How Funeral Professionals Can Connect with the Modern Consumer

We were thrilled to join you all at this year’s CANA Annual Innovation Convention in Phoenix. At eFuneral, we’ve had our ear to the proverbial streets since 2019, continually exploring the shifting landscape of consumer behavior and how building trust digitally can help businesses — especially funeral professionals — connect with the modern consumer on new levels. As we hit Q3 of 2025, I wanted to share some key trends and actionable insights that can help you position your funeral home for long-term success — specifically with two important consumer generations: Millennials and Generation (Gen) Z.

As a busy funeral professional who has constantly adapted and adopted new technologies and fresh ways to reach your current families in times of need, chances are you’re not thinking about how to inspire younger generations — like Millennials and Gen Z — to create their funeral plans. But should you?

As 2019 through today clearly told us, the funeral profession is changing — and so are the families we serve. By understanding what matters to younger generations today, we can better prepare for the decisions they’ll make tomorrow.

By 2030, Millennials will have the most purchasing power of any generation — that’s only five years away! If your funeral home isn’t trying to reach them, you could be missing out on potential business.

But are younger generations even thinking about preplanning their funerals?

Most likely, not quite yet — but their family members are starting to communicate their end-of-life wishes, so Millennials are beginning to understand the importance of preplanning. You need to be ready when they are. Change often happens gradually. By understanding current consumer behaviors of Millennials and Gen Z, you can set your funeral home business up for success in decades to come — when it’s time to tap into these younger generations.

Defining the Generations

Each generation is influenced by the society they were raised in, contributing to fundamental differences in their priorities and how they make purchases. Understanding those differences is key to helping your business plan for the future. We referenced a research guide from the Library of Congress for the breakdown below. However, note that the traits shared are generalizations as each person’s life experience is subjective.

Millennials: Born 1981-1996

For a while, discussing Millennial trends was popular in the media, making it easy for people to think of this group as those who are currently in or freshly out of college. However, members of the Millennial generation are currently in their 30s and 40s, in the middle of their career and often raising families.

Gen Z: Born 1997-2012

Meanwhile, members of Gen Z are the ones who are currently in college or new in their careers — spanning ages 16-26 in 2025. This generation grew up with technology, the internet and social media at their fingertips. Most grew up with a cell phone, possibly even a smartphone.

Millennial & Gen Z Consumer Behavior

Consumer behavior across generations constantly shifts with society, marketing trends and advances in technology. While these behaviors will continue to evolve, you can use these insights to inform your marketing tactics to reach Millennial and Gen Z customers.

Millennial Consumer Behavior

Behavior: Similar to their predecessors (Baby Boomers and Gen X), Millennials value customer service — what that looks like, however, is a little different from previous generations. Millennials prefer to feel connected with businesses over social media, and it’s important that the business has an authentic online presence.

Funeral Home Solution: Highlight your employees and celebrate culture on your social media, showcasing your values and letting people’s personalities shine through. Also, it’s not enough to just be active on social media — engage with your followers to move the conversation forward.

Behavior: As a result of growing up during the Great Recession of 2008, Millennials tend to be more minimalistic than other generations and are more likely to spend their money on experiences over material goods. They also place an emphasis on health and wellness.

Funeral Home Solution: When marketing to Millennial customers, consider positioning preplanning as a form of self-care — something that not only improves their quality of life by giving them peace of mind that their final wishes are recorded, but also as caring for their loved ones.

Behavior: How Millennials prefer to pay for purchases varies more than other generations. According to HubSpot’s 2024 Consumer Trends Report, 41% of Millennials prefer to pay in full, 34% prefer to pay on a subscription basis and 26% prefer installments.

Funeral Home Solution: Be sure to discuss preneed pricing options so they can find a plan that’s right for their needs. You can find answers to common preneed funding questions in this blog post.

Gen Z Consumer Behavior

Behavior: Growing up with cell phones and social media, it’s no surprise that Gen Z has a mobile-first mindset. They want their mobile experiences to be convenient, with user-friendly interfaces and seamless checkout processes.

