Trying to be a “BTC” (Business to Consumer) casket company has been tried before and even with great effort the cause was difficult.  However, the people at Titan Casket must relate to the Curtis Mayfield tune “Keep on Keeping On” as they seem to be moving one step forward all the time and growing as a company.

Not only are they selling more caskets to the traditional funeral consumer but they are gaining disciples among funeral homes joining their funeral home partnership (which you can learn about here).  In addition, I recently learned of their new venture helping consumers weave the sometimes tangled path of available funeral and cremation options available to consumers.   The company has formed the Titan Concierge division and hired proficient funeral service experts to handle this task.  You can learn about Titan Concierge here.

The people at Titan have added Titan Concierge which will help consumers from “Start to Finish” coordinating logistics with funeral homes and service providers.  From perusing the Titan Concierge website it appears that this service is available for $199.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take:  As a retired funeral director and funeral home owner the growth of Titan has been very interesting to me.  I was never very bullish that a company that deals over the internet and by phone could succeed in such a personal business as Death Care.  However, the founders of Titan Casket, some of whom have experience as Amazon executives, have proved to me that internet sales can work for all types of items.  (As an aside here, I’m also continuously amazed by my many winter neighbors in Florida who buy their cars onlive via Carvana — every week it seems that the Carvana delivery vehicle is pulling into our neighborhood).

So, I don’t think the internet sale of caskets sounds odd to anybody anymore.  And, I’ve told more than one enterprising company in the Death Care business that if they are interested in online sales they should look to Titan Casket and their ability to capture consumers as a roadmap.

A little bit “Edgy” —  I guess don’t knock what is working, however,  as an “old-style, old-fashioned” funeral director some of the ways that Titan has reached the American consumer looks a little edgy to me. . . . .but it evidently is working.  Ad Age recently took  note of the company’s “Heavenly Guarantee” of their merchandise.

You can access the 48-second video ad starring Titan spokesman and actor David Dastmalchian here.

More news from the world of Death Care:

Enter your e-mail below to join the 3,201 others who receive Funeral Director Daily articles daily

“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”

Titan Casket, the business to consumer national casket company has introduced what they term their “Mystery Casket” for sale through Cyber Monday.  According to this release from Business Wire, Titan’s Mystery Casket will be sold to consumers through Cyber Monday for $1,199 — the release notes that is a 60% discount when compared to the national retail average casket cost.

The release also says this, “The Mystery Casket delivers a high-quality casket selected from local inventory, allowing Titan to pass on substantial savings and ensure a swift delivery process. After Black Friday, the Mystery Casket will be available at an ongoing price of $1,499 for at-need and pre-need customers alike”.

Again, according to the release, here’s how Titan’s Mystery Casket promotion works:

1. Choose the Mystery Casket: With a few clicks, customers secure a high-quality, dignified casket backed by Titan’s Quality Guarantee. This guarantee ensures that a steel or wooden casket arrives in pristine condition, features a classic unisex design, and is compatible with a standard 30” burial vault.
2. Quality-Assured, Decision-Free Selection: At the time of need, the selected Mystery Casket will be presented to the customer’s family or beneficiary. If, for any reason, it does not meet their expectations, Titan offers the flexibility to cancel for a full refund or upgrade to one of Titan’s 1,000+ models.
3. Peace of Mind, Guaranteed: Titan manages the entire process, from selection to delivery, ensuring a seamless experience. With our Quality Guarantee and focus on affordability, customers receive a beautiful, suitable product without the high costs traditionally associated with funeral arrangements.

Here’s what Josh Siegel, co-owner and co-founder of Titan Casket says of this promotion, “We created the Mystery Casket for those who appreciate a no-fuss, high-quality solution. Many people would rather not have to choose from endless options. This product is for customers who trust us to select a dignified, affordable option that fits our rigorous quality standards, allowing them to focus on what matters most.”

Related — Here is the one-minute advertisment for Titan’s Mystery Casket promotion featuring Titan spokesperson David Dastalmachian.

More news from the world of Death Care:

Enter your e-mail below to join the 3,113 others who receive Funeral Director Daily articles daily:

“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”

The people behind Titan Casket are not afraid of doing things outside the ordinary as compared to how the funeral industry has done things for the past 125 years.  I’m guessing that in 1906 when John Hillenbrand purchased the Batesville Coffin Company and changed the name to Batesville Casket Company his customers were the fledging funeral homes starting across the nation who then re-sold or “retailed” those caskets to clientele arranging funerals for their loved ones.. . . . . and, I’m guessing for over a hundred years since then nobody really figured out how to make those casket sales, and profit, with any other modus operandi.

