Transforming the Death Care Industry with Strong PR and Marketing
“We’re not just a funeral home. We create healing experiences for people.”
Gregory B. Levett & Sons Funeral Home., Inc. is a family owned and operated funeral service provider established in 1980 by Mr. Gregory B. Levett Sr. and his wife Betty. The Levett legacy of providing traditional, thoughtful and dignified funeral services spans over four generations. | www.LevettFuneralHome.com
My experience with funeral homes have been limited, however, I’ve been to plenty in my 36 years, of which none have been pleasant. Not because of overall customer service, but simply the fact of being in a funeral home. The drafty, coldness of it. The chilly uneasy death feeling is overwhelming and doesn’t help much with soothing the already torn emotions of families grieving their loved ones. To be honest, I absolutely hate funeral homes. I’m not ashamed to say that I am afraid of them – graveyards too.
Not only are funeral homes a place most people want to avoid, the conversation about death is even more taboo. Recently I had the opportunity to talk about this very thing with a beautiful woman who just so happens to know quite a bit about the funeral industry.
Ms. Levett is the Vice-President PR and Marketing of Gregory B. Levett & Sons Funeral Homes & Crematory, Inc.; a multimillion dollar family owned and operated company. Deana has restructured the firm’s marketing efforts, produced television and radio commercials, print ads, promotional tools and billboards that are advertised locally and nationally. Her mission is to change the way families perceive the death care industry around the country.| www.LevettFuneralHome.com
I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but I’m pretty sure I did not expect what learned about this amazing family-owned company.
Family owned and operated. Literally every person in my family is in the funeral business. Not by force – it just kind of happened that way. My father, his dad, owned a funeral home that’s still operating to this day. Even though we’re separate, his father is no longer with us, but his brothers run my grandfather’s funeral home. My father stepped out and started Gregory B. Levett & Sons Funeral Home. And then my brother, his wife’s family owns five funeral homes in Louisiana. My other brother, his wife’s family owns two funeral homes. So literally every single person is in the funeral business. We really are family owned, operated and come from a strong legacy and rich background in the funeral business.
If you’ve been to several funeral homes like me, you think they are pretty much all the same. You’re expecting dark, dim-lit rooms with creepy carpeting and the traditional horror movie wall-paper, but not at Gregory B. Levett & Sons Funeral Home. They have taken what we all think we know about funeral homes and turned it into something quite spectacular.
It’s a different kind of industry. It’s very taboo. People don’t like to talk about it, but there’s millions of hits online from people who are intrigued. It’s like you’re scared, but you want to know more. You want to know what goes on. That’s why I think it’s really important to spread awareness about what we do, so that we can debunk a lot of those myths that people think. You would be surprised. I still get questions about if they move or not. (LOL) People really believe what they see and hear.
What makes our funeral home stand out is that it doesn’t feel like a funeral home. We try to decorate them like hotels, so that you’re not walking into a creepy place – dark, somber and sad, which is what a lot of funeral homes look like. That’s what I think has helped our firm stand out. We go the opposite of everything. Even on our social media, how we advertise. We don’t put sad images out there. We like to make it peaceful, like a celebration of life, because we are trying to change the way people view death and dying. It is a sad occasion, but it is a time that you can really come together as a family and that’s really worked for us when it comes to marketing.
I haven’t given much thought to how funeral homes use public relations and marketing to push their business. Mainly because we all know we’re going to need one eventually. Deana has made it a mission to completely change the mindset of society and how we view death care. She earned her place within the family business and now is making great strides in developing a less horrifying perspective for the funeral industry.
Honestly I did not think that this was something that I wanted to do. I wanted to be in entertainment and film and life defiantly comes at you full circle. I got into the business officially at 18. I went to Clarke Atlanta University studying Mass Media with a concentration in Public Relations and I loved it. I figured out that I might be able to use this with my family business. So I literally started going up to the funeral home after school, looking at our websites and I started researching other funeral homes and what they were doing for marketing and advertisement. It felt very traditional. It felt like the industry itself was very stagnant when it came to advertising. I started to revamp everything at our firm. It became a fun project for me. I revamped the website and marketing materials. I started doing commercials and radio commercials. I just got obsessed with changing the way people view the death care industry.
