As I’ve told you before, I read the book Megatrends early in the 1980’s.  That book, written by John Naisbitt, enlightened me on how happenings of today’s world become trends and potentially “Megatrends” that can change society over time.  It also enlightened me that sometimes we can be fooled — some things that look like trends might be fads and fall away from universal acceptance as time goes on.

“Megatrends” had an incredible influence on my life.  I’ve used the thought process of “trends” in everything from how I look for public stocks to invest in to looking for trends in the funeral business — not only in disposition decisions — but on pricing options as well.  For instance, my sons were listening to Spotify and eating at Chipotle before I had even heard of the companies and their interest and fondness in those companies is why I invested in them on their way up.  And, in the funeral home business I moved to the trend of higher professional service pricing and lower merchandise pricing before most and that proved to be a smart idea too.

In the Death Care business there is no doubt that the biggest trend that became a megatrend over the past half-century was the choice of cremation over traditional burial as a disposition choice.  And, those companies that embraced the cremation trend in the 1970’s have, more often than not, increased their business size and profitability as cremation choice continued to grow.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

So, is there a trend that could become a megatrend evident in today’s Death Care business?  I would say yes, and I would believe it is the trend of more individual choice or niche selections over the current disposition mainstream choices of either burial or cremation.  And, I think this “niche trend” is happening in all terms of the linear succesion of Death Care.  Disposition, ceremony, and memorialization.

What are some of these niches?

In Disposition I think that natural or green burial is growing. . . . I also think that there is an upward movement in alkaline hydrolysis and natural organic reduction (human composting).  I have a friend who operates a funeral home in New York City.  She recently told me “We are making great strides, receiving many more green burial pre-arrangement requests (with at- need steady too)”.

And, we recently published this article in Funeral Director Daily about alkaline-hydrolysis focused Endswell, located in North Carolina, which noted they had conducted 300 services in their first two years of operation allowing them to open a 2nd location.

Related — Recompose (Natural Organic Reduction) website

In Ceremony I am seeing a continual uptick in using non-traditional funeral venues for services.  And, what I call “Ceremony” companies like Kinwood or SendOff vying not only for funeral ceremonies but working to capture the contracted dispositions of the deceased also.

Or what about the idea of holding one’s funeral or memorial service (if you can call it that) before one has died?  There’s a company in Great Britain, Ceremonia, advocating just that.  Might this catch on?

Finally, in Memorialization I see many options that death care consumers will have over the tried-and-true option of burial (full body or cremation remains) in a cemetery with a monument declaring a life that has been lived.  There are a lot of options out there for this truly individual decision.  For instance, Better Place Forests made large investments in natural forests and a visit to their website will show testimonials that there are families that seem to be well pleased with their decision of purchasing memorial positions through them.

And, there are other options such as Parting Stone that seem to be growing also.

So, in our profession there are these emerging trends of “niche” choices that I see.  I’m also guessing that moving forward we will see more “niche” options present themselves to the Death Care consumer.  The question is, “Will these trends become megatrends and move the needle somewhat in decreasing the numbers of traditional burials, cremation, and traditional cemetery memorializations?”

Going back only 20 years, we lived in a country where over 90% of homes had landline telephone lines. . . . and we lived in a world where Netflix was delived on compact discs (CDs), not via streaming.

With those thoughts in mind, I would suggest that as you move forward with your Death Care business you look at options how you can partner with the growing “niche” businesses in Death Care to make sure that you don’t make a fatal mistake of missing a trend becoming a megatrend.

Disclaimer — The author of this article for Funeral Director Daily is a shareholder of Parting Stone.

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I received a marketing piece from a retirement wealth management company the other day and in looking at it found some statistics on the Baby Boomer generation that I feel pertains to funeral homes, cemeteries, and death care in general.  In particular, I wondered how funeral homes are reaching out and making sure that they connect with this group to build market share and business.

Here’s four facts that the marketing piece laid out that I believe have some implication on how your funeral home can prosper depending on how you strategize in turning these groups of older adults into future clients.  Considering that the Baby Boom generation is generally considered being born between 1946 and 1964, we have about five more years of Baby Boomers turning 65 years of age.

1. The 65-and-older population is one of the fastest -growing demographics in the United States.  In 2022 there were 58 million Americans aged 65 and older.  That number is expected to grow to 82 million by 2050.
2. Every day between now and the end of the decade 10,000 baby boomers are expected to turn 65.  That’s one roughly every 8 seconds.
3. Seventy-three percent of retirees say they are confident about having enough money to live comfortably throughout their retirement years.
4. Sixty-four percent of retirees depend on Social Security as a major source of their income.  The average monthly Social Security retirement benefit as of January 2024 was $1,907 per month.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take:  There’s a lot of information that you can take from these four simple facts about the Baby Boomer generation and funeral service.  For instance, if the number of people 65 and older is going to grow from 58 million to 82 million in the next couple of decades, funeral service is poised for a greater number of deaths moving forward.

Another inference that I received from this information is that 73% of retirees indicate that they believe they can live comfortably through retirement.  If that is true, it is probably an indication that price is not the deciding factor on why they are, in many instances, spending less on death care services.  I think that proves that for those individuals death care professionals must be really thorough in going over death care planning with them. . . . . Simply because they say they may want “cremation” does not necessarily indicate that they are not willing to spend for the services or “after cremation” products that may be available to them.

Satisfying that group of people with their death care expectations will require that death care providers are familiar with all options available for funerals, cremations, alkaline hydrolysis, and natural organic reduction as well as the memorialization options available following those disposition methods.

On the other hand and somewhat in contrast to that thinking there also seems to be a large number — 64% — that rely on Social Security as their primary source of income. . . . and that monthly income is, on average, $1,907 per month.  While that group of people may wish to have traditional funeral services and more death care services, those services may become out of this group’s reach financially. . . . So, it appears that there may be a group of Baby Boomers who will require lower cost care and disposition services also.

The secret with this group of consumers will be how to make their service choices profitable for the funeral home.  It’s also conceivable that those consumers who are “comfortable” might fall out of that group into this “less comfortable” group because of potential health care and senior living costs as they age.

I think as more and more data becomes available about the death care consumers of the next two decades, death care providers will be able to hone in and offer the proper services necessary to be profitable.  Until that information becomes clearer it would be my position to put a full-court press on preneed services to get in front of these people before competitors to engage with them and serve each individual with preneed plans for the services that they are comfortable with.

Related Article — Fact Sheet: Aging in the United States.  Population Reference Bureau

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