Enter the 21st Century and the people behind Titan Casket.  The people behind Titan figured they could leverage America’s new online information era and bring those caskets direct to the consumer (DTC) at a much lower cost than if the caskets were sold at retail prices upon death at America’s funeral homes.

It’s been no easy task, but the people at Titan Casket can now get any of about 1,000 caskets to almost any funeral home in the lower 48 states with a timely delivery. . . all at a much lower cost to the consumer.  And while they are continuously improving that process they are not stopping there. . . .they are bringing urns and keepsake jewelry direct to the consumer also.

Last week I learned of their latest innovation.  That innovation is the process of consumers paying for their casket in a preneed fashion.  Titan has a program that allows a consumer to pay for a casket over a 60-month time-table with no finance charges.

It’s a smart idea for their customers.  No longer will families have to pick their Titan brand casket under adverse situations at the time of death which sometimes is done with the servicing funeral home also trying to make a casket sale.  Buying direct, in a preneed fashion will take some of the conflict out of the process for the consumer.

To learn more about Titan’s Direct-to-the-Consumer preneed program click here.

Related — If you weren’t aware of it yet, Titan Casket also has a partnership program with existing funeral homes.  You can learn how that program works by clicking here.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take:  It’s probably good every once in a while to look back at the history of our profession and see how things change.  When Hillenbrand was first selling his “caskets” most of the revenue that the consumer death care purveyors took in probably came from the sale of the merchandise.  Laying the person into the casket and carrying it to the cemetery probably did not involve much professinal services revenue for the funeral establishment.

And then services came into being. . . embalming, of which I can find the first schools for such in 1882 probably brought the first level of services and embalming into the revenue sphere.  It’s my guess that for the next almost 100 years services and merchandise, such as caskets, vaults, and memorial folders, offered  different and multiple lines of revenue for America’s funeral homes that were popping up from coast to coast.

However, we have morphed into a society that now chooses cremation 70% of the time and we have moved from major revenues from merchandise to a combination of merchandise and services, to now a profession that can count on service revenues but no longer the major revenues from merchandise. . . with a 70% cremation rate, merchandise is almost an ancillary item nowadays.

That’s why it is so important to look at your merchandise revenue and really know the costs and other facility dynamics of maintaining a “showroom” of models that might only be purchased by 30% of your clientele.  Do you know what your cost/benefit is for this as compared to making that square footage an extra hospitality room?

When we built our new funeral home in 2005 we did not include a selection room in the planning.  We used that space for hospitality and had the merchandise selected be done via a large flat screen monitor in the arrangement room.  Clientele could, and still can look at hundreds of caskets arranged by material such as wood or metal or by color or by price list and select right off the screen knowing that the following morning that unit will be in our facility.

Yep. . . . it is not your grandpa’s funeral home anymore.

More news from the world of Death Care:

Enter your e-mail below to join the 3,560 others who receive Funeral Director Daily articles daily:

“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”

Did you remember to “Spring Forward” this past weekend?  If you forgot, you are probably running a little late or showing up late for work today.  Daylight Savings Time has been a small controversy for years with groups, from time to time, wanting to do away with it.

In the spirit of “having a little fun with the idea” but also with building up their own business and getting those people who are serious about changing the rule for public health sake, casket company Titan Casket put out an ad and also started a website for people who may want to write their congressional representative about a change.

It’s also a little “edgy” way for a “Direct-to-Consumer” casket company to reach those consumers who may not yet know that caskets can be bought direct and do not have to be bought through funeral homes.

Here’s what Titan Casket said about the ad, “Titan Casket, in collaboration with Ryan Reynolds’ Maximum Effort, is debuting a new, potentially lifesaving, campaign starring award-winning actor David Dastmalchian. Historically, hospitals see a 24% increase in heart attacks (British Medical Journal) and a 6% increase in fatal accidents (University of Colorado Boulder – Current Biology) each year timed to Daylight Savings. Titan Casket has an interest in people dying, but even they think this is ridiculous and have created a new spot to encourage people to “Bury Daylight Savings“.

Here’s the ad that was put out as re-tweeted by actor Ryan Reynolds and here is the website people who are serious about changing Daylight Savings Time can access to learn more about how to change the law.

Titan Casket is a Direct-to-Consumer casket company that also works with funeral homes to be their supplier of casket merchandise.  If you are interested in working with Titan Casket at your funeral home click here to learn about their funeral home their wholesale program.

Enter your e-mail below to join the 3,484 others who receive Funeral Director Daily articles daily:

“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”