In a press release from last week funeral home operator and consolidator Anthem Partners announced that they are “developing a strategic partnership” with Tribute Technology.  And, according to this press release, “As the first step in this partnership, all websites for the Anthem Partners’ locations have been updated and moved to the Tribute Technology platform”.

According to Chad Jackson, Executive VP, Operations, Anthem Partners, “With our previous website functionality, we limited our ability to serve families.  After substantial research and evaluation, we have found Tribute Technology to be the best partner for Anthem in the website space.  Their forward-thinking approach to our families’ experiences along with their monetization of value-added offerings to families is best in class.”

The press release states that “Anthem Partners is a privately-held operator of cemeteries and funeral homes.  Founded by industry professionals and backed by long-term, patient investors, they are actively seeking opportunities to grow with like-minded professionals and firms who share their vision. The founding principles of Anthem are respecting the unique history of the family businesses and acknowledging the lives lived in the communities they serve”.

Here is the Anthem Partners website

Also, according to the Anthem Partners press release, “Tribute Technology is dedicated to empowering funeral professionals with best-in-class technology solutions. Serving over 9,000 end-of-life providers worldwide, Tribute Technology’s innovative software and services—including website platforms, marketing solutions, management software, online planning, memorial keepsakes, and payment processing—help funeral professionals save time and focus on supporting families”.  

Here is the Tribute Technology website

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take:  The technology side of Death Care is becoming more and more valuable to individual operators and consolidators alike.  Technology can not only help you in reaching potential new clientele such as with online social media and advertising but it can make the operations of your business move quicker, easier, and less error prone.

The crafting of obituaries, the front door presentation from websites, the streaming of funerals are all parts of your operation that technology can help and make not only more efficient but more captive to the consumer audience.  And, not to be overlooked, the proper technology vendor/partner can make a difference in bringing in ancillary revenue to your firm as well.

As we move forward I expect to see more and more funeral homes and funeral home companies crafting relationships with these technology vendors to bring their companies more in line with what the consumer expects in today’s world.

Related — Are you streaming all of your services yet?  Nobody does it better than OneRoom.

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In what is becoming a growing trend among larger funeral home operators Anthem Partners announced in late September that they had formed a strategic alliance with Premier Preneed Marketing and National Guardian Life (NGL) that they believe will help grow their preneed business.

According to a statement in the press release from Jim La Mar, Anthem’s Director of Business Development, “This association will allow our firms to serve more families with robust product enhancements backed by the financial strength of NGL and innovative tools and exceptional resources from Premier Preneed, the fastest growing preneed marketing organization in the country.  We look forward to leveraging the many possibilities our relationship with Premier and NGL will provide.”

NGL’s Senior Vice-President of Preneed Sales and Business Development Cameron Black made this comment in the same press release, “NGL is very humbled and excited to be the preneed carrier for Anthem Partners’ western portfolio of funeral homes.  It’s these exciting partnerships that allow us to help create more opportunities for families to see the benefits of pre-planning.” 

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take:  Aligning relationships with one preneed partner is a trend we are seeing at Funeral Director Daily.  And when you think about it, it makes a lot of sense for both the consumer-facing funeral and cemetery businesses as well as the preneed insurance companies.

For the funeral home companies a strategic alliance can probably help them increase commission percentages, leverage a potential higher growth rates to allow policies better long-term growth, and help with marketing expenses and customer acquisition for the sale of such policies.  All of these options should allow for higher profits for the aligned funeral home partners.

For the insurance companies these partnerships put forward aligned goals and results for both the funeral homes and the preneed companies.  The sacrifice of higher commissions and potential higher costs of marketing can be overcome with the idea that they will get 100% of the funeral home/cemetery company’s preneed business.  That’s a combination that they hope will increase the numbers of policies sold, and generate more profits, in the marketplace by their specific business.

In the last 18 months of so we have seen these relationships develop, seemingly more often than before, between consumer facing death care companies and preneed insurance providers.  Here’s some of the alignments we have been notified about and a story or press release on such:

Regardless of the size of your funeral home, it certainly would not hurt to ask preneed providers what benefits that they may be able to offer if you made them your exclusive provider of preneed services.  Like the big companies in Death Care, there may be synergies and opportunities to have some sense of linked goals that might benefit both of you.

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