I think it's important we talk about disaster planning and emergency management coordination. It is important to know how a disaster is defined, because that is how we react and how we are deployed. A disaster, by definition, is a serious disruption of your community, and it's when you exceed all the capacity and resources that your community has, or is allowed to have, in coping with the situation.

That’s how we define it, and it's how we are deployed, and it's how we react whenever the time comes. We've all seen or been through disasters and you know it is chaos at the time.

When something happens, there's a lot of adrenaline. There's a lot of people in charge, or that’s the way it may look, but truly it's what we plan for. To be able to rehearse and go through different situations. There are several different levels of jurisdiction for a disaster event, depending on the severity and the resources available.
Disasters can range from extreme weather events, commercial transportation wreckage, and mass shootings to—as we’ve seen recently—pandemic devastation.
When a disaster strikes, how are we deployed? Who decides where we go and what resources are available? Most of that information is compiled with what is called an Emergency Management Coordinator. An Emergency Management Coordinator is someone in your community – on a state and local level – who is the first get a complete analysis of the disaster or the event, and who is then responsible for appropriating different resources to that event that are necessary.

Each type of event has a different need. With a mass shooting, you're in a rescue and triage situation. There's a lot of different things that we train for, depending on what the event is. We were recently in hurricane season, so we in Texas and other coastal areas can understand and know the devastation of a hurricane, and we have trained and gone through several different hurricanes in our area.

Big, catastrophic events, such as the Oklahoma City bombing or 9/11, are handled at the federal level. Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Teams (DMORT) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) work together to take charge of those situations.
I'm chairperson of the Texas Disaster Team, which is affiliated very strongly with our Texas Funeral Directors Association. That is a very strong bond that we have together. It's where all of our volunteers’ training is done, together through that organization. Other states have very similar organizations that are part of their state funeral director association. So, if you’re not a part of your state association, I would encourage you to get involved, because they play an important role in coordinating resources.
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Our association is affiliated with the state of Texas, and we are contracted by the state for all of its mortuary assets. So, all mortuary assets go through our association that we manage for them, so when any type of deployment comes in our area in the state of Texas, our funeral directors are the frontline resources available that go out.

Let me give you a few of the incidents in our area that we have been a part of. Our team was the lead agency in for the West Fertilizer explosion back in 2013. We were the lead agency that took care of 13 of the 15 bodies that were killed. It was a small town, so we came in not only as search and rescue and transportation, but we also have a funeral director element of our team that came in and assisted the funeral home.

Recently, we faced the pandemic. Our team was deployed to the Texas Valley in 2020. We spent three months there. We took over full mortuary operations for the Texas Valley, including the intake and transportation of bodies. We handled over 1,300 deaths there in two months. It was a 24-hour operation there.

Our team, some of whom are here in the room today, were also very active in the Uvalde school shooting. We went into Uvalde and we assisted taking care of that situation. So, we have been a part of a lot of different disasters.
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As a funeral director, cemeterian, cremationist, you are on the front lines, and your resources are valuable to emergency management coordinators. So, if you are not currently part of emergency planning in your area, I encourage you to do so. You're the expert. You know, on the front line almost all disasters, you're dealing with death, you're dealing with transportation of bodies, you're dealing with temporary morgue holding facilities, so I encourage you to get involved with that.

Three things I want to leave you with, because when disaster strikes, it's too late to plan, so be prepared.

1. Know what resources you have. Take inventory of what you have, and know for different types of events that are happening, you're going to need different resources, so know what you have.
2. Then, communicate that to the emergency management coordinators, your local county officials. They need to know what you have. When you're in a smaller, rural area, it's even more important to know that.
3. Be willing to volunteer, be willing to help when the time comes again. You are the expert. You are the person that knows how to move decedents, storage of decedents.

Be prepared. Be ready.
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Before I got involved in this, and then after seeing on the other side, I know our importance, our value to the county and state officials when a disaster hits. Because it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. We all know that, and we see it daily on the news. So, be part of the response and get involved to be able to help when the time comes.

The death care business and advertising have a tenuous relationship. Part of it is not merely a scarcity mindset, but a scarcity reality: when my ad dollar can’t grow the market and has questionable likelihood of growing market share, I have to wonder if there are better investments. And, especially in an environment where the words “inflation” and “recession” (let alone “post-COVID slowdown”) are inescapable, many firms are looking for places to save a buck or two.

While fearfulness doesn’t make for good management, preparedness does. Business owners are (and should be) thinking about how to batten down the hatches should the need arise. Even if it all comes to nothing, it’s good to have a plan.
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In my firm’s quarter-century, our clients have frequently been faced with the need to trim their ad budgets during tough economic times. The solution ain’t what it used to be.

There was a time when I coached clients to stay the course. For years I’ve told a story about a friend who owns a local cigar shop. In 2008, during the Great Recession, he invested heavily in his company, moving into a larger location, opening an affiliated lounge, and expanding his inventory. Looking back, he says that if he had taken a defensive stance, his business would have faltered instead of growing as it did. I’ve used that as an illustration of why it’s a good idea to maintain or even increase your marketing budget through recession. But here’s the rub: my friend didn’t invest in promotion. He invested in his place.
Place is an often-neglected pillar of the four Ps of marketing, but it’s as much a part of marketing as the other three. Ad agencies tend to focus on promotion — paid advertising and its cousins — to the exclusion of all else. That’s like tying two arms and a leg behind your back, especially when you’re trying to squeeze every return you can out of limited marketing dollars.

