By Welton Hong, Founder & CEO, Ring Ring Marketing
You are about to lose customers and not know it.
That may sound dramatic, but Apple has introduced a significant change to the local-search landscape that funeral homes, crematories and cemeteries need to understand. Apple Maps advertising has begun rolling out in the United States and Canada, giving businesses a new way to put themselves in front of consumers who are actively searching for local businesses on their iPhones.
Apple announced the program earlier this year, saying it would launch during the summer, and the rollout began in August. Apple says it is continuing to expand the availability of the advertising program.
For years, deathcare businesses have understandably focused much of their local-search strategy on Google. They claim and optimize their Google Business Profiles, work to accumulate reviews, improve their websites and try to appear prominently when consumers search for funeral homes, cremation services and cemeteries.
That remains important. But the growth of Apple Maps advertising means there is now another local-search environment where businesses can compete for visibility — and the mechanics are different enough that simply having a strong organic listing may no longer be enough.
Consider the consumer journey. Someone picks up an iPhone and searches Apple Maps for “funeral home near me.” Maybe that person is arranging a service for a loved one. Maybe they are comparing cremation providers. Maybe they are looking for a cemetery. Whatever the circumstances, this person is actively looking for a business and trying to determine where to go next. That is what makes Maps advertising so interesting from a marketing perspective: The intent is already there.
A Powerful Vehicle to Get Found
Apple has made the competitive environment particularly interesting. In Maps search results, Apple says it can display a single advertisement at the top of relevant search results. That means a business isn’t simply buying another position in a long stack of paid search results. One advertiser can receive the premium paid placement when a consumer conducts a relevant search.
Think about the implications for a funeral home market with five or six established providers. All of them may have good reputations. All may have strong websites. All may have excellent facilities and years of experience. Several may appear organically in the consumer’s search results. But if one of those funeral homes is the business receiving Apple’s paid placement when someone searches for a funeral home, that company has created an additional opportunity to get in front of the consumer before the consumer starts comparing the organic listings.
That doesn’t mean the advertisement guarantees a case. It doesn’t. Consumers can still scroll, compare reviews, visit websites and choose another provider. But the advertiser has potentially changed the starting point of that comparison. Instead of waiting for the consumer to find you, you have paid for an opportunity to put your business directly in front of the consumer when the search is taking place.
That is the fundamental shift deathcare marketers need to understand.
Apple Is Selling Intent
Apple’s approach differs from the kind of behavioral advertising that has dominated digital marketing. Apple says Maps ads can use contextual signals such as the search query, the area of the map being viewed and the approximate location of the device, subject to Apple’s privacy requirements. Apple says it does not use a user’s precise location or Maps search history to target advertisements, and advertising activity isn’t associated with the user’s Apple Account.
For a deathcare business, that distinction is important. The value isn’t necessarily knowing what somebody searched for three weeks ago. The value is knowing that the person is searching for a funeral home right now.
This is why I think funeral professionals should begin looking at Apple Maps as part of their customer-acquisition strategy rather than treating it as another online directory. A person searching “cremation near me” has demonstrated a very different level of commercial intent from someone who happens to see an advertisement for cremation on Facebook. The former has already taken a step toward finding a provider.
The marketing objective is therefore straightforward: You want to be one of the businesses the consumer sees when that intent appears.
The First Step
Before spending a dollar on Apple Maps advertising, however, deathcare businesses need to make sure their basic presence is in order.
Apple now uses Apple Business as the platform through which businesses manage their locations and their presence across Apple’s services. Businesses can claim locations and manage information such as their business name, address, phone number, hours, categories, photos and other details that appear on their Maps place card. Apple requires businesses to verify their locations before advertising.
This is where I expect many funeral homes to discover a gap.
The industry has become much more sophisticated about Google Business Profiles, but not every funeral home has devoted the same attention to its Apple Maps presence. A business may have spent years collecting Google reviews and optimizing its Google listing while allowing its Apple listing to sit with outdated information, weak photography or incomplete details.
That needs to change.
Your Apple Maps listing should be treated like another digital storefront. Verify the address. Make sure the phone number is correct. Confirm the hours. Make sure the categories accurately describe the business. Review the photographs. Check the website link. If the funeral home offers both traditional funeral services and cremation, make sure its online presence accurately communicates both. If a crematory has multiple service areas, make sure consumers can understand the geographic footprint. If a cemetery has specific visiting hours or office hours, make sure those details are current.
