Obituaries: Funeral Directors Flex Their Strength

July 13, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Business Applications, Web Technology  
by Rob Houser

It wasn’t long ago when newspapers printed obituaries for free. Then, all of a sudden, Legacy.com (whose ownership includes a newspaper holding company) started cornering the online obituary market feeding mainly on newspapers for their obituary content. Legacy charges a small fee to newspapers for each obituary and provides branded obituary content for their newspaper clients.

Then along came Tributes.com, whose owner allegedly vowed to pull the billion dollar obituary industry away from the newspapers. Tributes.com feeds mainly off of paid advertising for their online obituary content.

Lost in all this wrangling for obituary content control has been the forgotten Funeral Directors. The very people that originate all this obituary content. The newspapers make valuable advertising revenue from their obituary content. Legacy.com draws revenue from the obituary content they get from newspapers. And Tributes draws revenue from advertisers on their obituary content. Everyone is making a buck from obituaries except the Funeral Directors that provide them! Not anymore.

Enter OBITHUB.com, an obituary clearinghouse specifically for funeral directors. Clearing House Technologies LLC has designed an innovative online system that allows Funeral Directors to sign in, add an obituary (using a simple form), and submit that obituary to multiple newspapers with the single click of a button. Okay you say, the newspapers get another obituary. There’s more. Once the Funeral Director submits that obituary, an online remembrance web page is created for the departed person. Family and friends can sign a guestbook and upload photos FOR FREE! No one needs to “sponsor” the online remembrance to keep it online. It stays forever. The online remembrance is custom branded to the submitting Funeral Home’s website and provides multiple links back to the funeral home’s main website.

Using OBITHUB.com’s system, Funeral Directors are now armed to open new revenue streams for themselves while providing greater services to their client-families. It’s win-win. “We originally setup OBITHUB.com for the waning newspaper industry. We offered it to McClachy, CNHI, Gatehouse Media, and Hearst. No takers.” said Tom Kempf, Co-Owner and Lead Programmer of Clearing House Technologies LLC. “When we started steering it towards funeral directors, that was when it began getting interest and taking off. That was when we knew we were on to something big.” And big it is. There is no shortage of major players in the funeral industry that will love to get a piece of this fast growing company for themselves. “We’re not ruling anything out. If a company approached us and the partnership looked like a good fit, we would certainly be open to anything that grows our client base and puts OBITHUB.com in the hands of more funeral homes. It’s a great idea and it’s a great system.” said Kempf.

The demo I used worked beautifully. The obituary form was broken into several separate parts with clear instructions that made creating an obituary a breeze even for a layman like myself. Clearing House Technologies LLC has a winner on it’s hands with the OBITHUB.com system.

For more information, visit OBITHUB.com or call 860-613-0332.

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