Case Study
Background
Boone & Cooke Funeral Home & Crematory has been a presence in the greater Eden, NC, area for nearly 20 years. They reached out to Precise Creative for a marketing partnership to differentiate their business in the local market based on care, attention to detail, honesty, and dedication to their local families as well as commitment to community. As the only funeral home in the area with their own on-site crematory, they pride themselves on your loved one always being in their care.
We understand that a funeral home’s presence in the community is more than just about longevity and tradition but how each family is cared for during their time of grief and need. And we saw that Boone & Cooke exemplified the respect and honor that we look for in how our clients operate their business and act as individuals in their communities.
Challenges
Funeral homes face unique differentiation challenges because of the sensitive, tradition-bound nature of the industry. Key obstacles included…
Emotional resistance to “shopping around”
Most families make funeral decisions during grief and stress, often defaulting to the funeral home their family has always used or the first one recommended. There’s little appetite for comparison shopping during a time of mourning.
Taboo around marketing
Aggressive or creative marketing can feel inappropriate or disrespectful in this industry. Families don’t want to feel “sold to” during bereavement, so traditional marketing tactics that work elsewhere can backfire. This makes it challenging to communicate what makes you different without seeming opportunistic.
Perception of sameness
On the surface, funeral homes can seem interchangeable: they all offer similar core services (i.e., viewings, burials, cremations). The actual differences in service quality, empathy, flexibility, or modern options aren’t always visible until families are already working with you.
Price sensitivity vs. value perception
Funeral costs are significant, yet many families feel obligated to “do right” by their loved one regardless of price. This creates tension: some families want transparency and affordability, while others equate higher prices with better care. Competing on price alone can undermine perceived quality, but premium pricing requires demonstrating clear value.
In addition, Boone & Cooke wanted to coordinate an outreach effort to the local Hispanic community, to demonstrate their care, attention, and openness to all ethnicities and traditions.
Strategy
Let’s be honest, most people aren’t clamoring to follow a funeral home on social media. After all, it’s human nature to avoid talking about and planning for death. The funeral homes that succeed in differentiation typically do so through genuine relationship-building, demonstrated empathy, and proving (not just claiming) they’ll honor each family’s unique needs.
So, we wanted to tell that story for Boone & Cooke in a modern, straightforward, empathetic way: highlighting not just their services (which can easily be seen as a commodity) but also the people who serve and the authentic care they provide.
In doing so, we wanted to create a higher focus on life and living (vs. death and dying). That’s actually a powerful reframing that aligns perfectly with where the industry is heading — and what younger generations are already demanding. So, as a team, we explored what “focusing on life instead of death” could look like.
Overall, it was most important to create connections between Boone & Cooke and their local community members. So, the goal became to position Boone & Cooke as the modern alternative to traditional death-and-dying conversations. At the same time, it was essential to maintain credibility with traditional clients who still want conventional services.
The core shift…
Instead of positioning Boone & Cooke as the place you go when someone dies, we wanted to describe how they are the place that helps families honor and celebrate how someone lived. This isn’t just semantic. It truly is a way to live your business values — and changes everything from messaging to service to design of a physical space.
Execution
We leaned into a language and branding overhaul, placing a higher focus on Celebrations of Life (vs. traditional funerals) as well as memory preservation, living memorials, and pre-planning as life planning. Perhaps, most importantly, we thought about the regrets often expressed on people’s death beds, which often revolve around the things left unsaid and undone, chances not taken, and missed opportunities. So, we offered inspirational ways to live life today, instead of living — and dying — with regret.
Replacing industry jargon with life-focused language and images of caskets and flowers with vibrant photos of people living invited more people into the conversation. In addition, this alignment reduces the discomfort barrier: people began to engage with Boone & Cooke before crisis strikes.
So, in this way, we positioned Boone & Cooke as the funeral home that celebrates what matters rather than dealing with something uncomfortable. This approach appeals not only to Gen X and Baby Boomers but also directly to Millennials and Gen Z, who are already rejecting traditional funeral conventions. And it’s authentically differentiating because most funeral homes still lead with traditional death-focused messaging.
This approach quickly became the entire brand positioning: “We don’t just help families say goodbye. We help them say ‘thank you for a life well lived.'” That’s a funeral home people might actually want to engage with before they need to.
Boone & Cooke — Spanish Brochure
Meet Onyx: Emotional Support Dog Intro
Memorial Items Feature
Live Your Best Life Social Media Campaign
Results
The results? They speak for themselves. Over the course of our work to date, and in all social media categories across the board, all numbers are double-, triple-, and quadruple-digit increases.
- Facebook Page Impressions: 1.62M – up 481%
- Facebook Unique Page Post Impressions: 1.09M – up 545%
- Facebook Follows: 3,061 – up 31%
- Facebook Page View: 135K – up 263%
- Facebook Audience Growth: 296 – up 279%
- Facebook Unlikes – 0
- Facebook Paid Unique Page Post Impressions: 283K – up 6,323%
- Facebook Ad Clicks: 27,847
- Facebook Ad Link Clicks: 9,578
- Facebook Ads Reach: 72,472
- Facebook Ad Impressions: 428K
- Google Business Website Clicks: 119K – up 1,171%
- Google Business Reviews: 11 – up 1,000%
- Google Business Call Clicks: 1,315 – up 944%
- Google Business Directions Clicks: 1,663 – up 1,132%
- Google Business Impressions: 37,195 – up 984%
- Google Impressions Desktop Search: 14,931 – up 825%
- Google Impressions Mobile Search: 20,544 – up 1,101%
- GBP Interactions: 122K – up 1,167%
The local community responded more than favorably to our life-focused and affirming approach. Overall, we saw an awareness and perceptions shift, including an increase in brand recognition in the local market and positive sentiment in comments/reviews, social media engagement, and social shares. And Boone & Cooke has experienced steady market share gains.
Boone & Cooke is becoming the go-to choice for funerals, cremations, and celebrations of life in Eden, NC, and the surrounding community — and is being recognized as the innovative funeral home in the local area. Other funeral homes may attempt to copy their approach, but imitation is just simply validation that Boone & Cooke is the leader and innovator in personal- and family-centric care during a time of profound loss.