These details may sound mundane, but they become increasingly important when an advertisement sends someone directly to your business listing. The ad can get the consumer’s attention – but you still have to convert that attention into action.
Apple reports actions including calls, directions, website visits, photo views and shares, giving advertisers the ability to see what consumers do after interacting with an advertisement.
That makes the listing part of the conversion funnel rather than simply an online citation.
Think Like a Consumer
The next step is to stop thinking exclusively about what your business is called and start thinking about what your customers actually type.
A funeral home might be named “Smith Funeral & Cremation Services,” but a consumer may search “funeral home near me.” A crematory may have a sophisticated corporate name, while the consumer searches “direct cremation.” A cemetery may market itself as a memorial park but still need to be visible when someone searches for “cemetery near me.”
Apple’s advertising platform gives advertisers the ability to work with keywords and phrases, categories, geographic targeting and other campaign controls. Apple also provides negative-keyword functionality, allowing advertisers to exclude searches that aren’t relevant to the business.
That creates opportunities for a more deliberate strategy.
A crematory, for example, could test searches associated with “cremation,” “cremation services,” “direct cremation” and other relevant terms in the communities it serves. A funeral home could test broader funeral-related searches as well as terms connected to cremation, preplanning or other services it provides. A cemetery might focus on searches associated with cemeteries, burial, memorial property or related services, depending on the services it offers.
The important point is that the strategy should be based on consumer demand, not internal terminology.
Geography Could Become a Competitive Weapon
Local targeting is particularly relevant to deathcare because the geographic nature of the business is so strong.
Apple says advertisers can target geographic areas using ZIP codes, cities and states, as well as distance from a business location. Businesses with multiple locations can organize their campaigns around different locations, while advertisers can also schedule when search ads appear.
That gives deathcare companies several ways to think about market share.
A funeral home with three locations doesn’t necessarily need to advertise identically across all three markets. It could establish separate campaigns and evaluate the response in each service area. A crematory that serves a broad geographic territory could concentrate its advertising around communities where it wants to increase market penetration. A cemetery with available burial or memorial property could focus its advertising on the geographic markets where it is trying to generate more inquiries.
The key is to stop thinking about a digital campaign as one big bucket of impressions and start treating individual geographic markets as businesses within the business.
If one ZIP code produces significantly more calls or website activity than another, that is useful information. If a particular search category generates activity but another does not, that is useful information. If advertising produces website visits but few calls, that tells you something about the consumer journey as well.
The objective is not simply to spend money. It is to learn where the market is responding and allocate resources accordingly.
Don’t Abandon Google. Expand the Battlefield.
None of this means funeral professionals should pull money out of Google and move it to Apple.
Google remains a major component of local search, and a strong website, Google Business Profile, review strategy and organic search presence remain important. Apple Maps should be viewed as another channel, not a replacement for everything that came before it.
The bigger lesson is that the consumer journey is becoming increasingly fragmented. People don’t search in one place anymore. They move between search engines, Maps, social media, review platforms, websites and AI-powered tools.
Your job as a marketer is to understand where your potential customer is making decisions and make sure your business is prepared to compete in those environments.
Apple Maps is now one of them.
And because its advertising is tied so closely to a consumer’s immediate search and location, it could become particularly interesting for businesses whose customers are looking for a local provider.
For funeral homes, crematories and cemeteries, the preparation is relatively straightforward.
- Claim and verify the Apple Maps listing.
- Make the information accurate and complete.
- Use professional photography.
- Think through the search terms consumers actually use.
- Establish the geographic markets that matter most.
Then, where appropriate, test paid Maps advertising and measure the calls, website visits and other actions it produces.
The businesses that do this thoughtfully will have more information about where their customers come from and another tool for competing for those customers.
Welton Hong is the founder & CEO of Ring Ring Marketing, which has helped over 600 small businesses grow their revenue through online marketing strategies. He is also the author of “Making Your Phone Ring with Internet Marketing for Funeral Homes.” Visit ringringmarketing.com and follow the company on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and X.
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