We’ve figured out (to the best of our knowledge) the four basic types of clients who seek you out:

1.  Price Shoppers
2.  Experiental Shoppers
3.  Reputation Shoppers
4.  Weary Shoppers

While we’ll go into further depth in a future article (will be published here tomorrow) here’s the simple explanation.

Price shoppers call and want to know the bottom line.  They might drop in unannounced or accost you at a trade show.  Many skip your assertations that your funeral home offers the best services (a subjective argument in their mind) and ask for the rock-bottom amount you’ll accept for services.  Unless you’re the cheapest in town and are actively seeking their business, these people will most often waste your time.

Experiental shoppers could also be called “word-of-mouth” shoppers.  They seek out the advice of their friends and neighbors.  They want to hear the experiences of others before they chooose.

Reputational shoppers are an off-shoot of experiental shoppers.  However, they also take into consideration a funeral home’s reputation in the community.  These shoppers often choose the funeral home that does a lot of advertising and sponsors a large amount of “high-brow” events in town.  They want to use the “elite” funeral home.

Weary shoppers don’t want to make a decision and don’t care about reputation, other’s experience or price, so long as they’re relatively sure that you won’t be closed down by the state before they get their service finished.  (Okay, so that last part might be extreme.)  But weary shoppers just want to be reassured that you are a reputable company and that you’ll do the job you claim you’ll do. 

 We’ve identified the types of shoppers you’ll meet.  That’s great.  But now you want to learn how to market to them?

Check back tomorrow for our article entitled, “Choosing Your Customers and Convincing Them to Choose You”.