How Has Cremation Popularity Changed the Memorial Services Industry?

Traditional burials are declining in popularity, and for several reasons. Instead of pursuing traditional burials and traditional funerals, people are increasingly turning to cremation as a way to gracefully and inexpensively handle the remains of their loved ones. As of 2022, the cremation rate in the United States has grown to 59.0 percent, and is projected to rise to 65.2 percent by 2027.

But how exactly has cremation popularity changed the memorial services industry? What are memorial service businesses doing in response to this trend?

The Appeal of Cremation

It’s important to recognize that cremation popularity and the memorial services industry both have effects on each other. As cremation grows in popularity, the memorial services industry evolves to better serve people interested in cremation. And as the memorial services industry evolves to better serve cremation clients, cremation becomes more appealing to the masses.

Still, these are some of the factors responsible for pushing more people to cremation in the first place:

• Options. There are countless options for how to process, store, and memorialize cremation ashes. With a traditional burial, your options are much more limited. With cremains, you can choose to distribute them in a significant location, house them in a traditional grave or mausoleum, store them in a specifically designed urn at home, or even turn them into a work of art.
• Simplicity. People also appreciate cremation because of its simplicity. If you’re choosing to be cremated after you’re gone, you can make all of the arrangements before you pass quite easily. And despite the number of options available, there are fewer decisions to be made in pursuing cremation. It makes stressful responsibilities in your time of mourning less overwhelming.
• Secularization and changing views on death. It’s also true that society is becoming somewhat more secular, and we’re beginning to see death in a different light. Burial used to have significant religious meaning and helped us think about end process death in specific ways; now that people are somewhat more secular and detached from the abstraction of death, cremation is often a much better fit.
• Environmental sustainability. Some clients are also beginning to grow concerned about environmental sustainability. Cremation has a much smaller environmental footprint than burial, and you can hypothetically utilize ashes in an environmentally beneficial way, such as integrating them into a coral reef or using them to plant a tree.
• Pricing concerns. Traditional burial is ridiculously expensive for many individuals, especially if you splurge on a luxury casket. Comparatively, cremation is much more affordable, making it a practical necessity in some cases. The average cost of a burial with a vault and funeral is $9,420, while the average cost of a cremation with a viewing and a funeral is $6,970. Direct cremation itself only costs $750 to $1,100, depending on where you live.
• The evolving industry. It helps that the entire memorial services industry is beginning to evolve in line with changing attitudes toward cremation and death. More businesses are specifically catering to people interested in cremation, making cremation inherently more convenient and appealing.

Available Products and Services

One of the most important ways that memorial services businesses have changed is in the lineup of products and services they offer. Increasingly, businesses in this space are deliberately trying to innovate, offering a more diverse array of products and services to cater to people interested in cremation.

For example:

• Custom cremation urns. Custom cremation urns are among the most popular cremation products to emerge due to the increasing popularity of cremation. Urns have a long history, and it’s been possible to customize them with simple messages or engravings for many decades. But these days, custom cremation urns are much more versatile and much easier to customize. You can choose to create urns based on specific interests or hobbies, sculpt a perfect model of an urn, and customize the exterior of your urn with photos, art, and any message you desire.
• Cremation jewelry. It’s also increasingly popular for memorial service businesses to offer cremation jewelry. These beautiful pieces are designed to integrate cremains while also standing alone as aesthetically attractive accessories. You can wear a necklace, ring, or other piece of jewelry that reminds you of and connects you to your loved one.
• Practical memorial pieces. Cremation ashes can also be worked into practical memorial pieces. For example, you could use them as part of the construction of a memorial bench in a favorite park.
• Works of art. Other businesses and entrepreneurs choose to be even more creative with cremains, incorporating them into magnificent works of art. It’s possible to use cremains as part of the materials for elaborate sculptures, or even for the ink in paintings and tattoos.
• Columbaria. A columbarium is a specific type of memorial building designed to house cremation ashes. Columbaria are becoming more common and more available as cemeteries attempt to adapt to increasing cremation popularity.