Consider this: would you rather get a thousand people to check out your business, only to discover that it’s run down and outdated, or have ten people engage with it and be instantly impressed by what they see? Advertising has its role, but it’s only one aspect of a well-rounded marketing plan.

This is especially true these days. Place is a high-ROI investment, and in 2023 it goes well beyond the physical. It includes your digital footprint as well, and for most funeral homes that’s a strategy that is far underleveraged.
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Why? Because we tend to think of marketing as a funnel. Begin at the top, the thinking goes, and cast a wide net to a large number of people, hoping some fraction of them engage with you. Then work to convert some fraction of those people. Then do your best to keep some fraction of those people as repeat customers. Digital strategies that focus too heavily on AdWords and SEO are simply applying this old thinking to new tactics.
But it’s hard to make that math work in our favor.

Our lowest hanging fruit is the customer base we keep (by the way, this applies to staffing, too, which is important to note during a labor crisis). The more we focus on building our offerings around it, the stickier (and more successful) we’ll be. Thus, we should begin at the bottom of the funnel, focusing on retention before all else.

​Only then should we move up a level, to conversion. Is your physical space attractive and conducive to winning new customers? Is your website relevant and effective to those who are unfamiliar with you? Are your products and services priced correctly? These are questions more of strategy than spending (though the one should follow the other). Better to reach fewer people who will all become fans than to reach more people who will be disappointed.

Assuming those two are in order, next up is engagement. This is where the digital-as-place strategy comes fully into play. Say you’re a retailer. People might come into your store ready to spend, or they might just be window shopping, but either way, they’re checking you out and trying to decide if what you offer is what they need. Their behavior in the digital universe is no different. It’s not a place to cut corners, nor is it a place to design around your own tastes, preferences, or ego.

Everything you do to engage prospective customers, online and off, should be carefully calibrated to their interests. Imagine if a retailer managed its storefront the way the average business manages its digital outreach: “I don’t have time to think about it right now,” or “We tried banner advertising five years ago and it didn’t work,” or “Yeah, I don’t understand that stuff, but we hired Kayley to handle it for us. She’s a Millennial.”

Here’s where you should also be wary of impressive-but-vague promises of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) vendors. I’ve had numerous clients tell me they have a vendor who handles SEO for them, but I have yet to hear any of them articulate what’s actually happening or what return they’re getting for their investment. SEO is only one piece of your digital space, alongside UX, Google My Business, content development, social media management, programmatic advertising, and more — in the same way that a physical building is comprised of plumbing and framing and roofing and electrical. Without a general contractor and a blueprint, the specialists won’t give you the space you’re hoping for. In the same way, every component of your digital presence must be coordinated around a unified objective, prospect profile, and brand identity.

Finally, working our way up to the top of the funnel, there’s attraction. If you’re forced to cut advertising in the face of a recession, this is where to do it. The obvious caveat here is if advertising works, a brand that neglects it does so at its peril. But in a moment of austerity, if you have to cut something, it’s better to prioritize, and cut first the places you will feel it last. Still, that doesn’t mean you won’t feel it at all. Cuts to an advertising budget are not without consequence.
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If you are not investing in building awareness and preference for your brand, awareness and preference will decline. This is especially important to remember because the nature of these declines makes it easy to convince yourself they’re not happening. There’s usually a lag of at least one or two years, which is why you will run into people at a coffee shop who tell you they just saw an ad you haven’t run in six months. Eventually, however, the lag catches up with you, and your company will feel the impact. Still, that’s a very different thing from saying you can’t cut spending. Even though there are plenty of reasons not to, cutting your attraction budget might still be the right thing to do if your company is on the ropes.
The most important thing during challenging economic times — at any time, for that matter — is to ensure that your brand’s house is in order. To reference the familiar parable, retention and conversion are “big rocks” that must go into the jar first. And they usually go hand in hand with your place, both digital and physical. Advertising is important, but it’s the sand that goes into the jar last — if you put it in first, you won’t have room for the other investments. Start at the bottom of the funnel and work your way up.

Do you know your clients or customers? Do you know exactly what your brand represents to them? Are you executing with excellence? Are your internal dynamics healthy? If a casual observer visited with your executive team, would they believe that your leadership is aligned and confident? If the answer to any of those questions is “no,” or even “I’m not sure,” that’s the place to start (here’s a  tool  to help you quickly and efficiently find out).

It’s tough to do surgery on yourself. Some of these decisions are best made with the help of professionals. But it’s even tougher to go under the knife of multiple surgeons at once. Marketing is an increasingly fragmented discipline, with dozens or even hundreds of specialists each representing their viewpoint of the world. That’s why having your own viewpoint — and an integrated marketing strategy that delivers on it — is vital. Without it, you will be continually tugged here and there and nothing will have a chance to work.
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Rather than a blanket cutting strategy (10% reductions on every line item), it’s vital to make the right cuts, in the right places, so as to minimize the long-term consequences. Handled properly, the effects of a temporary reduction in your advertising budget can be offset by improvements down the funnel. By prioritizing and aligning your efforts, it’s possible to weather adverse conditions and emerge stronger than ever.