Funeral Home Solution: In a recent blog post unpacking trends in funeral home operations, we shared that more families are looking for digital solutions to make funeral planning quicker and easier. Gen Z is no different. If you haven’t already, consider adding an online storefront through platforms like ours at eFuneral. With customized solutions for each funeral home, eFuneral can help you capture leads, free up staff time and meet the growing demand for digital convenience.

Behavior: Being more connected to the world than any other generation means Gen Z craves ultra-personalized experiences — and they want businesses to understand them on a deeper level.

Funeral Home Solution: Give Gen Z (and others) opportunities to interact with your funeral home in the form of polls, surveys and responding to comments on social media — whether on your own posts, potential customers’ posts or other businesses’ posts.

Behavior: Gen Z is the most racially diverse generation so far with fewer than 50% identifying as white.

Funeral Home Solution: Look into the demographics in your funeral home’s service area and research funeral practices or rituals for cultures not currently represented in your offerings. Consider ways you could expand your services to be more inclusive and reflective of the populations you’re serving. This could be a good opportunity to crowdsource ideas from your community — let their experiences inform the changes you make. 

Other Trends to Note

Some trends transcend generational differences. Here are a few to keep in mind.

Consumers Are Looking and Shopping Online

Across generations, 59% of consumers prefer to do independent product research before talking to a person (HubSpot 2024 Consumer Trends Report). And according to the 2024 NFDA Study, 90% of consumers say they would be somewhat to much more likely to engage with a funeral home who posted their GPL online. That means, by the time someone is talking to you, they’re already somewhat educated and likely have an opinion about you or your business. Focus on asking questions to assess what they already know and to personalize their experience to their needs. You can even provide them with an introduction to the guided prearrangement experience by partnering with us at eFuneral; providing you with your very own digital storefront to build even transparency and ease into the process.

Social Media Is #1 for Product Discovery

Consumers increasingly look to social media to find new products and services — this applies to Gen Z, Millennials and Gen X. While Gen Z and Millennials may not be ready to plan their funerals just yet, your funeral home can set the groundwork for attracting those customers when the time comes by meeting them where they are — online!

Start building your online presence and generating reviews now to set yourself up for future success. Roughly 92% of consumers trust online reviews to determine whether to do business with a company. Not sure how to start generating reviews? Leverage partners like Elevia who will help turn your already strong, established presence in your community into reviews for you.

Younger Generations Believe in the Importance of Funerals

In a 2024 survey by the National Funeral Director’s Association (NFDA), 68% of Gen Z respondents strongly agreed it is important to commemorate the life of a loved one with a funeral or memorial service, compared to only 44% of Baby Boomers. While some news sources have predicted Millennials and Gen Z may move away from traditional funerals, NFDA’s study told a different story. One funeral director said, “Younger generations … are even more likely than Baby Boomers to think of funeral directors as important, valuable experts in relevant products and services and trustworthy.”

Funeral home marketing toward Millennials and Gen Z may be new territory, but hopefully the above insights give you a few ideas to start planning for the future. While these solutions aren’t rocket science, they can provide you with how to hone your preneed marketing efforts as you shift your dollars toward the ever-growing younger consumer generations.

If you're looking for reliable methods to connect to client families, look no further than the CANA-Certified Cremation Specialist Training! This training puts power skills first, building connection with families from first call to memorialization -- training that works for any family but keeps cremation at the core. Learn more about this unique training here, registration opens in 2026!

Nick Grant is Director of Marketing for eFuneral Solutions, LLC, a breakout digital solutions company that helps funeral homes maximize share and efficiency through optimized online sales. Prior to joining eFuneral, Nick worked in the agency world as an Account Director for over 13 years helping a wide range of B2C and B2B brands build and implement their strategies to generate leads and grow sales through various channels. Nick has a degree in advertising from Drake University, where he also played on the men's basketball team (GO DOGS!)

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