Celebrations of Life and Event Planning

Memorial services themselves have also evolved in light of popularized cremation. Instead of traditional calling hours and funeral services, people are remembering their loved ones with celebrations of life. Celebrations of life can take almost any conceivable form, but they’re generally less formal, lighter in tone, and more focused on positively remembering the person who has passed.

As a result, traditional funeral homes are no longer serving the role they once did. Instead, people are turning to veritable event planners to coordinate venues and services, and make plans for how to celebrate the deceased.

Pricing and Overall Transparency

One of the reasons cremation has become more popular is because it’s less expensive. People are motivated to spend less money on memorial services. In response, agile business owners are attempting to lower their prices as much as possible and increase transparency within the industry. They want people to be able to reasonably afford beautiful cremation products and services, and they want to build trust with their target demographics.

It also helps that the FTC Funeral Rule is consistently enforced. This rule “makes it possible for you to choose only those goods and services you want or need and to pay only for those you select, whether you are making arrangements when a death occurs or in advance.” You have the right to get a fully written, itemized list of prices when working with funeral homes, the right to use alternative containers and third party goods, and the right to make funeral arrangements without embalming, among others. Consult the FTC page referenced above for full details.

This is a positive move for both consumers and entrepreneurs. A more transparent, competitively priced industry leads to a healthier economic environment.

Marketing and Advertising

There’s also been a significant change in how memorial services businesses market and advertise themselves. Historically, death has been a somewhat taboo subject, and funeral homes played an important role in guiding people through the important decisions they need to make at the end of someone’s life. Funeral homes, for the most part, relied on referrals and word-of-mouth advertising to generate new business, as traditional advertising could be seen as tasteless.

There are three major changes that have influenced this status quo. First, the demystification and normalization of death in our culture has made people talk about death more openly. Death isn’t the taboo subject that it used to be. Second, access to the internet and the content revolution have allowed people to research death and memorial services independently, without the need for an experienced funeral director to guide them or help them make decisions. Third, the diverse range of products and services available have made it possible for most people to find the perfect combination for their loved ones, as long as they’re willing to search for it.

Since most people are more willing to do their own research, and since most people are open to a wider range of options for memorial products and services, successful memorial service industry businesses have adapted. They’re now using a diversified set of online marketing strategies, including things like content marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and social media marketing to show off their latest innovations and offerings.

The Decline of Traditional Funeral Homes

Unfortunately, many traditional funeral homes throughout the country are shutting down or evolving. With declining sales, lower profit margins for cremation products, and increasing competition from online businesses, thousands of funeral homes have already shut their doors. Thousands more have been acquired by bigger, more established funeral industry juggernauts.

In other words, small traditional funeral homes are in the process of going away. Most of those that don’t shut down are going to be gobbled up by bigger conglomerates that want to geographically expand. Fortunately, an explosion in the number of available online memorial service businesses has made it so consumers still have plenty of choices in this space.

Changing Cemeteries

Cemeteries are also going through some growing pains. Since people are pursuing traditional burial less frequently, there’s less demand for cemetery space. Cemeteries have been, in many cases, forced to lower their prices, offer differentiated services, or even pivot to newly adjusted business models.

As an example, many cemeteries have invested in columbaria and mausoleums designed to house cremains. Fewer cemeteries are being established, and existing cemetery directors are rethinking the future trajectories of their businesses.

The memorial services industry has irreparably changed as a result of the rising popularity of cremation, and it’s going to change even further in the future as cremation completely overtakes traditional burial as a standard funerary option. For most consumers, as well as entrepreneurs who are willing to adapt, this is a good thing. Prices are falling. People have more options than ever. And there’s ample room for innovation and growth in this dynamic, ever-changing industry. For the memorial services industry and their customers, there’s much to look forward to in the future.