I told ya’ll that I’m taking our quilted mortuary cot covers (with the Super-Duper FluidBlocker Lining!) to the National Funeral Director’s Assocation in October, right?
It’s only been a few days since we signed the contract and paid a fistful of cash to be “dealt in,” but I’ve already begun receiving calls and emails from people who want to sell me something!
Some guy from a funeral industry magazine (which he finally admitted has been around for less than a year – no wonder I’ve never heard of it!) wants me to get it on a free ad in their convention issue. And they have over 17,500 subscribers!
I’ll reserve judgement until I see an actual copy of the magazine (hey, it could be the next great thing!) but I found it weird that I’d never heard of it.
In fact, I don’t even remember the name of the thing. Something like “Inside Funeral Service” or “Funeral Service Management” or something else.
So I’ll have to keep you updated on that.
In other convention-related news, I’ve been looking over the convention book to see what other convention hall services I need, and I remembered that I have to provide floor covering for my booth, since only the common areas are carpeted.
Seems I have two options: I can bring my own carpet, tile, etc. or I can rent a 10′x10′ carpet from the preferred vendor for $131.25. To rent for three days!
I guess I’m just cheap, but that strikes me as a wad of cash. Heck, even one of our beautiful quilted cot covers that will create goodwill in your community and get your noticed in hospitals and nursing homes (in a good way!) only costs a few dollars more. And you get to keep it!
So you can rent this for three days:
Or buy one of these to use on hundreds of removals:
I know which one I’d rather spend money on. (HINT: Buy one of my quilted cot covers - they’ll make a difference on EVERY removal.)
August 10, 2007 at 11:21 am
[...] , Email Response , Guest Blogger , Recommended Reading , Advertising Turns out the guy who contacted me about buying ad space in later issues in exchange for giving Final Embrace a big splash in their NFDA Convention issue is actually from a [...]
August 13, 2007 at 9:43 am
As publisher of Funeral Business Advisor, I would like to comment that we are a REAL magazine, circulating FREE to over 30% more death care professionals than any other industry magazine. And Funeral Business Advisor’s success has evolved with a very simple premise; our publication provides insightful content, advice, and information that is intended to help the funeral director manage and run their business more effectively. Yes, our content is typically provided by our advertisers, but not intended to be viewed as an “advertorial.” Quite to the contrary, we go to great lengths to ensure that our contributing writers DO NOT write in a self-promotional (self-serving) manner. We edit the content to maintain as unbias approach as possible. In reality, we are as a marketing vehicle for manufacturers, distributors, and industry providers to highlight their products and services to the funeral industry. But what most who are in the publishing business don’t realize, is every magazine is designed in this manner. Not a single magazine would be in business if it wasn’t for their advertisers, so every publisher is concerned with their advertisers first and foremost. At FBA, this is especially important since we are solely funded by our advertisers. The reason we can bring such great content to the industry is because our advertiser help pay for it. Unlike most of the other industry publications, we can’t subsidize our costs with subscription fees. I like to say we are like a co-operative. We provide a marketing tool that everyone shares in the cost and everyone receives the benefit.
Here is how it usually works. Most magazine have an editorial staff, or they pay freelance writers to provide content for the publication. Then those same magazines contact advertisers to solicit advertisements to place around the editorials that they intend to publish. They do this to encourage the advertiser that their ads will have more visability and effect because it will be included with an editorial that has content relating to their business.
At Funeral Business Adisor, we don’t ignore the reason other magazines do this, but we take it a step further and make it much more effective for our advertisers. Who is best suited to educate and provide information and advice to the death care industry? Is it a member of an editorial staff or freelance writer? Or is it someone who works in the death care industry daily? In fact, we believe it is the industry experts themselves. The people making the products or selling the products/services are the experts. They are the ones who should be educating the industry. Funeral Business Advisor does exactly what ever magazine does. We bring “buyers and sellers” together for the benefit of both parties. But we do it by providing a voice for the industry. We give the industry participant the opportunity to have a voice, and in return for this opportunity we provide two very important benefits. (1) Funeral Directors get great information. Information that is fresh, current, and designed to help improve their businesses. (2) We provide the industry suppliers a direct marketing venue (same as every other publication, but provided in a different manner) that is far more effective than traditional magazines. Instead of just purchasing an ad as every other magazine offers, we offer the opportunity to purchase a marketing package. THE END RESULT: Our readers (funeral directors) have responded with overwhelminly favorably feedback. How do we know we are being read? Our advertisers have consistenly told us that they get many more calls from their advertisement in our publication than from competing industry magazines. In fact, these testimonials are posted on our website as proof of these claims. In the end, all magazines success relys upon the success of generating sales leads for their advertisers. Without good ad results, advertisers would pull their ads and the magazine would go out of business. Yes, we are less than 1 yr old, but looking at the major industry suppliers who have entrusted us with a portion of their marketing dollars with us, it is obvious we have made a BIG SPLASH and will be in business for many years to come.
August 13, 2007 at 10:33 am
[...] magazine that wants me to advertise in their relatively-new publication, responded to our post, NFDA Convention Contract Already Yielding Unwanted Sales Pitches, with the following [...]
August 15, 2007 at 10:41 am
[...] My first post about this company is titled NFDA Convention Contract Already Yielding Unwanted Sales Pitches. [...]