could also run an off-page ad, which appears in other places on Facebook, but not directly on your page. This option also gives you more customization options.
- You could also link to it in your funeral home’s emails. If you regularly send a newsletter, include your resource in there. You could also send an email series about preplanning and include your preplanning checklist.
- Don’t forget to consider other media channels besides your own. For example, does your funeral home’s community update a social media page or newsletter with news, events, and other resources? See if you could include your resource in their newsletter or if they could share it on their social media page.
We know creating an educational resource can take a lot of time and resources. Let Growth Engine marketing automation software take care of your marketing for you.
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