July 22, 2011

Send in your nominations for Funeral Director of the Year!

American Funeral Director is proud to announce our 2011 Funeral Director of the Year Award to recognize an outstanding individual in the world of funeral service. We're looking for nominees who rose above and beyond their positions in the past year to exemplify what funeral service truly means. Nominated individuals should not only be shining stars at a funeral firm but also in the community. To find out more about the award and the nomination criteria, click here...

Announcing the American Cemetery Excellence Award!

American Cemetery is proud to announce its Cemetery Excellence Award. If you think your team should be recognized for maintaining a great cemetery that's succeeding in tough economic times, then we want to hear from you. It doesn't matter if you are owned by a corporation, a municipality or by an independent entity; we are seeking entries from top-performing cemeteries to recognize your accomplishments. To find out more about the award and the nomination criteria, click here...

Homesteaders Named to Ward 50 for Third Consecutive Year

DES MOINES, IOWA — Ward Group, an independent firm specializing in insurance industry benchmarking and best practices, has included Homesteaders Life Co. in its 2011 list of 50 top performing life and health insurers in the United States, according to a news release. Nearly 800 insurers were analyzed for this year’s benchmarking. read more...

Forethought Life Insurance Co. Named Among Nation’s Top 50

INDIANAPOLIS – Forethought Life Insurance Co. announced that it has been named for the second consecutive year as one of the nation’s top 50 highest-performing life-health insurance companies in the prestigious 2011 Ward’s 50 ranking, according to a news release. read more...

Alderwoods Funeral Directors, Drivers Ratify Three-Year Contract

CHICAGO –  Teamsters Local 727-represented Alderwoods funeral directors, embalmers and livery drivers voted overwhelmingly to ratify a three-year contract late Tuesday night, according to a news release from Teamsters Local 727.
read more...

The Outlook Group's Marketing Website Launched

FRANKLIN, OHIO – The Outlook Group, in partnership with Think Patented, has developed a web-based service allowing funeral homes to create marketing campaigns quickly and affordably, according to a news release. read more...

PLPA, Two Hearts Pet Loss Center to Present Webinar Series

The Pet Loss Professionals Alliance, in conjunction with Two Hearts Pet Loss Center, is presenting a series of monthly webinars on pet loss and grief from August through December 2011, according to a news release. read more...

This month in American Funeral Director:

"Cremation Exposed" by Brian Johnson Cremation existed long before the first crematory opened. From the ancient Egyptians, to Viking pyre send-offs, to India, where followers of the Hindu and Sikh religions practice open-air cremations to this day, most notably along the Ganges River. In the United States, open-air cremations are also common among some Buddhist groups and Native American tribes. But open-air cremations traditionally haven’t been practiced by the general population in America – until a small Colorado town embraced the poetic splendor of it. Read this entire article in the July issue and other insightful articles when you subscribe to American Funeral Director. To subscribe, click here...

Come with Ideas and Leave with a Plan

Come to the sixth annual Funeral Service Business Plan Conference, and leave with solutions and tools to immediately improve your business. Our experts and leading funeral home operators pinpoint the problems that keep you awake at night and provide proven strategies to make them go away. Come to this profit-building conference and you will: • Learn how to use technology to boost sales and serve more families. • Discover strategies to maximize your marketing budget. • Equip yourself with tools to avoid lawsuits and protect your firm. • Find new and better ways to sell more preneed. • Understand how to build teams that maximize profits. • And much more! For more information and to register, click here.

Build a Strategic Plan to Boost Cremation Revenue

At our Cremation Strategies Conference, you'll walk away with a proven plan to boost profits and serve more families. Top consultants and operators team up to provide you with: • Tools to effectively market your business to cremation families. • Procedures and best practices to avoid liabilities tied to cremation. • Tactics to bring in more revenue, such as serving pet parents and incorporating technology into everyday practices. • Information on alkaline hydrolysis and other options, and what this means for you. • Dozens upon dozens of strategies to grow your business. For more information and to register, click here.

Sept. 8, 2011 2- 3:15 p.m. EST

Learn how to avoid legal trouble in your death-care operation and what to do if you happen to find yourself entangled in a legal issue.

For more information, click here...

