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I was reading an article in a national newspaper the other day about the unstoppable rise of direct cremation.
It argued that direct cremation will account for half of funerals ten years from now.
I have to say it made a persuasive argument based on current trends.
As I’ve said previously on this blog, Pure Cremation was recently valued at £500m for a reason.
Everything is pointing towards the continued rise of direct cremation.
I personally think direct cremation will max out at 40% of funerals a decade from now.
But that is still double the current 20% and has huge implications for funeral directors in terms of revenue generation.
Many will sadly cease to exist because of this trend.
Even worse news I’m afraid is that traditional funerals, the bread and butter of funeral directors, will likely collapse to as low as 20% of funerals ten years from now.
Yes, twenty percent.
The price gap between direct cremation and traditional funerals is simply too high for the latter to be a mainstream choice in the future.
It will still exist, but it will be niche.
In the middle will sit hybrid funerals at 40% market share.
And it is hybrid funerals that funeral directors should now be laser-focused on.
In order to stay relevant to the public, funeral directors have to own this hybrid funeral space.
Because you know full well that Pure and others will be going for it.
A hybrid funeral can be any of the following:
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a small, intimate funeral service
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a direct cremation followed by a memorial service
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a flexible celebration of life in a non-traditional venue
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a family-led ceremony with minimal formal structure.
Most funeral directors do serve this space, but I don’t see many who fully embrace it.
That will change in the coming decade because it really is a case of embracing hybrid funerals or going out of business.
One of the mind shifts that funeral directors will need to undergo to fully embrace hybrid funerals is around transparency of pricing.
They will have to go all-in on pricing.
A hard-to-find PDF of prices in an old-school menu format dropped in at the bottom of your homepage will no longer cut it.
Your website, your funeral home, your marketing materials: price will need to be front and centre, always.
With lots of options and prices for the public to choose from.
With lots of verified, recent reviews alongside those options and prices.
And you will need to get those prices and options and reviews picked up by the AI assistants at Google and ChatGPT as that is where the public will be making their decisions.
Which is why over the coming months we will be working hard to support funeral directors have more options and more pricing on their Funeral Guide listings.
It's what the public wants.