Right after I graduated from Clarke Atlanta University, I decided to go to mortuary school, which is Gupton-Jones College of Mortuary Science. I’m a licensed funeral director and embalmer in the state of Georgia. I continued learning the business side. With my family, our roles aren’t just given. You have to prove that you’re an asset and not a liability. I had to prove myself. I really wanted to take on the Vice-President role and at 24, I was finally able to fill that role. A couple of years ago, I wanted to shift. I was getting a little burned out on the funeral side. I still had a deep passion for advertising and marketing. So I shifted roles – my brother took on the Vice-President for the funeral service side, while I turned into the President of the Marketing department – what I do now. It has been a joy for me, because I am able to continue on in the family legacy, just in my own way.
As Deana quickly became the face and voice of her family’s company, she wanted to do more to help reshape the perception so she created a film, “The Last Man You Meet,” which she produced along with director Chris Bone. The film was featured in over seven film festivals and received wide-span attention. So much so that the film was recently picked up by Industry TV for an exclusive distribution deal. Now that’s transforming an industry!
We’re not just a funeral home. We create healing experiences for people. We really create a family atmosphere. It just feels like when anyone steps into any one of our firms, it doesn’t look or feel like a funeral home. We take time to learn about the person were about to service. It’s not just a cookie-cutter service. We tailor the rooms to the family.
The owner of Ghetto Burger passed away and we transformed the room into her restaurant. We had the famous bar she had and even her rules. That was really big for us.
Even Lisa “Left Eye” Lopez, from TLC, we buried her. The casket was custom. Overall, we just really care for our families. It’s not a show for us, it’s a show for the family. This is their last moment that they can really show their loved one how much they really meant to them.
Some families don’t want that and others just want us to go all out. Customer service is everything.
A lot of firms sacrifice quality because of budget. It’s very expensive. We said we don’t want to sacrifice the small things even when times are tough.
Game changer! Gregory B. Levett & Sons Funeral Homes & Crematory has created a reverse experience for grieving families. There’s even a “Lady Attendant.” A lady is assigned to each family to ensure that the family has everything that they need during the service. Not only do they recreate the memory of your loved ones and provide above and beyond customer experiences, they also provide services that, quite frankly I had no idea funeral homes provided. They even have articles to help families get a better understanding of the funeral service process, there’s also grief counselling/workshops and even live streaming for family members who aren’t able to attend services. But wait… there’s more!
We really advocate for mental health. So we brought in a licensed therapist, Anita Green, she’s also a minister and we do that for free – no matter if we serviced your family or not.
We’re about to release 4 new commercials, expand all of our funeral homes and continue to pour back into our business. We recently launched our Gregory B. Levett Sr. Family Foundation, which focuses on education. My father will be the first to tell you that he just received an Honorary Doctorate from Allen University this past May. He doesn’t have any formal degrees or anything, but he has the most determination. He knew what he was good at and how to bring people together and put people in place to get things done, which is why he’s so successful. We created scholarships and an endowment at different universities to give scholarships to students who have a 2.5 and below. Those students really get left behind. It may not be that they are a terrible student, it just may be that they’re creative in a different way. They may need to learn on a different level – a bigger opportunity. My dad was one of those students. He wasn’t the best in school, but look at him now. If someone would have given up on him or not given him the opportunity, he may not be where he is today. Our foundation is really taking off.
Faith Break has been an award-winning campaign for us. I think it just doesn’t sound like a traditional funeral home commercial. It more about inspiring and lifting people up while they are here. We don’t want to just get people in our doors when people pass away, but we want to talk about how to take care of yourself mentally, physically and spiritually. Faith Break has really been great for us.
About to Launch Beyond Dreaming, our second annual conference – Entrepreneur and Leadership. It brings every one that you need at the table to speak on how to start, restructure and grow your business.
“Most funeral homes serve up to 200 families a year, at max. We serve up to 1,600 per year – slated to do maybe 1,700 this year.”
We want to continue spreading awareness about what we do and incorporating more technology. Everything is digital and online now. They don’t even want to step foot in the funeral home to even make arrangements. We’re incorporating new technology where people can make arrangements over the phone or FaceTime. We just incorporated a new system called Parting Pro. They can choose to do a cremation at our crematory without stepping foot in our doors. Of course they have to verify who they are by giving us different identification.
Who knows, we may open up out of the state.
As the vision to enhance community involvement, change the perspective and continue fostering excellence, Gregory B. Levett & Sons Funeral Homes & Crematory is already setting the bar within the death care industry.