Please Take Funeral Service Insider's Annual Casket Survey

Funeral Service Insider invites all funeral directors in the United States to take its annual casket survey by clicking here.

The survey mines data from funeral home owners throughout the country. It yields key data and analysis, including:

• New ways funeral homes are presenting caskets to families.
• The latest casket innovations that families like most.
• Methods to deal with price shoppers.
• Information on how Chinese casket companies are changing the marketplace.
• How to win better discounts from suppliers.
• And much more!

“Funeral directors nationwide look to our casket survey results every year to determine how to better position their businesses,” said Thomas A. Parmalee, editor of Funeral Service Insider. “We need as many responses as we can get to provide as much data, analysis and information as possible. Along with our Compensation Survey, our annual Casket Survey is always one of our most popular issues.”

The Casket Survey will be open for the next few months. Results will be compiled and published in a future issue of Funeral Service Insider.

Even if you are not a Funeral Service Insider subscriber, you can receive a free copy of the Casket Survey as long as you complete the survey. Just provide your email address at the end of the survey to receive the report by electronic mail when it's published.

Please Take Our Quick Technology Survey

In order to ensure that we are serving the business technology needs of your funeral home, we are requesting your participation in a brief survey.

This two-minute survey is designed to gather pertinent information that will help us understand your current perception and usage of smartphones and tablets in the death-care industry.

The survey results will be published in the September issue of American Funeral Director magazine, where you will learn how death-care professionals like yourself are using smartphones and tablets to increase their business productivity.

Please click here to take the survey online.

Please Take This Survey from the Expressing Sympathy Council

The Expressing Sympathy Council is looking to hear from funeral service professionals about their social networking habits when it comes to their business. This short survey will be helpful in understanding how many of these businesses are currently using or plan to use these services and which ones work best. All responses are kept totally anonymous.

Please click here to take the survey online.

Get Your Cemetery Grounds Maintenance Questions Answered!

Does your cemetery have a growing grounds maintenance concern? Submit your landscaping, equipment and planning questions to editorial@katesboylston.com and you may get the answers you seek from an expert in the field in a future issue of American Cemetery!

NEW: The Funeral Director's Guide to Statistics

The death-care profession is like any other business: It's important to know the numbers that hold meaning for you and your customers. That's why we've compiled "The Funeral Director's Guide to Statistics," which includes the latest, most comprehensive data to help you boost profitability. We've compiled data from the Funeral and Memorial information Council's latest five-year study; the Cremation Association of North America's cremation report, our own surveys and insights from top thinkers to help you improve business operations. This profit-building guidebook includes never-before-published articles from leading experts such as Dan Isard, founder of The Foresight Companies; Robert Pierce and Mark Pierce with Pierce CFO; Kenneth Gronbach with KGC Direct; Colleen Ellis with Two Hearts Pet Loss Center; and Joe Sehee with the Green Burial Council. Also included are Funeral Service Insider's latest Casket Survey and Compensation Survey along with an assortment of our best articles that focus on death-care statistics. To learn more about the Guide to Statistics, click here...

Become a fan of our publications on Facebook!

Connect with other death-care professionals and view the latest happenings from the industry. A great and easy way to stay connected to the industry and your peers! To become a fan of American Funeral Director click here To become a fan of American Cemetery click here To become a fan of Funeral Service Insider click here

The Complete Preneed Perspective

The Complete Preneed Perspective is one of the most detailed books ever written about the preneed industry. With the help of some of the top thinkers in the profession, Daniel M. Isard dissects every aspect of preneed – from its historical beginnings to its modern-day operations. To learn more about the book, click here...

Online Buyer's Guide

Kates-Boylston's Buyer's Guide is a listing of some of the leading companies in the funeral industry, with information to help you with the needs of your business.

To access the Buyer's Guide, click here...

Editorial Submissions

Do you have an article or idea that you would like to submit to American Funeral Director or American Cemetery? Please e-mail your article in Word document format to: editorial@katesboylston.com

Articles are typically 1,500 to 2,500 words in length. Articles must not be overly self-promotional or libelous. Please note in your submission if you have accompanying images for the article. Images must be high resolution in order to be considered for publication.

Click here to view our editorial contractor agreement.