The letter: how to write to an independent funeral director about their website

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Funeral directors are careful with words, because their work depends on it. Most of them are also the second or third generation of the family whose name is on the building, and they have been sold to before. A sequence of follow-up emails reads to them as pressure. A short, signed letter reads as someone who took the time to look.

This playbook sets out that letter, one paragraph at a time. The numbers come from The State of Independent Funeral Home Websites 2026, our read of 175 independent and family-owned funeral homes, from single locations to small family firms, cremation providers and homes that serve a faith or cultural community. The one to build the letter on: only 39% of the sites publish or offer the General Price List.

Why a letter and not an email sequence?#

Because the reader is deciding whether you are the kind of person they would let near a family. A letter is slower, it can be read twice, and it can be passed to a son or daughter who now runs the website. It asks for nothing urgent. Send it on paper to the home, addressed to the director by name, and send the same text by email only if the home lists one for general enquiries.

Before you write, read the home's site on a phone and note what you find. The letter below assumes the two most common gaps in the study: the price list is not on the site, and no tradition is named. Change the second paragraph if the home's gaps are different.

Paragraph one: who you are and why you looked#

The opening says who you are in one sentence and why you looked at this home, and nothing else. It does not praise the site and it does not criticise it. Funeral directors hear flattery as a sales tactic.

Paragraph two: what you found, with one number#

This is the paragraph that earns the reply. It names one thing the home's own site does not show, then places it in the study so it does not feel like an accusation. 61% of the homes we read do not publish or offer their price list online. A director who learns that most of their peers miss the same thing hears information, not blame.

If the home already publishes its list, use the price instead: 37% of sites show a price for cremation or a burial, and among one-location family homes only 17% do. Cremation-focused providers show one on 89% of their sites, which is the comparison a family makes.

Paragraph three: what the home already does well#

A letter that lists only gaps reads as a critique. Name one thing the home's site does that most do not, after you have checked it is true. Obituaries (93% of sites) and pre-planning (97%) are too common to be a compliment. A tradition named, a livestream offered, a 24-hour number a family can tap: those are rarer, and a director knows it took effort.

Paragraph four: the offer, small and specific#

One offer, sized so it can be accepted without a meeting about a redesign: put the price list on the site, linked from the home page and the pricing page, with its date. It is a quick fix, and a director can say yes to it by return post.

The last sentence matters most. It tells the director that silence is an acceptable answer, which is the reason many of them will reply.

Paragraph five: the close#

Close with your name, a phone number and a line that you are local, if you are. Sign it by hand. Do not add a postscript with a second offer.

What should you offer if they reply?#

If the director replies, they will usually ask what it involves. Send the price list page first, as promised, then one short note with the next three things the study found missing most often, each with its share:

1. Traditions. 87% of sites name no tradition. A page listing the faiths and cultures the home serves, the customs it can arrange and the clergy it works with.
2. Livestreams. 78% never say whether a service can be watched. One line on the services page, and each stream link on that service's obituary page.
3. Contrast. 86% of sites have text below the WCAG contrast minimum, often in the obituaries older relatives read. A theme change, done in an afternoon.

For a sequence that does suit a different trade, compare the three cold emails to a vet clinic owner. For the rule itself and what the 175 sites show section by section, read what the FTC Funeral Rule asks of price lists, and what websites do.

Go to the findingsGet the data