Cemetery versus Columbarium part 2
Cemetery versus Columbarium part 2
Structured Creativity
When people think of the creative process, eccentric, off the wall personalities like Lady Gaga may come to mind. People who tap into their free flowing thoughts to develop spectacular artwork using a magical, mysterious process that nobody can really understand. Sometimes with a lot of luck, using one’s intuition can work, but for most of us mere mortals, the most effective product development process use a highly structured approach that incorporates creativity only at specific points and only after important steps to understand the customer has been completed. Leaf suggests that, “For most people, this disciplined approach to product creation significantly lowers the risk of failure, and by starting with efforts to more deeply understand the customer is by far the best first step. .”
Sometimes with a lot of luck, intuition can work, but for most of us mere mortals, starting with the customer and understanding their needs is by far the best first step. Take a new look at your customers and try various ways of grouping them in terms of their unique characteristics. Try to understand your customer’s motivations and needs better than they do themselves. For example, many prospective cremation customers don’t recognize the need to create memorialization for the benefits of those surviving relatives, nor the importance of interment in a public place so that family members don’t have to make an uncomfortable appointment to see a loved one above a relative’s fireplace, or the fact that this year’s beautiful scattering location could be next year’s parking lot.”
Above all else, “Dispel within your mind the myth that the choice of cremation is solely price motivated. In most cases, this is simply not true. More than price, people are looking for simpler funeral ceremonies, options to allow cremains to be split between family members, avoid the phobias associated with being interred in the ground, creating a smaller environmental footprint etc.” That said, Leaf encourages people to confirm what is reported in industry statistics with one-on-one conversations with their own customers.
Obviously price is an important factor, however, those cemeterians who become fixated on the price of cremation play a very risky game. For one thing, there are not significant economies of scale for most cemeteries that do not have a crematorium on site. Whether the cemetery is involved in 10 cremations a year or 150, the operating cost per interment doesn’t really go down much with higher volume. So lowering the price to get higher volume doesn’t give any financial advantage over another competitor, who can also simply lower their price to meet your move. No matter how low one goes, there is always some desperate soul out there willing to ignore their financial future by beating your price. For another thing, if price is your game plan, the most competitive price discounter out there is Mother Nature who offers her interment services for free. That’s pretty hard to beat.”
For most cemeteries, avoiding the price play, and expanding focus on developing new products and services will become a more successful approach. Leaf suggests that, “Once you think you have a good handle on the customer needs and the prices people will be willing to pay, take the time to create the ideal product(s) that address these new emerging needs for each market segment. This is when focused creativity is encouraged as it is not the time to place real-world limitations into one’s thoughts. Free yourself from the “artificial” restrictions of what you think your business is, and is not responsible for. Instead focus on solving the customer problems you uncovered during your new look at your marketplace, and on delivering higher customer value solutions through new products and services. How you decide to eventually deliver that value is a separate matter, and if you impose real-world restrictions on yourself too early in this process, you may miss a truly golden idea.”
Leaf suggests at this stage that “Above all else, don’t forget that service is as much of the product as anything physical. Service has evolved into a highly valued product in itself in our society. Cemeteries can absolutely leverage this in their solutions.”
Gord encourages cemetery management to look at the ideal solution as not one magic all-encompassing product, but instead as a series of multiple products. He believes we need to address the diverse needs within the cremation market as, “Not everyone is the same.” For example, in addition to the standard community columbaria, the provision of smaller family columbaria either on their own, or present in a family estate that mixes both traditional interred family members with cremated family members could enable people to maintain a sense of tradition around the family without compromising some of their new-age perspectives. At the same time scattering gardens within the cemetery could address those who feel that a simple plaque is all they need for memorialization, while those that want more memorialization could be offered sections in the cemetery with larger monuments without the land needed to accommodate a full casket.
The Importance of Differentiating Your Cemetery
It is very hard to compete against Mother Nature. That beautiful lake front cottage, the forest glen, or ski hill is pretty formable, and to motivate people to use your cemetery will require leveraging every natural advantage you have. One growing trend that seems to have some success is expanding the community’s perception of the cemetery by viewing it as a park for the living. In pursuing this initiative, some cemeterians have taken advantage that their cemetery has a direct, personal history with people and have transformed the park into becoming more of an integral part of their society. For example some cemeteries have: created outdoor gathering spaces for ceremonies and functions, they have promoted historic walks with commemorative plaques and historic references, they have encouraged community events and celebrations in prominent locations of the grounds, or established annual candle light services with gorgeous lights illuminating the grounds, or they have promoted October 31st Night of the Dead celebrations and even orchestral performances. All of which are designed to keep people coming back to the park outside of the context of mourning a family member.
Another trend that seems to be starting to gain traction is looking at structures within the park as opportunities to differentiate the site with artistic flair. Columbaria suppliers are evolving their portfolios from the ridged, uniform Communist East Bloc look that symbolized the functional importance to the early cremation products, to truly contemporary pieces of art that people want to be associated with. Leaf chuckles in conveying that recently, for the first time in his career, a customer described one of the products he helped develop as “sexy”. It wasn’t a high tech communications product, it was a columbarium.
Gord believes, “If you have succeeded in properly differentiating your product, your sales job becomes significantly easier. The value should be visually and spiritually obvious.”
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