The Perils of Marketing

I’ve never liked pushing myself forward, especially in uncharted territory, so having finished the celebrant training, it took a while before I felt sufficiently confident to ‘put myself out there’.

I spent most of an afternoon putting together an entry for the webpage that is part of the Humanists UK package and finding out how WordPress works. if you’re interested: www.humanist.org.uk/marktaylor

Then came the harder part; actually leaving the house, dressed in my best suit and knocking on funeral directors’ doors with a pocket full of cards. The first one in the main street went reasonably well, fairly painless — although to date, I still haven’t taken a funeral for them. The second, was very brusque and I felt a little disappointed but that was more than made up for by the reception I had at the third in the town. We chatted about lots of things, some related to funerals and some not but at least I felt that I was on the right track.

I have now visited more than thirty funeral directors in the local area and have taken funerals with just five of them. Only three have requested my services directly, others have come via my webpage.

Visiting funeral directors is time consuming, most are very friendly and chatty, some give a decidedly cool reception to non-religious celebrants and one or two are downright rude! However, it works in the end. Covid-19 has made it harder, I want to go and visit some of them again but I know that it’s not a wise thing to do and they would not be pleased.

Coming up — To Pay or Not to Pay… for Advertising