How Much Time and Budget Should a Funeral Director Allocate to Marketing?
- Debbie Avens
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
If you’re an independent funeral director, you’re probably juggling everything at once, families to care for, staff to support, vehicles and premises to manage, paperwork, suppliers, community relationships, and the day-to-day realities of running a business.
So when someone says “you should do more marketing”, it can feel unrealistic.
The problem is, marketing often doesn’t fail because you’re not capable. It fails because it’s not protected.
If it isn’t allocated time in the diary and a realistic budget, it gets pushed aside, and the phone can start ringing less, slowly and quietly.
This blog is a practical guide to help you decide:
How much time to allocate to marketing, and
How much budget to set aside, so you can stay visible and trusted in your local area.
If you’d like monthly marketing tips written specifically for independent funeral directors, you can sign up here:
A quick reminder: marketing has two jobs
In the first blog in this series, I shared a simple way to think about marketing:
Search marketing: being visible when a family needs a funeral director
Brand awareness: being known and trusted before you’re needed
Time and budget decisions become much easier when you know which job you’re trying to do.
If you haven’t read Blog 1 yet, start here: Funeral Director Marketing: Visibility Now + Trust Over Time
Part 1: How much time should you allocate to funeral director marketing?
The honest answer: less than you think, but more consistently
You don’t need to spend hours every week. You need a small, protected slot that happens even when you’re busy.
A simple rule: If it’s not in the diary, it won’t happen.
Below are three realistic options. Choose one that fits your capacity and commit to it for 90 days.
Option A: The “minimum viable” plan (30 minutes per week)
Best for: very busy teams, small businesses, or anyone who’s been relying mostly on word of mouth.
What you do in that 30 minutes:
Check your Google Business Profile presence and online reviews (5 minutes)
Post one piece of social media content that builds trust (10 minutes)
Do one small improvement task (15 minutes), such as:
Update the homepage wording to make the next step clearer
Add a team photo and short intro
Add a new FAQ to your “What to do when someone dies” page
Ask for two reviews (and follow up politely)
This won’t feel dramatic week to week, but it prevents the slow decline.
Option B: The steady growth plan (60 minutes per week)
Best for: businesses that want to become more visible locally and compete more confidently.
What you do in that 60 minutes:
20 minutes: social media content (one post + one story/photo)
20 minutes: website/Google improvements
20 minutes: community and relationship-building (one touchpoint)
Community touchpoints can be simple, such as drop in to a care home, attend a local networking group meeting, follow up with a local partner, share a community story (with permission)
Option C: The competitive area plan (2 hours per week)
Best for: areas with strong competition, or where national providers are very visible.
What you do in that 2 hours a week:
30 minutes: social media content planning and posting
30 minutes: website improvements or new pages
30 minutes: Google reviews and reputation building
30 minutes: community networking and partnerships
This is also the point where it often makes sense to get some external help, because two hours a week is a lot to protect internally.
The key: marketing time should be “non-negotiable”
Marketing time needs to be treated like any other critical business task.
A practical tip that works:
Put it in the diary at the same time each week, rather than just label it "marketing", give it a specific action title such as: "Visibility and reviews” or “Local trust building”. That makes it feel like part of operations, not an optional extra.
Part 2: How much budget should you allocate to marketing?
Start with what you can commit to consistently
The biggest mistake I see is spending in bursts:
A new website one year
A few ads for a month
Then nothing for six months
Consistency beats bursts, especially for local trust and visibility.
A helpful way to think about budget is as a percentage of turnover:
2–3% for maintenance (staying visible)
4–6% for steady growth
7–10% in competitive areas
If that feels too abstract, here’s a simpler way to think about it: what can you allocate monthly that won’t disappear when things get busy?
What to spend money on first (before anything fancy)
If you’re allocating budget, prioritise the things that support both visibility and trust:
Your website experience (especially mobile) Not a full rebuild necessarily. Often it’s small improvements:
clearer calls to action
better photos
faster loading pages
better “what to do when someone dies” content
Photography (people choose people)
Real photos of the owner, team, and premises build trust fast.
This is one of the best “one-off” investments you can make, because you can reuse the images everywhere.
Support with consistency
This might be:
A few hours a month of specialist help
A monthly content plan
Someone to keep your website updated
Someone to help you ask for and manage reviews
Someone to optimise your website so it ranks better in local searches
Paid Google ads (only when the basics are solid) Ads can work well in at-need marketing, but they’re not the first step if:
Your website is unclear
Your reviews are thin
Your contact options are hard to use on mobile
If the foundation is weak, ads just send more people to a leaky bucket.
Example budget breakdowns (to make it real)
Here are three examples. These are not “rules”, just realistic ways to allocate.
Low budget (maintenance)
Small monthly support (or DIY time) to keep website and content up to date
A focus on reviews and local trust signals
No ads, or very limited testing
Mid budget (steady growth)
Monthly support for website improvements and SEO content
Professional photography refresh
Light paid support if needed (only after the basics)
Higher budget (competitive area)
Ongoing support across website, SEO content, and reputation
Regular social media content and community visibility
Paid search support where appropriate, with tracking and landing page focus
The right budget is the one you can sustain and measure.
Part 3: How to know if it’s working (without getting lost in numbers)
You don’t need complicated dashboards. For independent funeral directors, the most useful signals are:
Are calls increasing (and are they good quality calls)?
Are directions requests increasing on your Google Business Profile?
Are Google reviews coming in consistently?
Are more people saying “I’ve seen you online” or “I’ve heard of you”?
Are you appearing more often in local online search results?
Marketing is not always instant. But it should be measurable over time.
A simple 90-day plan you can start this month
If you want something practical:
Week 1: Put a weekly marketing slot in the diary
Week 2: Improve one key website page (homepage or “what to do when someone dies”)
Week 3: Ask for Google reviews consistently (and make it part of your process)
Week 4: Share one community story or relationship-building post
Repeat for 90 days, and you’ll build momentum.
Want the next part of the series?
In Blog 3, I’ll cover the long-term trust builders that independents can win at:
community presence, networking, and reviews, and how to turn those into consistent visibility.
If you’d like it sent to you, sign up here:
And if you’d like help turning this into a clear plan for your business, you can also book a Funeral Marketing Power Hour.
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